The pandemic has affected us differently. Some people have died or have lost a friend or loved one due to the COVID virus. Some have gotten sick or know someone who fell ill. Some people have lost income or jobs as a result. Even those among us who may not have contracted the virus have been affected because of the uncertainty of what each day may bring or outright fear of what might happen if we get COVID.

Then there’s the social distancing, the shelter at home, the space we must keep from our family, our friends, our classmates, our co-workers, the people in our communities. If you set aside everything else, the mental and emotional toll social distancing and shelter at home has taken on people is brutal. Suicide rates have increased, in part, as a result of being separated from other human beings. 

As difficult as that is, the emotional and mental toll isolation takes on someone who is incarcerated is even greater. 

Prisons – for the most part – have been on lockdown, forbidding anyone from the outside world to enter the prison in an effort to keep COVID out of the prisons. No visit from family or friends. No visits from clergy or missionaries who may come in for counseling or weekly Bible studies. Fellow prisoners are not necessarily a healthy support system. Inmates feel a different kind of isolation and despair. Isolation and social distancing are even more restrictive for someone who is incarcerated. Lonely does not even begin to describe the level of despair for these individuals.

However, there is a bright side – God is bigger and more powerful than any pandemic! 

He gives hope to the hopeless by sending His people to comfort and encourage them. There are no doors God cannot open! That is certainly true here because God did open doors for us to continue our work even through the COVID craziness. We have been able to counsel, to encourage, and to resume some small group studies that were going on pre-COVID, but in a different way. Granted, the resumption of our ministry inside the prison comes with heavy guidelines and restrictions so that we are adhering to the governing laws we must abide by. 

The cool thing about this is that God had been preparing us for this situation and we didn’t know it till now. Even before COVID hit we had been praying and asking God’s guidance as to how we could reach more of the population we are meant to serve. 

God put on our hearts back in March 2019 to do a podcast and He gave us the name for the podcast – Inside These Walls. We began the podcast but had no idea how that piece fits into our ministry. We did a few episodes of the podcast and then, well, we stopped. Even though we hit pause on the podcast, we knew that God still had plans for it and us so we waited for God to reveal His plan in His perfect timing.

God also put on our hearts to follow in the footsteps of our church with Livestreaming. We were excited about how this would allow us to reach more people who were beyond our physical reach and we didn’t concern ourselves with how it would all work. We merely waited for God to give us His signal to tell us it was time to move forward.  

Then when COVID hit, we felt God’s leading and jumped right into Livestreaming. It hasn’t been easy figuring all this out and, to be quite honest, the challenges have taken us months to work through. However, God has provided exactly what we needed to do Livestreaming well. And now, God has recently made it clear why He moved us to start the podcast. 

We had always known that technology would give us the ability to reach people on a much larger scale. What we never imagined was that the people beyond our physical reach would be the people separated from us by COVID. 

When the world stopped dead in its tracks, when people began to fear the unknown, when wearing masks became a requirement, when businesses closed and put folks out of work, and when the government shut doors to those who needed God most, we asked God to give us great boldness and wisdom and the courage to continue to do the work He called us to do.

COVID took the world by surprise but not God and nothing thwarts God’s will. 

God’s will for HIS MINISTRY is for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus. COVID is very real, but we just refuse to fall prey to Satan’s lies during tough storms and not be distracted by what the world says. We continue to focus on God’s calling for our ministry work. 

Hopefully, soon the restrictions will lift, and the incarcerated will be able to receive visitors again but, in the meantime, they at least get to see two familiar, caring faces several times a week. We went from being inside the facility before COVID one day a week, to serving five days a week, and as an ordained minister, Pastor Tony Cash is now the on-call minister inside the facility we have been serving in since September 22, 2018. Only GOD can move these kinds of mountains!!

What we have learned through this is that we are not limited to in-person interaction to reach the incarcerated. We have learned to think outside the box and to be BOLD in asking to do more to help and to not live in fear. We have not and will not live in fear, for God did not give us the spirit of fear but of a sound mind… and we stand firm on that and all of God’s promises.

What we also learned – and hope you have taken away from this as well – that what we think is impossible is nothing to God. Regardless of the situation, God can use anything as an opportunity for discipleship – it may just be different than what we may think it to be. It’s a lesson we can apply to those who aren’t incarcerated as well.

Please keep all incarcerated individuals in your prayers during this time of isolation for them.