Advancing in Adversity

2020 started off as a sprint for us, as we experienced a 20% growth in all of our outreaches during the first quarter of the year, averaging 207 services, programs, and classes every month. Think of it: that’s 7 per day! Through God’s grace, the ex-offenders in our work release program earned over $500,000 in wages during 2019, having earned zero the year before. And we expanded this vital initiative in January by placing inmates from Grafton Correctional at a high-tech medical company in Twinsburg called reLink Medical.

We lost access to our entire mission field. Our initial response to the COVID challenge was to minister to those we still had access to – the forgotten first responders working inside Ohio’s prisons. We partnered with Green Circle Growers and Grace Church in Middleburg Heights to distribute 1200 orchids at six correctional facilities to the guards and staff, just to say “thank you” for keeping not only the prison population, but all of society safe. In October, we partnered with local business partner, His Daughter, and distributed 1400 foaming hand soaps made from essential oils to frontline workers in five institutions.

We coordinated with the prison system to see how we could help minister to prisoners during the quarantine. We purchased ping-pong tables, footballs, and basketballs for the Juvenile Detention Center and board games, cards, art supplies, and commissary items for the adult facilities. We created custom video devotionals which are still being viewed monthly by over 32,000 prisoners and another 30,000 civilians through Facebook and YouTube. We piloted live-interactive virtual programming utilizing the in-prison technology that had previously been reserved for parole hearings. And because COVID did not stop men and women from getting out of prison, we expanded our re-entry programming, offering a wide array of evening classes five nights per week at our Cypress Avenue location, including our Stepping Up Manhood Initiative, Money Management, and Expositional Bible Studies. We continued providing crisis counseling, family reintegration, and job placement.

Because COVID did not stop men and women from being trapped in addiction, we relaunched Reformers Unanimous under CDC guidelines and added a mid-week program called Stepping into Freedom. And all along we continued placing both men and women into Bethel Colony of Mercy, a Christ-centered inpatient rehab center in North Carolina – completely at our expense.

Because COVID did not stop men and women from being homeless, we redoubled our efforts to provide fresh fruits and vegetables in the inner-city by partnering with Premier ProduceOne and the USDA’s Farmers-to-Families program. We distributed over 2500 lbs. of fresh fruits and vegetables weekly throughout the inner-city.

We set up special clothing distributions around the city, averaging around 1000 garments per month. In May we resumed preparing approximately 160 hot meals weekly for the homeless shelters in Cleveland every Saturday night. In September the number of meals per week increased to 260 and continues at this rate today. According to the most recent information released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Cleveland is now the poorest big city in America. The need is great.

As we continue the ongoing outreaches of True Freedom, we are already eagerly looking ahead to 2021. In the New Year, by God’s grace, we will expand our work release programming by adding partner companies and even planting private industry into the prison system so that men and women at high security facilities, who could never qualify for work release, can still gain the work experience necessary for successfully re-entry. And we are diligently working on establishing a halfway house in Lorain, Ohio.

We are privileged to be your missionaries in this high-risk, high return mission field. In loving and serving the incarcerated, the addicted, and the poor, we have the beautiful opportunity to love and serve Jesus. “Truly, I say to you,” Jesus said to his disciples, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matt. 25:40).

We are excited about the amazing vision the Lord has given us for 2021, and we are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money. Your support enables us to expand the work of the Kingdom of God in Northeast Ohio. We realize these are tough economic times for many.

Some who have given in the past might not be able to give now, and we understand. We covet your prayers. But for those whom the Lord enables to give, even a seemingly small act of generosity can grow into something far beyond what we could ever ask or imagine. In ministering to each other, each from the abundance he or she possesses, we work together to advance the Kingdom of God. Thank you for your partnership.

In Christ,