Angel Tree Shows Christ's Love to Inmates and Their Kids
by Allie Martin
December 14, 2004
(AgapePress) - Christians around the United States have a chance to reach out to children of prisoners this Christmas through a program that works through local churches to let young people know they have not been forgotten.
For more than 20 years, children of prison inmates have received gifts through the "Angel Tree" program, an outreach of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Through Angel Tree, volunteers from churches deliver gifts to prisoners' children in the parents' name and deliver the gospel at the same time.
Mark Earley
Mark Earley is president of Prison Fellowship, the ministry that oversees Angel Tree. He says the program can make a big difference in the lives of a prisoner and his or her child.
"We find that many prisoners come to Christ because someone they don't know has taken the time to love their children," Earley says. "It begins to communicate to them in a way that, oftentimes, words can't, [demonstrating] what the love of God and what Jesus Christ and what Christmas are really all about."
Statistics show that children who have a parent in prison are six times more likely than other children to get in trouble themselves. But the prison ministry spokesman points out that this vicious cycle can be broken through the power of the gospel and the caring Christian intervention of the Angel Tree outreach. "We have children who come to Christ through this program," he notes, "and the other thing that happens is it connects these children with local churches."
Earley says Angel Tree is about families helping families. "We'll serve 564,000 children this year, all served through local churches -- almost 12,000 of them around the country," he explains. "We sign up the prisoners for the program who want to participate in the summer; they give us the names of their children, and we tell them that those names will be given to local churches."
Angel Tree also offers summer camps and year-round mentoring for volunteers and prisoners' kids. Earley calls the program "a tremendous way to show God's love and share the gospel with these children as well as minister to their parents who are in prison."
The Angel Tree website provides information on how churches and individual volunteers can get involved. The site also operates an online store, and the proceeds of every order placed there go to support the ministries of Prison Fellowship.
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