Celebrating Our First Year at the Ray of Hope Village

Yes, it's been a full year since we first started our ministry at the Ray of Hope Village, the female division of the Maa City Jail.

What started out as a humble endeavor by our sisters turned out to become one of the church's most active, most effective ministries. Over the past months, we've studied the Bible with these inmates and learned songs with them. We have also gotten the chance to visit the families they themselves could not visit. All throughout, these visits became golden opportunities for us to share Jesus. And as we learned more about the different lives of the inmates, the more were we inspired to reach out to them, bringing with us the graces of our bountiful Father.

During the anniversary program on March 21, we listened as inmate after inmate spoke of how much our humble ministry meant to them. Sometimes in tears, they told of how their lives are being changed by the entrance of God's word in their hearts. With grateful handshakes and warm smiles, they thanked us for ministering to their needs, both spiritual and material. And we could not have been more thankful that God used us as His instruments.

Yes, we'd like to tell you about the little gifts we brought for them, and about the food we shared with them, and about how many of us were there that day. But what we'd most like to tell you is that when we reached out to them so that Jesus could touch them through our humble hands, we ourselves were touched.

May God continue to prosper our labors as we work for and with Him.