I’m thrilled to share with you that, thanks to your prayers and generous support, we have wrapped up our
40th successful Angel Tree Christmas season. More than 250,000 children heard the Gospel and received a Christmas gift in the name of their incarcerated parent. We’re also distributing more than 65,000 beautiful children’s Bibles in English and Spanish through our Angel Tree church partners—a staggering number! Praise Jesus!
Angel Tree is about so much more than ensuring these kids have a gift under the tree. It’s a chance to restore relationships and for kids to hear that they are loved and remembered by both their incarcerated parent and their Heavenly Father. It’s changing lives across generations, and we’ve already begun to get thank-you notes from grateful parents.
I am a father and I just want to take the opportunity to thank you from my heart! I’m thankful for y’all in every way to make [Christmas gifts] happen for a parent like me. God bless you!
—Ricardo
Thank you for helping to make Christmas a season of restoration for incarcerated parents and their families. It starts with a gift, but it doesn’t stop there. The connections made during Christmas open doors for churches to serve Angel Tree children and their families all year long. Opportunities for kids to attend Angel Tree sleepaway and sports camps will ramp up again soon, and our partner churches find creative ways to enfold the families they served at Christmas into church activities all year round. We’d love for your church to be a part of
Prison Fellowship Angel Tree by bringing the hope of Jesus to families experiencing the effects of incarceration.
Angel Tree isn’t the only way the Gospel is reaching behind bars to touch the lives of those impacted by incarceration. The strong demand for Bibles in prison continues, and we distributed more than 126,000 large-print Inside Journal Life Recovery Bibles to men and women in prison last year. Letters pour in daily from people requesting one of these specially created Bibles.
Other letters are from prisoners who have already received one, and like the healed man who came back to thank Jesus, they want to show their gratitude to everyone who made it possible. Recently we heard from Tommy, who received his Bible and immediately spent eight hours reading it. In his letter he writes, “Thank you so so much. … God knows I need all the help I can get. … I promise to read it study it every day.”
The Word of God doesn’t return void. We are thankful for everyone who has invested to make these life-changing Bibles available to people living in prison. What’s more, we have partnered again with Tyndale House Publishers to make their Life Application Bible available to prison wardens and other correctional officials and staff. We love supporting department of corrections staff in their challenging, important work, and this is just one more way the Lord is working to change the culture of prisons.
We are so excited to watch the Lord open new doors of ministry this year, and we are grateful for all of you who have joined us on this journey. I look forward to sharing more stories of the Lord’s hand at work through your support of Prison Fellowship!
Praising Him,
JAMES J. ACKERMAN President and Chief Executive Officer
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Prison Fellowship P.O. Box 1550, Merrifield, VA, 22116-1550 US
