May 12, 2003

LEAVING HOME:
First Hospitality House directors retiring
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___HUNTSVILLE--When Bob and Nelda Norris opened the Hospitality House for inmate families, hardly anybody wanted them in Huntsville. Not the criminal justice system, the local community or even most local churches.
___But the Norrises believed God called them to the prisoner family ministry. And 17 years later, at least 87,000 people whose lives were touched by the ministry agree.

FOR 17 YEARS, Bob and Nelda Norrishave kept an open door at the Hospitality House in Huntsville, where they have hosted 50,000 overnight guests.

___"Our job description has been to love, listen, labor and not ask questions," Mrs. Norris said.
___The Norrises retire this month from what they call "living in a fishbowl," living under the same roof with an always-changing household of inmate families. And the Hospitality House board of directors begins the process of searching for their successors.
___"It's bittersweet," Norris acknowledged. "For 17 years, we've dealt with these people and touched these people. They've been our family."
___The Baptist General Convention of Texas State Missions Commission, in partnership with Texas Baptist Men and Tryon-Evergreen Baptist Association, launched the Hospitality House in 1986.
___At the time, it was the only faith-based facility offering temporary shelter to the visiting families of prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system. Today, there are 15 hospitality houses and visitors centers around the state. Texas Baptists help to support prisoner family ministries through gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.
___Norris, a graduate of Hardin-Simmons University who attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, came to the Hospitality House after a brief time in the pastorate and more than 15 years of secular employment.
___"We'd had a food brokerage business in El Paso and lost it," he said. "For two years, we literally were living day to day. That's when we learned faith living.
___"We didn't know where the money for grocery bills was coming from. I did a little bit of everything in those two years--day labor, punch-out work in construction, sales. And everything during that two-year period turned out to be in preparation for what God had in mind for us to do here."
___A representative of the Hospitality House board discovered Norris' resume in an old file. Some time earlier, he had applied for a chaplain's post in the prison system, but at that time there were no positions open.
___The Norrises moved to Huntsville, and they opened the Hospitality House Aug. 16, 1986. "And we've been busy ever since," he added.
___They have hosted nearly 50,000 overnight guests and about 14,000 visitors. And they have touched more than 23,000 people through their extended ministry, including offering released offenders a place to shower and shave on the day they are reunited with family.

BOB AND NELDA NORRIS work in the food pantry at the Huntsville Hospitality House, where they have pioneered a ministry with Texas Baptists.

___"Seeing families reunited has been one of the most satisfying parts of the ministry. If (the offender) doesn't have somebody to come home to, he's not going to stay out of prison," Mrs. Norris said. "It's good to know that they have a second chance. And we serve a God of second chances."
___The ministry has yielded at least 662 known professions of faith in Jesus Christ. The Norrises conducted about 15,000 counseling sessions, wrote nearly 19,000 letters and provided 5,700 toys for inmates' children at Christmas.
___Since January 1987, they also provided a safe haven away from the media spotlight for more than 200 families of death-row inmates in the hours immediately before and after an execution.
___"I've never witnessed an execution. I've never wanted to," Norris said. "But I've heard the stories so many times, I could tell you every detail of the process. One thing never changes--it's the mother who hurts the most."
___When the Norrises reported for work 17 years ago, they faced opposition. Neighbors--including some local Baptists--shunned them. And some officials in the correctional system considered them a security risk and actively opposed their ministry.
___"The system was wary of us," Norris said. "People were wary of us. It took time and integrity to overcome that."
___Today, the Hospitality House has the full support of top administrators in the correctional system, and the Norrises came to count several local Baptist churches among their greatest supporters.
___The Norrises will miss the contact with prisoner families, they said, but they also acknowledge that many who pledged their undying friendship and promised to keep in touch with them never did.
___"That's a little hurtful, but I understand it," Mrs. Norris said. "They want to put the prison experience behind them, and they see us as part of that. I understand that they want to get on with their lives."
___Even though the Hospitality House often is linked with prison in the minds of many people, the Norrises have continued to emphasize that it's not really prison ministry. It's family ministry. And it's ministry to families not unlike those in most churches.
___"We've learned that crime is no respecter of persons," Mrs. Norris explained. "We've seen people pull up out front in Lincoln Town Cars and in cars barely held together with baling wire."
___"Our heart of compassion is always with the family," her husband added. "They are the other victims. They pay the price, and they didn't do the crime. Our compassion is for the family."

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