Legacies of Leadership

Into dark halls of prison cells I saw grace spread its presence. Today in 128 countries, volunteers—Orthodox, Evangelicals and Catholics—weekly line up at prison gates to be checked in and then go in where some citizens can’t get out.  These 100,000 Christian volunteers enter worlds Jesus warned us we’d likely forget. Ron Nikkel and I visited seven prisons in Central America, meeting leaders, volunteers and boards, praying, hugging and talking with inmates, families and children. I’ve … Continue reading

A beautiful moment in an awful place

Prisons are scary, dreary, frightfully cold, smelling of disinfective, noisy and confusing. After signing in, giving up passports, frisked, and checked over, we walked through a maze of corridors, topped with rolls of razor sharp fencing. We would be in two places: the open block Section 8 and maximum security cell block Section 7. Prisoners … Continue reading

Before and After

Nicaragua The Somoza family, a hereditary dictatorship, ruled Nicaragua for forty-three years. During the 1970s the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, rebelled against the Somozas and finally deposed them in 1979. The Contras then attempted to unseat the Sandinistas but lost; some 30,000 died during this conflict. Nicaragua is the largest of the Central American … Continue reading