Left to right, Rev. Sally Johnson, former program student Franki Briscoe, and Kathy Rateliff. Briscoe visited Westover to share her prison experience, new life, and dreams of opening a halfway house.
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Good News Stories:
Love and Literacy
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The Synod of the Sun is publishing Good News Stories ahead of Synod Sunday on August 23rd. These are inspirational stories of churches reaching out to their communities in extraordinary times via innovative means.
Our theme for Synod Sunday 2020 is Hope Through Connection, Unhindered by Walls and we look to I Thessalonians 1:3 -
(We) remember before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Westover Hills Presbyterian Church, Little Rock, AR
Love and Literacy
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By Matt Curry
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – When a group of Presbyterian women came to the state prison where she was incarcerated, Shanon Anderson says she quickly learned that it was about more than reading and writing. It was all about love.
“They walk in. They don’t know you, and we don’t know them. They don’t know what you’ve done, and they don’t care,” Anderson said. “They love you no matter what, and the whole world could really take a lesson from that.”
The Presbyterian Women’s group from Westover Hills Presbyterian Church, a Little Rock church of less than 200 members, has touched more than 3,200 lives through their literacy programs for the incarcerated, which continues to expand. It all began with four women inmates at the Pulaski County Jail in 2016, and now includes men’s classes, along with programs geared for the county’s juvenile detention center and the Hawkins women’s prison in Wrightsville.
The group recently received a $3,000 grant from the Synod of the Sun that will expand art offerings for incarcerated youth, purchase books and materials for teaching re-entry skills, and to buy equipment for distance learning. The Hawkins prison has been on lockdown due to the pandemic, putting those classes on hold. Meanwhile, the women are working with county jail officials to begin online classes there soon.
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Members of the Westover Literacy Team holding supplies purchased with a grant from the Synod of the Sun. From left to right, on the back row, are Carol Enderlin, Rev. Sally Johnson, Kay Stephens and Kathy Rateliff. Kneeling in front is the Rev. Kris Crawford, the church’s transitional pastor.
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Church organizer Kathy Rateliff said the ministry was inspired by a talk given by Susan McDougal, who was prosecuted and jailed in the Whitewater real estate venture of the 1980s and ‘90s. McDougal was pardoned by President Clinton in 2001. She now serves as a chaplain at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
McDougal said she doesn’t deserve the credit for the women’s extraordinary efforts. She only shared her experience serving time in seven jails, where she repeatedly saw a need for prisoners to become better educated. Westover Hills took the ball and ran with it.
“The women in this church, they take good works to the limit,” McDougal said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They did it. They told me about it.”
Three out of five inmates in U.S. prisons cannot read or write, according to the Literacy Project Foundation. Education is key to future employment, yet formerly incarcerated people are more than twice as likely to have never graduated high school, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
The goals of the Westover Hills Literacy Team – made up of 12 women from the church and friends in the community - include challenging, inspiring and providing educational activities that promote self-esteem and self-worth, while teaching skills for re-entry and literacy. They also assign homework.
“It was a real learning experience with us,” Rateliff said. “Most of us had never done any work with people behind bars. We didn’t know what to expect. They are just like people everywhere. If they hadn’t had on orange jumpsuits, you wouldn’t have known.”
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McDougal said most of the women she was jailed with were younger, and she often found herself sitting on the floor, reading the Bible to them. Many were convicted of drug–related offenses and came from backgrounds of abuse. McDougal found that, unlike the stereotype of a jail inmate, she encountered women who were kind and loving and hungry for an opportunity to make something better of their lives
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Graduation pic: A happy day for literacy program graduate Shanon Anderson, flanked by Hawkins state prison assistant warden Bill Inman and Secretary of Corrections Wendy Kelley. In the background is Denese Voss, program coordinator.
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“They hated themselves for what they had done. They said, 'I can never be forgiven for the things I’ve done,’” she said. “They had no one coming to see them. In contrast to me, my whole family was visiting. It was such a rude awakening.”
Anderson, 39, who was paroled from Hawkins in January of this year, said she met Rateliff and her co-teacher, retired Presbyterian minister the Rev. Sally Johnson, when she was nine months pregnant.
“When I was in prison, I had no cards, no letters, no family visits. Sally and Kathy came and they gave hugs to everyone,” she said. “They teach you that you are still a lady even when you are in a prison cell, and they teach you God’s message.”
Anderson said the women continue to follow up with her, provide support and check in on how she is doing in her new job. She is grateful.
“It’s all about love,” Anderson said. “People showing people that, on their darkest days, they are still loved.”
Johnson, 82, said she joined the work about two years ago, after the death of her husband, at the request of Rateliff. The experience has been very different from her previous ministry contexts.
“These are damaged families. They have certainly not had the educational and cultural opportunities that I grew up with,” she said. “This has given me the experience and glimpses of lives like so many others are leading and that has gotten them into trouble with the law.”
Johnson prays with inmates and makes herself available for counseling.
“I remind them that they are God’s beloved daughters and God wants them to make better lives,” Johnson said. “Ninety-five percent of them grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment, that’s the Christianity they have been exposed to. A lot of that Christianity is very punitive, that God is going to get you if you don’t do right. I want them to see a very different picture of God.”
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The Rev. Matt Curry is in search of Good News from ministries throughout the Synod of the Sun that are making connections with their congregations and communities. Do you have an idea to share? Send Matt an email at
cpcwaxpastor@gmail.com
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