September 19, 2025 -- Prayer requests
/A few times a year I am asked to send out prayer requests related to my work as a minster with Redemption Prison Ministry. Here is my list for this week and I though it might be helpful for you to read. Prayer warriors, please pray. Donors, please donate. Encouragers, well, I welcome encouragement. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. I hope this gives you some insight into the work I do and gives you specific items for which you can join me in prayer. Thanks in advance. Shalom. Richard
1. There is a fund-raising banquet to be held this weekend and two in October. May God grant safe travels to all who participate, a great time of fellowship and a good financial boost to the ministry. May the reports given at each of the meetings lead to new volunteers in the areas of the thrift stores in Ontario, prayer warriors, monthly donors and volunteer instructors.
2. You may have heard of “prison conversions”, where an inmate “finds Jesus” because it looks good on his parole application. (This is a real problem.) The frequency of false conversions tends to make the parole board members cynical when they interview genuine Christians who speak openly about their faith. Those who are truly Christian can be quite discouraged when they face persecution for their allegiance to Jesus. Pray for those who are truly Christian, that their witness may affect Correctional Officers, Parole Board Members, Community Parole Officials, and their fellow inmates. Pray for those who cynically assume a Christian stance for worldly benefit, may their hearts truly be conquered for Jesus.
3. There is a real need for Redemption Prison Ministry to help equip churches and answer their questions surrounding issues like helping an inmate to transition from life on the inside to life in society. One further step: how can RPM help churches to receive newly released inmates appropriately and safely? What tools, information, education, and training might be needed to help local churches? RPM is considering updating the toolkit it has and making it more widely available to interested churches. May God guide and direct us all in this.
4. A reality of life is ministering to men who having been released from prison breach their conditions and return to prison. Or, having been released, relapse into drugs or alcohol because there is not enough community support, or family—wearied and exhausted from previously fruitless efforts to help their loved ones finally have given up helping. It is very hard on the soul for such men and women, as well as for those who support them and long for their restoration to fullness of life in Christ.
5. At the Southeast Regional Correction Centre, a full-time social worker has been hired, and his role is to help men prepare for life on the outside. He and I have met and hope there can be useful networking and mutual support.
6. As a prison-visiting pastor, it is profoundly difficult to bridge the worlds on the one hand of life with inmates and the hard and harsh stories of their existence while on the other hand navigating polite Christian society in churches where such experiences are so foreign. There is a profound emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual cost and I am feeling it keenly. Moving between these two worlds is profoundly isolating and has been a stretch for my own faith. May God direct me deeper into fellowship with Christ by the power of the Spirit and the beauty and steadfast promises of the world.
7. As Paul wrote to the Colossians “at the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” Colossians 4:3-4 ESV.
