“His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:21 NIV)

During the last week of his earthly life, Jesus tells the story in Matthew 25 of three servants who are each given responsibility to manage a varying amount of wealth. Two of the servants manage their master’s funds well and double his investment. They are commended by the master, “Well done.” The third servant is condemned with the words, “You wicked, lazy servant!” for doing nothing and wasting his opportunity out of fear.

Your WELS Prison Ministry has been given a critical opportunity by our gracious God. After years of searching for a way to distribute our Bible studies digitally, we finally identified Edovo, an organization with which we contracted to put our studies on their learning management system. This opportunity has tremendous blessings and challenges as described in “Bringing the digital age to prison ministry.” The system is available to approximately 150,000 inmates using computer tablets in over 400 correctional facilities (out of 5,000+ total nationwide). Edovo plans to be available to 250,000 inmates by the end of the year.

We need your help to be as diligent and faithful in making the most of the Lord’s blessings. The help we covet most is your prayers. Pray that God gives us all the insight, energy, and people we need to take full advantage of this new endeavor. We are having to develop new ways of carrying out our ministry while maintaining many of the methods we have used for decades. The extra effort is taxing our resources, including paid staff and volunteers.

The second form of help we crave is hours of volunteer effort. Currently, we have a significant need for test correcting volunteers. But we also need to maintain or grow other forms of serving, namely writing pen pal letters, visiting inmates in jail or prison, or mentoring them after release. We equip followers of Jesus to find and fulfill these opportunities, especially at correctional facilities in communities near their congregation. If you would like to explore options for serving, contact me at [email protected].

A third form of help we need is financial support. Our faithful donors provide the means necessary to be faithful to Jesus’ call and make the most of this golden opportunity. If you’d like to support what we do, here are some ways to do that. Through your prayers, time and effort, or donations, we can look forward to Jesus’ praise, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” knowing all we give already belongs to him.

Dave Hochmuth, WELS Prison Ministry administrator

WELS Prison Ministry received an encouraging letter and gift from an unexpected source. Chaplain C. Tracy Bennett from Tyger River Correctional Institution in South Carolina sent us the following note along with a $100 gift:

Dear Friends in Christ,

Please find enclosed a donation for your ministry. Inmates made donations and asked for me to send it to you. We appreciate the Bible studies and are very pleased with the response we are getting from inmates who are completing them.

Prayers are being lifted for your ministry as it aids in building God’s Kingdom!

Blessings and Peace for the Journey,

C. Traci Bennett, Senior Chaplain

What a great encouragement it is to see the Holy Spirit is not only working faith in the lives of people through God’s Word, but is also motivating those hearers of the Word to want to help pass it along to others. God is good.

Excitement for the opportunity to send our booklets to inmates through electronic means has stirred up the hope that we may be able to connect pen pals to inmates digitally. Unfortunately, providing our booklets electronically and writing person-to-person through our pen pal program are two very different processes. Pen pal writing via e-mail poses unique challenges. The process and programs used in each facility can vary. Also, these programs do not allow pen names, which removes the safety of anonymity. As we continue to seek solutions, we still regularly receive inmate requests for pen pals. We continually need willing writers, who for now will write via pen and paper. With the busyness of the booklet ministry boom, processing pen pal requests is taking longer than normal. We ask that if you are interested in writing to an inmate as a pen pal, please contact Amy at [email protected]. She will give you the program details and assign you a pen pal as soon as she is able.

Please continue to pray for our pen pal volunteers as they share the gospel with the incarcerated through their letters.