Dear John,

I pray this finds you enjoying a blessed and restful Labor Day! As we officially close out summer, I wanted to take a moment to share a few new developments we’re celebrating from the past few months:

• When we created the special Reception & Orientation (R&O) issue of Inside Journal, our quarterly in-prison newspaper, we had no idea how needed it would be this year. Although intended to serve as a supplement for prisons with established R&O units, the R&O edition of Inside Journal quickly became popular among chaplains and prisoners at facilities without dedicated R&O units. As COVID-19 cases began to rise, many prisons unexpectedly found themselves needing to create makeshift COVID-19 quarantine areas, isolating incoming prisoners until they could be tested and cleared of the coronavirus. On March 26, Prison Fellowship reached out to chaplains via email, announcing the R&O edition’s availability free of charge at the Storehouse, our online outlet of complimentary resources for prisoners. Since then, we have distributed nearly 10,000 copies of the R&O edition alone. Prison chaplains and corrections staff have ordered in bulk for the men and women in their charge, recognizing the need not just for reading material during quarantine but for the message of hope it offers, too.

• Prison Fellowship joined a diverse coalition of Christian organizations, pastors, and leaders in announcing the Prayer & Action Justice Initiative, a nationwide effort to advocate for racial justice and nonpartisan police reforms across America. As the nation’s largest Christian nonprofit serving prisoners, former prisoners, and their families, and a leading advocate for criminal justice reform, Prison Fellowship acknowledges the painful realities of crime, violence, and victimization. Our ministry is founded on the conviction that no life is beyond God's reach. We carry on the work of our founder, Chuck Colson, who taught that Christians are called to discern a biblical perspective on the deep-rooted social problems so prevalent today. Our experience in prisons has brought us face to face with racism, an individual and systemic sin that violates human dignity and worth. We have witnessed firsthand the stark racial disparities in the criminal justice system. As the data attest, people of color experience greater rates of arrest, greater use of force under apprehension and while in custody, higher occurrences of prosecution, and harsher sentences. Racial bias and injustice contribute directly to these trends, as do other pervasive upstream issues like instability in housing and family structures, unequal access to quality education, and poverty. As part of the Prayer & Action Justice Initiative coalition, we will continue to urge local, state, and federal elected leaders to pass meaningful nonpartisan criminal justice reforms that improve public safety, ensure equitable treatment of all Americans by police, and create a more fair criminal justice system.

• We’d like to share a special shout-out to Hillsong Church, which hosted a team of runners that ran a relay race from the heart of New York City to the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., to raise money for Prison Fellowship. The team ran over 280 miles over the course of three days and raised an amazing $20,000! We are so grateful for Hillsong’s partnership and for the hearts of their congregants, who care so deeply for those we serve! Thank you, Hillsong!

The relay race was a tangible reminder that we are, indeed, surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses! Therefore, we will continue to run the race marked out for us with perseverance—and with more than a little help from Jesus and all of you who continue to support this ministry in so many ways!

We are grateful to do God’s work as our daily work, including the ministry of prayer. If there are any specific prayer requests we can lift up for you and your family, we’d be honored to do so.

In His name,