bmblackmon@cableone.net

Sharing Hope Ministry, Inc., is a Texas nonprofit organization and women's prison ministry centered out of Amarillo, Texas. Its mission is to help incarcerated women in the State of Texas experience God's love and hope. Sharing Hope seeks to have an effect on the lives of women while they are incarcerated and to help them find the spiritual, mental, and physical strength to live improved lifestyles once they are released. The ministry focuses on establishing a community-wide ministry and equips volunteers within the body of Christ in the Amarillo community to use their spiritual gifts of exhortation, giving, evangelism, and mercy. To provide follow-up support for women who are released from incarceration into the Amarillo community. 

As a state-wide endeavor, Sharing Hope Ministry plays a major role in the spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being of female inmates through the distribution of Life Recovery Bibles, Twelve-Step recovery materials, and Bible studies. Other services of this prison ministry include a Christian mentor (pen pal) program, a weekly prayer group, a local visitation program, and an after-care program. 

In the spring of 1999, the Women’s Ministry Leadership Team at Paramount Terrace Christian Church (PTCC) in Amarillo, Texas, met for one of its regular meetings. Concern was expressed that Women’s Ministry was not meeting the portion of its mission that stated it would "serve the community" or "evangelize the community and the world." The Women’s Ministry Leadership Team prayed for God to give them an outreach into the community and for God to provide the resources and leadership for that outreach. In August of 1999, a woman who was incarcerated at the local Potter County Jail wrote PTCC and requested a Bible study. The request was given to the Women’s Ministry Director, and a Bible study was mailed to her. Soon other requests began to come. In February of 2000, a volunteer expressed an interest in helping Women’s Ministry with a prison ministry. Mindy Briggs is Executive Director of the program. 

 Mindy Briggs

Women expressed an interest in writing to inmates to encourage them spiritually, and a pen pal program was started. Bible studies were made available to each woman in prison who received a Bible. Weekly visitation to the local jails by trained volunteers was implemented. Individuals and Bible School classes began to donate money to help pay for the Bibles and study materials. Currently, the ministry averages 100 Bibles per week that are sent to the female prison inmates. 

Those involved in the ministry send Bibles to women in prison, write to them while they are in, visit the local jail and prisons, and then there is a program called Stepping Stones to help them as they get out, so they are not forgotten and so they don't just slip right back into their old ways. Currently, there are 2 ex-inmates who volunteer for Sharing Hope to share the hope that they received from the ministry. Briggs feels that “God has made Himself so real through Sharing Hope Ministry. He continues to provide the necessary resources for the ministry through the volunteers who give their time or financial resources. It is a privilege to be part of a growing ministry that is affecting so many lives." 

To learn more about Sharing Hope, visit them on the web at www.sharinghopeministry.org 

Copyright 2003 by Michelle Blackmon