'I pray to God. He helps me. He can help you, too.'

Contact The Magazine

The youngest disciples of Christ—children and teens—are not waiting for future roles in God’s service. They are taking steps now to transform the world. Read their stories in the Winter 2011 edition of Contact, the Magazine. Watch for it in your mailbox this month.

Here is a taste of what you’ll find in this publication by the ­Oklahoma Conference ­Department of Communications:

By Sharon Capron, Associate Pastor, Prague UMC

Jeanne* was angry. Her daddy was in prison. Mama had moved everybody in with Auntie, in another town, and taken a full-time job. No daddy, no mama, no friends, no privacy—Jeanne was angry.

In our church’s fifth-grade Wednesday night class, Jeanne cussed; she insulted others; she hit. My teaching partner often had to lead the class while Jeanne and I sat out in the hall.

Then one day, the class had a new project: writing letters to prisoners who were attending a Kairos weekend. Suddenly, Jeanne came fully alive and focused. She wrote several letters and took several blanks home for her siblings to complete.

The following week, we collected the letters. Jeanne’s personal message was simple: "I pray to God. He helps me. He can help you, too."

At the closing service of the Kairos experience, several men gave their testimonies. A big man, a drug dealer and repeat offender, stood. He said he grew up as a "PK" (preacher’s kid). He was well practiced in arguing against the Bible.

But the note from 12-year-old Jeanne gave him an argument he could not refute. That man reclaimed the faith of his childhood.

(*Name has been changed.)(The Kairos program in Oklahoma prisons is coordinated by Criminal Justice & Mercy Ministries—CJAMM—of the Oklahoma Conference.)