GATESVILLE—Charlie and Mary Alice Wise used to wonder what Jesus was talking about when he said, “I was in prison and you came to visit me.” But after nearly 40 years of prison ministry, they have no doubt what he meant.

“Visiting with the women in prison is like visiting with Jesus. He’s in the hearts and lives of people there who have accepted him,” Mrs. Wise said.

Charlie and Mary Alice Wise of Trinity Baptist Church in Gatesville have spent nearly 40 years in volunteer prison ministry, including 15 years ministering to women on Death Row. Mrs. Wise serves on the board of the Central Texas Hospitality House, a ministry designed to provide a safe place of refuge for the visiting family members of prisoners incarcerated in the Gatesville area. (Photo by Tom Ruane)

The depth of the prisoners’ faith remains a constant inspiration, her husband added.

“A lot of people are shocked to see such a dynamic church of God in prison. But there’s a tremendous activity of God inside the prisons,” he said. “If you want to find unconditional love, go inside a prison.”

As a young woman from Livingston, Mrs. Wise recalled the imposing site of the Walls Unit in Huntsville as she passed by there in a bus on her way to Baylor University. She remembers feeling concern for the prisoners behind those high, thick walls, but she never imagined she’d spend several decades involved in prison ministry.

That changed after a federal judge ordered Texas to close the Gatesville State School for Boys and Mountain View School in 1979, and those facilities became correctional units for female inmates.

“God brought a mission field to Gatesville with those women’s prisons,” Mrs. Wise said. And the Wises, founding members of Trinity Baptist Church in Gatesville, responded to that missions opportunity.

Meredith Morgan of Trinity Baptist Church in Gatesville, wearing balloons on her head, helps entertain children during a family day event at the site of the Central Texas Hospitality House. (Photo by Nan Dickson)

Wise became a Christian while he was a student at Baylor University. At first, he wondered if God might call him to vocational ministry, but he decided his calling was to minister in the marketplace and as a missions volunteer. He spent his career in sales, most of that time employed by a Gatesville-based medical plastics manufacturer.

“I felt early on God was calling us to be lifestyle witnesses. We’ve been in lay ministry for a long time,” he said.

Wise first became involved in prison ministry with Bill Glass and his Champions for Life Ministries. That initial experience led to a long-term commitment to leading weekly Bible studies for prisoners.

Since 1993, the Wises—sometimes individually, more often together—have ministered to women on Death Row at the Mountain View Unit.

By far, the best-known member of their weekly Bible study was Karla Faye Tucker, a pickax murder turned born-again Christian. Her story drew international attention in 1998 when she became the first woman executed by the state of Texas since the Civil War.

The Wises also have ministered to the family members of Death Row inmates, even accompanying them to the Huntsville Hospitality House for the hours surrounding executions.

Tim Crosby has known the Wise family 26 years. For 16 years, he served as chaplain at the Mountain View Unit, the maximum-security unit for adult female offenders. He first invited the couple, whom he knew from church and from their ongoing involvement in other aspects of prison ministry, to begin a weekly Bible study on Death Row.

Cindy Pruitt of Trinity Baptist Church in Gatesville prays with a Central Texas Hospitality House welcome center guest who had traveled to Central Texas hoping to visit her mother in prison. (Photo by Nan Dickson)

The Wises “had and continue to have a significant impact on the women there,” Crosby noted. “They have shown deep concern about the women they have known who faced execution.”

Since October 1997, Crosby has been the Wise’s pastor at Trinity Baptist Church.

“They have been a tremendous example. I’ve seen them as mentors in my own life,” he said. “They are have been a real blessing to me.”

In the last eight years, Mrs. Wise particularly has devoted much of her energy to launching the Central Texas Hospitality House, a nondenominational, nonprofit ministry to prisoners’ families.

Leaders of Coryell Baptist Association and Tri-Rivers Baptist Area have been instrumental in founding a welcome center and in making plans for Hospitality House that would provide overnight lodging for visitors.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas helped the ministry secure four acres within walking distance of the Woodman State Jail and the Valley Unit and just a short drive to four other units.

Texas Baptists have provided support for the welcome center through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions. The 2008 offering allocates $50,000 for restorative justice ministries, including welcome centers, hospitality houses and re-entry programs to help released offenders make the transition into life outside prison.

Children enjoy a puppet show performed by volunteers during a family day event at the site of the Central Texas Hospitality House. (Photo by Nan Dickson)

On weekends, volunteers from about a dozen Gatesville-area churches staff a welcome center located in a house on the property. But the small facility lacks overnight accommodations, and leaders of the ministry recognize many prisoners’ families cannot afford motel bills.

“Some sleep in their cars,” Mrs. Wise noted. Others who want to visit family members in prison choose not to make a trip they cannot afford.

Counting facilities in nearby Marlin and Burnet, Gatesville-area prisons house about 10,000 inmates. Eighty percent of the women in the Texas prison system are incarcerated in the Gatesville-area units, as well as about 3,000 male inmates in the Hughes Unit.

While they are subject to change, the Central Texas Hospitality House board has plans drawn for a 13,850-square-foot facility that would include 70 beds. But that kind of facility will require far more money and volunteers than the ministry has currently.

Bill Lewis, chairman of the Hospitality House board, noted the ministry still needs about $1.25 million to complete the building.

“The kind of facility that is needed would take a lot of volunteers, probably drawing from within a 40-mile radius of Gatesville,” Crosby added.

The Wises believe churches throughout Central Texas will embrace the ministry as they learn more about it. On Mother’s Day, about 150 visitors attended a “family day” event at the Hospitality House site, and it involved 75 volunteers from multiple churches.

Volunteers benefited from that personal contact with inmates’ families.

“Too many people put prisoners’ families in the same category as the prisoners,” Wise said. “The families are victims, in a real sense, just as much as the people whom the crimes were committed against.”

For more information about the Central Texas Hospitality House, call Bill Lewis at (254) 471-5759 or Linda Barnett of Tri-Rivers Baptist Area at (254) 865-1299.

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