God Looked for Me
Enoc is a former prisoner who attended The Prisoner’s Journey® evangelism and discipleship program.
During Enoc’s time in prison, he felt accused, stereotyped, abandoned, and harmful. But he said God looked for him, and He was always there. God reminded Enoc that He still has not changed the purpose for him.
Enoc says regardless of the difficult time, God makes miracles in prisons, and that he is one of those miracles.
Today, as a free man, Enoc serves as a volunteer through Prison Fellowship Colombia and a facilitator for The Prisoner’s Journey®.
Help other prisoners around the world hear about God’s salvation.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey®
She Has a Reason to Smile Now
Camila’s mother is in prison. While serving her sentence, she was introduced to the Prison Fellowship International’s child sponsorship program and immediately wanted to enroll her two daughters.
Camila is nine-years-old and lives with her father, sister, and grandmother. When she first started attending the activities hosted by the sponsorship program with her grandmother, she was very quiet and reserved—not very affectionate.
But as time passed, and she participated in more workshops and activities through the program, Camila became more interactive, loving, and showed great leadership characteristics.
Colombia is one of the world’s poorest countries; 20 percent of Colombian children do not receive basic education. But though support from the program, Camila not only attends school, she also receives psychological care to help her further succeed in her education and learning process.
Those who work closely with Camila have seen she has a beautiful heart for God.
Help a child, like Camila, change her identity from “child of a prisoner” to “loved by God.”
Give a Child of a Prisoner the Gift of Hope
Learn more about our child sponsorship program
God Changed His Life
Fredy participated in The Prisoner’s Journey evangelism and discipleship program, during his prison sentence. Before graduating the eight-week study on the Book of Mark, participants are asked to give their testimony in front other inmates—a challenging and intimidating experience for many. But the message of the Gospel presented through this program extends beyond the classroom walls in amazing ways.
Just as Fredy was called to present his testimony, his cellmate interrupted, saying he would give a testimony about Fredy. “God changed Fredy’s life,” he said.
He told the class Fredy’s change was evident, because he no longer participated in drug use, and refused to fight with the other prisoners. He was more resolved to try to be a good person.
At the time of the testimony, Fredy’s cellmate wasn’t a Christian, but had seen how much Fredy’s life changed because of God’s redemption. The volunteers of The Prisoner’s Journey invited Fredy’s cellmate to participate in the course, and he has since also become a Christian.
Help others around the world hear of Christ’s love and redemption.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey® program
“God Changed My Life”
Edison served a year in prison, and suffered extreme cruelty from fellow inmates. But the worst for him was not seeing his three-year-old daughter and having to tell her during every phone call that he wasn’t coming home yet. Edison participated in both The Prisoner’s Journey evangelism and discipleship program, which invited him to accept Jesus as his Savior. He also enrolled in the follow up restorative justice program, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, where he learned to know God better and to forgive.
“I identified with Jesus as I was sentenced to prison being innocent. God used these to programs to change my life.”
Edison is grateful the Lord saved and forgave him. He has also learned to forgive as he learns more about God.
“As God forgave me, that is the least I can do, forgive and ask for forgiveness.”
Edison has been found innocent and released. He has a job and lives for the Lord, and shares his love for God with his daughter.
Help other prisoners hear of Christ’s forgiveness for the first time.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey® program
A Miraculous Joy to Serve Those in Prison
Yan’s parents are both pastors. He grew up in a Christian home and developed a deep love for God and His church.
Yan decided to devote his life to working for the Lord, desperately wanting to make a difference in his country, and especially for his small hometown in San José de Uré- Córdoba, Colombia. Yan prepared for this calling by studying theology and served in different places as a missionary. But it wasn’t until he started managing The Prisoner’s Journey® in-prison evangelism and discipleship program that the Lord showed him how he could serve his country and his hometown.
“It has been rewarding to see how God, every passing day, transforms lives and gives me more love for the incarcerated—either guilty or innocent.”
Yan has met several men and women from his hometown, who are serving sentences—people he grew up with, studied with, and even evangelized to.
“It was sad to see my fellow citizens crying behind bars, but it was also miraculous and joyful to see them transformed by the Lord and through The Prisoner’s Journey®,” says Yan.
Yan has ministered to many prisoners. Some refused to accept Christ, but after many years, and Yan’s continued prayers and faithful ministry to them, the inmates participated in The Prisoner’s Journey®, and experienced transformation from the inside out, accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Help prisoners learn about Christ’s love and redemption.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey®
“I Wanted to End My Life”
Outside the United States, 8.1 million prisoners live in a world many ignore. Locked away and vilified, they are one of the most overlooked and under reached groups in the world. Families stop visiting, and some cut off any form of meaningful connection. Isolation becomes the prisoner’s companion. Without love, without hope, without forgiveness or community, they serve their sentences and often return home unchanged. The cycle repeats, or some, like Wilson in Colombia, decide to give up entirely.
Wilson was tired of prison life. His family had abandoned him. He felt worthless and hopeless. Without a reason to fight, he decided to end his life.
“But there was something inside me that wouldn’t go out until I went to church,” says Wilson. Upon his transfer to Las Mercedes de Montería prison in Cartagena, Colombia, an inmate invited him to church, where The Prisoner’s Journey® Bible study was taking place. A blessing, as many prisoners serve their entire sentences without hearing about God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness.
“After this class, I will kill myself,” he told himself.
That night, Pastor Buelvas, The Prisoner’s Journey® course facilitator, felt the Lord tell her a student in the class wanted to commit suicide. Pastor Buelvas shared her impression with the class. At first, no one responded.
“I felt my body was burning,” says Wilson. Unable to ignore the Holy Spirit’s prodding, Wilson finally stood and admitted his dark secret to the room. Pastor Buelvas asked Wilson to open his heart to the Lord and began to pray for him.
“[Pastor Buelvas] told me God loved me and he would help me out of my situation. Then Jesus spoke to [me] and told me, ‘You are so valuable to me that I paid a high price for you through the death of my Son.”
That moment saved Wilson’s life. He felt a new sense of hope and a purpose to continue living. He dedicated his life to the Lord that night and, almost exactly one month later, publicly proclaimed his new faith through Christian baptism.
Wilson says he wants to continue his journey with Jesus; he is happy, and today he is devoted to sharing about what God did for him.
The Prisoner’s Journey® is making a huge impact in Colombia. In October 2015, Bellavista Prison in Medellin 129 prisoners said yes to learning more about Jesus. It was our largest graduating class since the program’s pilot launch in early 2014 in South Africa and Nigeria.
Help prisoners like Wilson experience God’s love and healing.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey®
“I Identified with Jesus, the Prisoner”
Tirso was known as a charitable businessman in his community of San José de Uré- Córdoba in Colombia. He invested his savings to open a small grocery store, and since his prices were the most reasonable, many visited—including gang members. Accused of illicit association for criminal purposes, Tirso was arrested.
“I am one more innocent person who is sentenced to serve time,” he says.
One year after Tirso was imprisoned, the in-prison Bible study and discipleship program, The Prisoner’s Journey®, was offered to the prisoners. What first touched Tirso about this course that introduces Jesus to prisoners through the Gospel of Mark, was the invitation card to the program.
Attending the course profoundly impacted Tirso.
He had never felt so close to Christ as he did identifying with Him as a “prison companion.”
He says, “It was much more touching to identify with this Jesus who experienced all I am feeling in prison—loneliness, distress, sadness, and injustice… especially being unjustly condemned.”
Although serving his sentence is deeply painful, Tirso says meeting Jesus is the best thing that happened to him.
It is his utmost desire to tell his wife, daughters, and others how Christ gave meaning to his life through the miracle of Salvation through Jesus.
Help prisoners like Tirso find comfort in Jesus.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey®
“I Thought God Would Not Forgive Me “
David started using drugs when he was 12-years-old. He grabbed a gun for the first time when he was 14.
“I have hurt so many people—mothers, fathers, and children— that I thought God would not forgive me,” he says.
David went from robbing and murdering to joining an organized crime military group. But all through this, and unbeknownst to him, his mother prayed for him. She prayed he would leave the group and find a program for his rehabilitation.
When David was imprisoned, her prayers were answered. He abandoned the criminal military group, quit being violent, and found an opportunity to change and have a relationship with Christ through The Prisoner’s Journey, our in-prison evangelism and discipleship program.
During the third and fourth weeks of The Prisoner’s Journey, David was compelled to leave the classroom and go ask forgiveness from everyone he had hurt.
He went to his enemies and attackers, and in tears, asked for pardon. He explained to each how the Lord had changed him.
Today, David’s desire is for his entire family to know Jesus.
Help a prisoner like David find hope and healing.
Learn more about The Prisoner’s Journey.
Bellavista Prison in Medellín, Colombia, is a dark place.
Home to drug dealers, guerrillas, paramilitary, and assassins, it is overcrowded with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.
Men line hallways and sprawl from the rafters in makeshift hammocks. They live in cells barely larger than a bathroom stall.
This is where Eduard is serving his sentence.
While many young boys grow up playing “cops and robbers,” for Eduard it was a violent way of life passed down from his father. And prison life only hardened Eduard’s heart.
Throughout his now 13 years behind bars, he earned the reputation among inmates as a dangerous man. But that began to change when he was invited to The Prisoner’s Journey, Bible study and discipleship program that introduces Jesus to prisoners through the Gospel of Mark.
After just four sessions, and hearing the stories of other prisoners who were just like him, but who came to know Christ’s love and forgiveness, Eduard accepted Christ as his Savior.
Today, Eduard says he is a changed man thanks to the Gospel brought to him through The Prisoner’s Journey.
Help prisoners like Eduard find lasting transformation through Jesus Christ.