This is what Forgotten Man Ministries experiences in their outreach to county jails throughout Michigan. As we shared yesterday, in one jail they’ve been joined by Set Free Ministries to share a message of freedom and restoration in a “God Pod”.

When Set Free volunteers Jodi Sonksen and Sue Dunn first began working in the jail with Sarah Heaton of Forgotten Man, it was overwhelming. How can there be so much pain?

Sonksen said she believed they would need more women volunteers to take over for them after a few months so they could take a break from it all. But then, after a while, something changed. She says now she never wants to give up her volunteer position on Monday mornings. Why? Because it is awesome to see God working.

Glowbug

As an example, they shared the story of one woman from the jail who we’ll call Glowbug — for privacy, and because that’s what her nickname is. We’ll explain why in a moment.

Heaton shares, “When she first started, her face was pretty flat — she had no smile, no expression, nothing but sadness. She just had a deep, deep sadness in her eyes; never, ever smiled.”

In fact, she was soon kicked out of the program because she wasn’t doing the required homework. After a few months, she was allowed back in.

“When she first came in, she said she was depressed, bitter, angry, selfish, felt abandoned and worthless, and she was so bound up by Satan that she felt she had no hope. And she felt like she was just living in the devils playground,” Heaton says.

She was so burdened by all of these struggles that even before she got to jail, she already felt imprisoned.

“We slowly started working with her and replacing the lies that she believed about herself. Again, the belief that ‘I’m worthless.’”

As we talked about yesterday, in order to accept the truth of the Gospel, lies have to be eradicated. The Steps to Freedom in Christ walks the women through this process to renounce the lies and Satan’s hold on their life. They do this verbally, following it up by saying aloud what God’s Word says instead of the lie.

Heaton says Glowbug would concentrate hard on what she was saying, hands tucked into the opposite arm’s sleeves as she spoke.

“So she would start going through the lies that she’s believed and replacing them with the truth. After about 20, 30 times for some of them, all of the sudden she would go, ‘Oh, I got it!’ And she would stomp her feet and she’s like, ‘There you go, Satan. I got it. I know the truth now!’”

As she worked through the lies, a transformation took place that gave her the nickname.

“Her face just lit up. One of the teachers nicknamed her the Glowbug because she radiated for the Lord. Her face just shone with God’s love,” Heaton says.

Glowbug was beginning to understand that true joy, which comes from knowing Jesus, did not depend on her circumstances.

Heaton says today, you cannot talk to this woman without knowing that she loves Jesus. In fact, every time she sends a text, it’s signed with, ‘Jesus loves me!!!”

They shared a bit more of Glowbug’s testimony in her own words:

“God is beyond amazing. [With] Him, nothing is impossible. I praise Him everyday. My Heavenly Father is a faithful, loving, compassionate, merciful protector, and trustworthy. He has blessed me in so, so many ways. I can’t wait to tell more people about Him. God has opened so many doors for me. I’ve experienced so many good opportunities being in jail, like hearing God’s voice, loud and clear. Peace beyond my understanding. I got to be part of my best friend accepting Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. I got to become closer to God and get past the things that happened to me that was eating me up inside and out. Now I am free. Jesus has set me free, because I surrendered 100 percent and I let Jesus heal me. My body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Growing in the Lord

Glowbug isn’t the only one who’s been transformed, even if she happened to light up the room brighter than any of the other women. God is doing great things in this ministry.

Two weeks ago, another woman gave her life to Christ. Then, she applied to take part in the year-long Teen Challenge program. She just learned she’s been accepted and now has a support plan for when she gets released.

Sonksen says, “One of the things that I think touches all of our hearts is when the girls [are] in the God Pod, they start praying for each other, they start sharing their faith, they start sharing what they’re learning in the Word of God with their bunkies.”

And as they are growing, they’re making an impact outside of the class as well.

“They’re evangelizing to the different people in the jail, and people want what they have.” Heaton says, “They can’t figure out how they can be in jail and be happy. It’s a very common statement that ‘jail is the best place I’ve ever been’ when they’re going through this program. They don’t start out that way.”

Dunn shares the recent example of a newcomer to the class. Near the end of the session, they played some praise music for the women to listen and sing along to. Dunn noticed a woman who had tears coming down her face. She asked her why, and the woman said she couldn’t understand why everyone was smiling with joy. Please pray for this woman to come to understand freedom from her own struggles as she learns more about Jesus.

Dunn says, “There really is proof in that room that Christ is working and healing and restoring. And so when a newcomer comes in, it’s very evident to her.”

And as the newcomers come, this team is prepared to sit with them as they shed tears. Heaton often shares Psalm 56:8 with them:

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?

She says, “Tears can be healing, and there’s a purpose in all of this, and God doesn’t take it lightly.”

How to contribute

So, if you’ve been inspired by the stories coming out of this jail ministry, would you consider getting involved? At Mission Network News, we share ways you can pray, give, and go as part of the Great Commission. Set Free calls it the time, treasure, and talent principle. If you can’t participate in one way, consider another.

Dunn says you can start by taking time to pray: “We do not underestimate the prayer support that goes into this ministry. Typically, for the appointments that are held at Set Free, a note is sent out with the different appointments during the week.”

There is a huge group of people who take the time to pray during each freedom appointment. There are also people praying with Forgotten Man Ministries as they receive prayer requests. If you’d like to volunteer for prayer, learn more here.

Financially, you can help support the variety of projects Set Free is involved with here.

If you’re interested in volunteering, there are a couple of things you should know. First of all, every volunteer must go through a freedom appointment to deal with their own baggage before you start helping others. Then, you’ll have a day of training and begin sitting in on appointments for a while. For more information, click here.

To learn more about Forgotten Man Ministries and how to walk alongside them, click here.

The classes are held for two-hour periods once a week. When Set Free Ministries takes counselees through the Steps to Freedom in Christ at their office, it typically takes one to two sessions total. But in the jail setting, the pace is much slower. They let the group spend as much time as they want on one step as they work through questions and discuss them thoroughly.

After the main discussion time each week, counselors meet with the women one-on-one with music playing so there can be some privacy in their discussions.

Replacing lies with truth

Previously, we talked about the struggles many of the women in jail are wrestling with. Their burdens are typically a result of a series of lies they’ve held onto — much of it surrounding how they view themselves.

Jodi Sonksen of Set Free says, “It’s just so amazing to us that these girls can forgive the fathers and uncles and brothers who’ve sexually molested them. They can forgive husbands who’ve been unfaithful. They can forgive their pimps. The person that they cannot forgive is themselves. They don’t feel worthy, they absolutely despise themselves. And so if you can’t forgive yourself, they really cannot comprehend a God who loves them.”

To dismantle these lies, honest conversation must take place in a safe, non-judgmental environment. The loving care Heaton, Dunn, and Sonksen show is the first step to destroying the belief that they are unlovable.

Sarah Heaton, female chaplain with Forgotten Man Ministries says, “One thing is helping people understand that their sin of lying is no greater and no less than someone’s sin of prostitution. That the person shooting up heroin in their arm is no less than the person putting an extra donut in their mouth. Sin is sin, is sin, is sin. No matter what form, no matter what way, in God’s eyes, sin is sin.”

When they can break free from how the world defines them, these women can begin to accept that God’s love is for them, too.

Healing from the Gospel

The Steps of Freedom come directly from Scripture and are dependent on the Gospel message.

Dunn explains, “We always start our class time or our one-on-one time with the conversation about, have they accepted Christ as their savior. If that piece is not there, which is a big piece, then all the steps don’t matter. We can teach them a lot of truths, and we can teach them facts, and we can show them Bible verses. If they don’t have a personal relationship, that’s just head knowledge.”

It is the Gospel, not facts, that brings healing to the heart and transformation to our lives.

“There is hope, there is healing, there is restoring of what has been taken from them, but it has to be their choice and their surrender,” she says.

Relating to the broken

When asked if they had difficulty relating to these women they work with, Dunn, Heaton, and Sonksen all said no, despite their various backgrounds.

Heaton explains that she actually has a similar background to many of the women here.

“I’ve been in their shoes in just about every way,” she says. Because of this, she can relate to them from that level.

The other two, however, have not dealt with the same struggles. Despite this, there is common ground that must be established in order for the counseling to be effective.

Dunn says, “I relate to them, as we both are sinners. Life can be tough, and if it weren’t for Jesus, we would walk around prisoners in jail or out of jail.”

The fact that her sins can’t get her imprisoned in the United States, she explains, only means that they may be harder to spot and probably much harder to eradicate from her life. All sin creates spiritual bondage.

Challenges

While relating to the women might not be difficult, there are some challenges this team faces. The Set Free-Forgotten Man team has a limited time with each of the women, and there’s no telling just how long that will be.

Dunn says, “There’s a big turnover. Some people get out relatively soon. Some people are sent to prison. Some people might be there for a few months. So you do start to develop a relationship with them. And you begin to have trust built, and you can get to the root of some of their challenges and difficulties.”

All of the women are highly encouraged to visit Set Free Ministries for an appointment once they are released, and they are encouraged to keep in contact.

“The vast majority commit to that, the lesser majority follow through with that,” Dunn explains.

Sonksen continues that thought, saying, “Often our hearts are broken because someone who you thought you saw changes in their heart and on their face, on their countenance, and then you hear via the grapevine that they’re back out on the streets doing drugs and prostitution.”

Much of the difficulty lies with the existing support group the women have. Not only do the majority of women have a painful past, but they also have been surrounded by drug dealers, friends and family who do drugs, and other poor influences.

“So when they’re released, who’s waiting for them at the exit are their drug dealers, their friends that use drugs, and their pimps.”

Trusting in God’s plan

Despite the sad stories, all three women continue their ministry, knowing they have to surrender the end result to God.

Dunn says “We pray for and want to see them live in freedom and to see bondage broken and lies replaced with truth. So the challenge comes to just knowing God’s in charge and trusting Him to do His work with the seeds that are planted.”

Heaton, who works with the inmates daily, says she has learned to trust in God’s control in the situation. All they can do is build into their lives.

“That’s really our whole goal, is to teach them the truth because the Holy Spirit’s going to work with them and in them when they’re in jail and when they get out.”

They are planting seeds and trusting in someone else to water them down the line. As Heaton says, God’s Word does not and will not return void.

Tomorrow, we’re going to share a story about a woman who’s life was changed after she went through the “God Pod” ministry with Forgotten Man Ministries and Set Free Ministries.

Sarah Heaton is a female chaplain at Forgotten Man Ministries—an organization that is working with men and women in thirty-five county jails across the state of Michigan. They hold voluntary classes called “God Pods” with inmates. Their mission statement as stated on their website is “To follow in Christ’s footsteps by bringing the healing powers of the Great Physician to those incarcerated in Michigan’s county jails.”

A few years ago when Heaton was volunteering at Forgotten Man, she had a freedom appointment at Set Free Ministries. This is a counseling session that takes those being counseled through the Steps to Freedom in Christ.

She says, “I started at the jail years back and went through my own freedom appointment at Set Free and it made such a big difference in my life, I could see that we really needed it in the jails. And so, we started praying about it, and got a big group of people to pray.”

After a couple of years of continuous commitment to prayer, Forgotten Man was able to bring Set Free in with them at the Kent County jail, first to minister to the men and then about a year ago they began working with the women, too.

Every Monday morning Heaton is joined by Sue Dunn and Jodi Sonksen, volunteers at Set Free, to meet with about a dozen women. In this setting, they let their walls down and engage in heart-to-heart conversation. It’s real, and it’s vulnerable, but in this setting the women feel comfortable opening up about their pasts. Their pasts, as Heaton explains, are filled with pain and bondage.

“I would say probably 90% of them were molested as children. Probably 90% of them have drug issues. Probably about 75% were involved in prostitution. Most of them don’t know who their heavenly Father is, and so the term “daddy” does not mean the same thing to them as it does to somebody else.”

Both Dunn and Sonksen agree that the women are coming from totally broken backgrounds which are often rooted in painful, unstable childhoods.

Dunn says that when you get to hear their stories, God gives you compassion for them.

“They have so much pain in their life, they’re trying to find relief from it. So they’re looking to the things the world has to offer,” she says.

Heaton says this is why people often turn to drugs. They want to be able to control what they feel—to be able to turn off the bad and feel something good. Unfortunately this eventually leaves them spiraling out of control. But when they end up in jail, it’s actually a good thing, even if they don’t see it that way at first. It means the spiraling has stopped for a moment.

The lies these women believe are many, and cripple their ability to heal. Heaton, Dunn, and Sonksen shared some of the more common lies they hear.

One is that they are worthless and cannot be forgiven. They cannot comprehend that they have a heavenly Father who loves them. And even if they believe they do and accept Christ, many women continue to believe they are second-class Christians, and that their prayers aren’t heard.

Another lie is that their sin is worse than any other sin and that they are worse people than anyone else. They might believe they are forever broken and that everyone has given up on them – but God has not.

And so, the Forgotten Man and Set Free trio must meticulously weed out these lies with each woman individually and replace them with truths.

The truths are all grounded in the Gospel, and they are shared from a foundation of trust, honesty, and openness to talk about anything and everything.

Sonksen says when the women in that “God Pod” understand they can speak without condemnation from the three volunteers, they really can get down to the deeper issues.

She says, “if they can see unconditional love in us, then maybe they can dare to believe that God loves them.”

Check back in tomorrow and we’ll share more about how these classes work, the challenges they pose, and the transformation that is taking place.