“I had no idea that was going to be the last time I walked through those double gates,” said Bubba Cobb of Charleston, Mississippi. For years he had been making regular trips to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman to help inmates build a relationship with God. He would meet with a group of usually 10 to 15 inmates in a regular Bible study course. “I thought we would be back next week to have another study, just like we had been doing,” says Cobb.
Without warning, COVID-19 would shut down access to prisons across the US, including those in Mississippi. Inmates were soon cut off from a robust Bible education program that included weekly Bible-based discourses, audience discussions, individual Bible studies, and video presentations.
For example, an inmate at the Winston County Correctional Facility wrote a letter to Jehovah’s Witnesses in Louisville, Mississippi, expressing how much he appreciated the in-person bible studies he was having prior to the pandemic. “I look forward to it every Thursday,” he said.
Rhonda Jones, a jailer at Newton County Correctional Facility in Newton, Mississippi could see the impact that the pandemic was having on the inmates there. “They were more irritable and angry. Not having visitors and not being able to have ministers come in and share something positive was affecting everyone,” says Jones. “I just know they needed something. They needed more.”
“Our concern was for them,” said Dan Houghton, who helps coordinate the efforts of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ prison ministry in the U.S. “They needed us now more than ever. They were cut off from their lifeline of spiritual feeding.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses pivoted their in-person ministry and activities around the country to virtual meetings and preaching through letters, telephone calls, and videoconferencing to adapt to the changing circumstances. This change also included their focused prison ministry.
“Nothing can stop God’s love from reaching people, no matter where they are,” says prison ministry volunteer Donny Ruffin, who has been visiting county jails in South Mississippi for the last 25 years. When the pandemic kept him from making in-person visits, he started focusing on letters and telephone calls to inmates. “Jehovah never gives up on anyone, even when others have.”
Jeff Zack from Batesville, Mississippi, has regular Bible discussions by mail with a prison inmate at Parchman. “I will send him questions, scriptures, and get his personal thoughts on it. We will just go back and forth,” he says. “I don’t want to lose these guys. They deserve the Bible’s hope as much as anybody.”
Throughout the country, these changes have reaped unexpected and amazing results. For example, in the state of California, to help the state fulfill its legal obligation to offer religious services to inmates, Jehovah’s Witnesses were asked to provide video content for the television network that broadcasts to all the state prisons. In July, a 28-minute program replete with ASL translation made its debut—broadcasting three times a day, seven days a week, to all 33 state prisons and potentially reaching more than 130,000 residents.
Witnesses continue to build a spiritual lifeline into their local prisons in whatever way they can. In Charleston, South Carolina, a Witness prison chaplain keeps up with his six Bible students in the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center through video calls. He points his laptop camera to the recorded meetings playing on his iPad, turning his living room into a virtual prison chapel.
Perhaps the most positive pandemic-driven prison preaching initiative takes place on the inside. Inmates from across the country have been writing letters to the Witnesses expressing their appreciation to the individuals who write them.
In response to a letter she received from a Witness in Mississippi one inmate from the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Aliceville, Alabama wrote, “I was sitting at my window telling God how much I need Him, how much I need help, and he sent me you. It makes me cry thinking about it. I can’t wait to hear back from you!”
Another inmate letter read, “I received your most welcomed letter. The first and only one this month. You have no idea how great it is to hear your name at mail call and know that I am not forgotten!”
One inmate currently in pandemic lockdown made a special request, “I would really appreciate if we could set up a system of (bible) study. I look forward to it!”
Jehovah’s Witnesses value life. It’s their compelling motivation to proactively produce videos, supply literature, write letters—whatever it takes to reach inmates with the Bible’s message.
“Life is sacred. Life is valuable,” said Houghton. “Everyone deserves the chance to learn Bible truths. Some people might say, ‘They’re just prisoners.’ But that’s not how God views them and that’s not how we view them. We love these people.”
