Sometimes, hope blooms in places where you least expect to find it.
In 2024, Faith Collaborative received an invitation that would change the way I understood service, purpose, and hope.
The then-sergeant overseeing the Harris County Women’s Empowerment Center reached out because they were looking for programming that could encourage women during incarceration and help them begin thinking about the journey from incarceration to purpose.
When I received the invitation, I was honestly overwhelmed. I had never done jail or prison outreach before. I didn’t have a lot of personal experience with incarceration in my family, and the thought of walking into a jail to create meaningful programming for women I had never met was completely new territory for me.
But God was gracious. He gave me the opportunity to create lessons, connect with the women, listen to their stories, pray with them, and connect them with resources that could help them begin creating different pathways for their lives beyond incarceration. And so, I began going.
Every Monday, We Show Up
With the exception of holidays, family obligations, or those unexpected moments when life happens, I have gone to the Women’s Empowerment Center nearly every Monday since we began this outreach.
The scheduled time is usually 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. But sometimes, I don’t walk out of the building until 5 or 6 p.m. Not because the program is supposed to last that long. Because the conversations are that rich. Because the women are that vulnerable. Because someone needs to tell her story. Because someone needs prayer. Because someone needs to be heard.
And sometimes, someone simply needs another person to sit with them and remind them that their current circumstances do not have to define the rest of their lives. Over the years, we have seen more than 2,000 women through our outreach at the Women’s Empowerment Center.
We have received well over 1,000 prayer requests. The requests are about court dates, children, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, jobs, housing, transportation, finances, health, and families.
Some women pray for themselves. Many pray for their children. Some pray for the world. They pray for our leaders. They pray for the guards. They pray for the other women in their pod. They pray for people who may never know that their names were lifted up in prayer from inside a jail. Those moments are special. They are sacred.
Hope in an Unlikely Place
There is something I have learned from going to the Women’s Empowerment Center. I find hope there. That may sound strange to some people. How can you find hope in a jail? How can you see possibility surrounded by concrete, steel doors, rules, restrictions, and uncertainty? But I do.
- I see hope in the women.
- I see hope when someone who came into the room with her head down begins to smile.
- I see hope when a woman realizes she still has something to contribute.
- I see hope when someone asks for prayer for her children.
- I see hope when a woman begins thinking about what her life could look like after incarceration instead of only thinking about what happened before it.
- I see hope when women encourage one another.
And sometimes, I see hope in the smallest things.
- A small window.
- A flash of sunlight.
- A ray of sunshine across a concrete wall.
- A flower beginning to grow where you didn’t expect anything to grow.
It reminds me of something I believe deeply:
You can find evidence of life even in places that don’t look like they should be able to produce it.
- You can see a budding flower where there appears to be no soil.
- You can see sunlight where the windows are small and bleak.
- And you can see hope in a place where many people might only see hopelessness.
The Women Behind the Incarceration
One of the greatest lessons this experience has taught me is that incarceration is not the entirety of a person’s story. There is a woman behind the charge. There is a mother behind the booking number. There is a daughter behind the court date. There is a sister behind the cell door. There is a person with dreams, disappointments, trauma, gifts, mistakes, regrets, and possibilities.
And many of the women we encounter have experienced significant trauma and exploitation long before they ever entered the jail.
Some have experienced child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, neglect, exploitation, and other forms of violence and trauma. Some have spent years being abused by people who were supposed to love and protect them. Some have been overlooked by systems that should have helped them. Some have never had consistent access to the resources, support, relationships, or opportunities they needed to create a different life. And that matters.
Because if we only look at the circumstances that brought someone to jail, we can miss the circumstances that shaped the person long before she arrived there.
This Is Where Faith Collaborative Comes In
This is one of the reasons Faith Collaborative exists. We believe that people need more than judgment. They need care. They need resources. They need relationships. They need encouragement. They need opportunities. And sometimes, they need someone to believe that there is still purpose in their life when they cannot see it for themselves.
Our role is not to pretend that mistakes don’t have consequences. Our role is to help people understand that a consequence does not have to become the conclusion of their story. We bring care. We bring resources. We bring encouragement. We bring opportunities for growth. We listen. We pray. We teach. We connect. And most importantly, we remind women that their lives still have value and purpose.
The Mothers We Meet
Many of the women we encounter are mothers. Their incarceration creates a gap—not only in their lives, but in the lives of their children. When a mother is separated from her children, there are birthdays missed, bedtime stories not read, school events not attended, hugs that cannot happen, and ordinary moments that cannot be recovered.
And when a mother is unable to successfully re-enter society after incarceration, that gap can become even greater. I will talk more about this in a future blog post because motherhood and incarceration deserve their own conversation.
We have to consider not only the woman who is incarcerated, but also the children who are living with her absence.