What drives us in this calling? It is to take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the darkest of places. For us, those places are where men and women in solitary confinement live out their days, and often years, alone. Totally alone. They are not allowed to go to church, to attend bible study, to take classes, go to the library, the recreation yard, the cafeteria. They are locked up inside the lockup.
While the students of The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry and the Field Ministers actively share the gospel and minister in all areas of the prison, they are encouraged and uniquely qualified to visit the men and women in solitary confinement; those under 24-hour suicide watch—those under Constant Direct Observation by officers. Many who the students and Field Ministers visit are gang members who must be removed from general population for the safety of others and themselves. Many of the students and Field Ministers are former gang members themselves who can counsel, share, and help those gang leaders in solitary.
We have seen repeated cases of gang members who found Christ as a result of Field Ministers’ visits, and who later renounced the gang were allowed to come out of solitary. Some of those former gang leaders are in The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry right now. They are preparing to become Field Ministers and to pay forward the gospel that changed their own lives.