Tag Archives: Jail

December 1, 2016 · 1:06 pm

Learning in Jail, Using Wikipedia

I lead a weekly Education for Ministry seminar at Elmwood Correctional Facility (County Jail in Milpitas, California). This month, we started our second EfM term inside Elmwood. Our seminar includes six men in Year-1 (studying Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible) plus four continuing to Year-2 (studying Powell’s Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey). We use college-level texts plus Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, and the EfM Reading and Reflection Guide, with other resources in both English and Spanish.

I am also the EfM Mentor for another weekly seminar hosted by Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, CA). One of the differences between my two classes is availability of outside reference materials. The student inmates do not have web access. So, I make a standing offer to print out articles from Wikipedia and other sources to supplement assigned texts. The EfM students at Elmwood are deeply curious and want to learn all they can, especially about text and biblical references and topics raised during our theological reflections.

Yesterday night, I was asked to look up the Oracle of Delphi, lyrics to two hymns, and Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. I bring in printouts glued at the corner (staples are forbidden). During the last year, I have provided Wikipedia articles on these topics:

Amenemope (pharaoh)	Apostle (Christian)	Archangel	Ark of the Covenant	Assumption of Moses
Baptism of Jesus	Bel and the Dragon	Ben Sira	Bible translations into English	Book of Amos
Book of Baruch	Book of Jasher (biblical references)	Book of the Wars of the Lord	Book of Kings	Cain and Abel
Cenacle	Civil and political rights	Code of Hammurabi	Crossing the Red Sea	Crusades
David	Davidic line	Diodorus Siculus	Don Quixote	Francis of Assisi
Golden calf	Gospel of Jesus’ Wife	Herodotus	Historical criticism	History of ancient Israel and Judah
Huldrych Zwingli	Ignatius of Loyola	Innocence Project	Instruction of Amenemope	Isaac
John Calvin	Levite	Maimonides	Martin Luther	Nephilim
Noah	Nostradamus	Oxford Martyrs	Paleontology in New York	Paul the Apostle
Peter	Qarqar	Rechabite	Sanchuniathon	Sirach
Sodom and Gomorrah	Ten Commandments	Ten Lost Tribes	Tertullian	Third Temple
Unknown years of Jesus	Western Wall	William Shakespeare	Zayin	.

If you are interested in volunteering in a Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) jail, please contact the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy (CIC).

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Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy - CIC, Episcopal church, Jail, Mentoring, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching, Wikipedia

November 29, 2016 · 1:23 pm

Honoring Jail Ministry

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves honored dozens of jail and prison ministry volunteers last month, among them, myself. Since 2007 Bishop Mary has served as the third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real (ECR) in California. Since 2015, she has also been the Vice President of the House of Bishops. Some years ago, Bishop Mary created the Simple Servant Award to honor those working as faithful ministers in the community.

I was out of town – in Sewanee, Tennessee, renewing my Education for Ministry Mentor Accreditation, and being trained as the Diocesan Coordinator for EfM – so I missed the Simple Servant presentation at the ECR annual convention on 4 November 2016. However, my husband John Plocher helped Bishop Mary prepare her presentation slides, so I was able to contribute photos and information in advance. The Reverend Peggy Bryan worked with two of my student inmates on the artwork for the certificate.

Jack Fanning and I received our certificates the following week. Jack helped me to start the first EfM program at Elmwood Correctional Facility (Milpitas, California). There are about 25 EfM seminars in prisons in the USA but ours seems to be the first class in a county jail. We just started our second EfM term inside Elmwood. Our seminar includes have six men in Year-1 plus four continuing to Year-2. Thanks to the University of the South, The Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real, CIC Ministries, and Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church for their joint and generous support of this program!

If you are interested in volunteering in a Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) jail, please contact the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy (CIC).

Two photos taken by Elrond Lawrence of the 4 November 2016 presentation in Salinas:

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Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy - CIC, Jail, John, Silicon Valley, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching

July 21, 2016 · 5:28 pm

Standing Up in Court

For the first time, today I was a witness in a criminal justice hearing. As I wrote on 11 April 2016, I have been teaching in jail every week as part of Education for Ministry (EfM), an extension program of the University of the South – School of Theology, for which I am an Accredited Mentor and the El Camino Real Diocesan Coordinator.

One of the Elmwood Jail student-mentees in my EfM seminar had a Romero hearing today and I was in court as a character witness. “The People of the State of California v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 CAL. 4TH 497, 917 P.2D 628 (Cal. 1996), was a landmark case in the state of California that gave California Superior Court judges the ability to dismiss a criminal defendant’s ‘strike prior’ pursuant to the California Three-strikes law, thereby avoiding a 25-to-life minimum sentence” (quote from Wikipedia). In today’s Romero hearing, the Defendant (my student-mentee) had the opportunity to reduce his sentence from an indeterminate number of years (that is, being sentenced to triple digit years without parole) to a sentence that may be completed during his lifetime. I was the only witness present in court today but others had written letters to the judge asking for mercy in his case. The hearing was brief but thorough. The judge listened to me and the lawyers for the Defendant and Plaintiff (“the people”), then reviewed submitted documents. What seemed to make a positive difference in this case was that the Defendant:

Has shown remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions
Has demonstrated a sustained change in his behavior, character, and prospects for the future
Did not use physical violence
Is middle aged already

I was glad that the judge ruled in favor of the Defendant today and gave him a sentence of 30 years without parole. My student-mentee will be an old man when he gets out of prison but with luck and good behavior, he will get out someday. This was the result he had hoped for.

When I serve each year as a Mentor in the TechWomen program of the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, my Mentees may go on to start businesses, accelerate their professional careers, attend graduate school, and change the world for the better. When I am a Mentor each year for the EfM class hosted by Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, my student-mentees after four years of study graduate with more awareness of their personal ministry and with a solid education in the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics.

I am learning that as a Mentor for an EfM seminar in a county jail, my student-mentees gain the same education and potential for awareness of their personal ministry but have smaller potential to change the world for the better. Even after they leave jail or prison, their socioeconomic status is so low that their prospects are modest as members of the community. I am learning to celebrate the wins we can get, among them: passing the high school equivalency exam, reconciling with family, being accepted into a good reentry program, and getting a positive Romero judgement as we did today.

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Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, Jail, Mentoring, San Jose, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching, TechWomen

June 13, 2016 · 12:38 pm

Bishop Mary Visits Jail

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves and Deacon Robert Seifert spent the afternoon at Elmwood Jail yesterday with the Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church jail ministry team, lead by the Reverend Peggy Bryan. In addition to the St. Andrew’s volunteers, Elmwood Chaplain Jennifer Bales went with us yesterday to two dorms. The first was a minimum security area holding about fifty inmates where St. Andrew’s offers Christian worship service every Sunday afternoon. The second area was a medium security dorm where I teach a Education for Ministry (EfM) seminar every Wednesday night. EfM is a University of the South – School of Theology extension program.

In thanks for her support – both financially in paying for half the cost of their EfM books and tuition, and spiritually with her prayers – the inmates signed a printout of our group-written “Collect for Week 14” as a gift for Bishop Mary. “Collect” is another word for prayer. We wrote this collect as part of our 1 June theological reflection exercise in class. The text is:

Collect for Week 14

Dear God, omnipotent in heaven, creator, Love, and perfect.

You watch over the oppressed, create people in perfection, never leave us alone, bring joy, and protect your creation.

We pray that you give us freedom, protection, wisdom, and guidance. Increase our faith, give us knowledge to know you better.
So that we are in heaven with you.

We praise your Holy Name. We keep our eyes on the prize: getting into heaven and gaining eternal life.

Amen.

My goal in asking Bishop Mary to visit was that the inmates would know that whether they are released soon or spend the rest of their lives in prison, they are valued human beings and part of a faith community who are praying for them. Many if not most of the Elmwood inmates are recovering (or not) from substance abuse, or are mentally ill. “Of the 3,600 inmates at the Main Jail and Elmwood in Milpitas, 43 percent suffer from a mental illness” officials reported in September 2015. Many of the 120 recommendations by the Blue Ribbon Commission for improved jail operations are with regard to Mental Health services. Even for the healthy, jail is a depressing place. Knowing that they are important to someone is a step forward.

If you are interested in volunteering to visit jail in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley), California, please contact the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy (CIC).

Teaching in Jail

I have been developing an experimental Education for Ministry (EfM) program at Elmwood jail this year, with the support of the Rev. Peggy Byran and CIC Chaplain Jennifer Bales. Since 2015, I have been visiting the prisoners at Elmwood in Milpitas, California, as part of the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy (CIC). Worship in jail is one of the long-term outreach efforts of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Saratoga, CA. The college-level EfM textbooks and program tuition funds for ten inmates were raised through strong support from the Right Reverend Bishop Mary Grey Reeves and St. Andrew’s Rector, the Rev. Channing Smith. The University of the South – School of Theology EfM program itself supports prison ministry by giving a significant discount in book and tuition costs. We could not make this program work without the assistance of staff working in the Elmwood Correctional Complex. I am thankful to all who are enabling our class to develop. I have been an Accredited Mentor with EfM since 2011 and have been running a weekly seminar at St. Andrew’s since then. Last year, I became the El Camino Real Diocesan Coordinator for EfM.

About EfM:

Education for Ministry (EfM) is a unique four-year distance learning certificate program in theological education based upon small-group study and practice. Since its founding in 1975, this international program has assisted more than 80,000 participants in discovering and nurturing their call to Christian service. EfM helps the faithful encounter the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition and bring it into conversation with their experiences of the world as they study, worship, and engage in theological reflection together.

About CIC:

Our primary mission is to respond to the individual spiritual needs of incarcerated youth and adults in Santa Clara County and present the good news of God’s love and forgiveness. As people respond to the messages of faith, they can experience lives of purpose and hope. Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy is a non-profit corporation, founded in 1962. CIC operates in cooperation with the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Department of Correction, Probation Department, and other government agencies as needed.

I go into Elmwood each week with Patrick Ryan, a St. Andrew’s parishioner who joined our class as a regular student. I understand that are about 25 EfM seminars in prisons in the USA but ours seems to be the first class in a jail. Inmates are at Elmwood for up to five years; many are still in the justice process, waiting for their cases to be heard or resolved. My class is exploring how to run an EfM seminar in a jail, if it can even be done. A primary difficulty of running a jail-based EfM class is that the seminar is nine months long and inmates often do not know how long they will be in for. We began with ten registered men students at the start of March 2016. Some have dropped out and others have joined, leaving us with eight students as of last week.

Since we are starting Week 7 (reading Exodus 1-15 in the Bible, plus Chapter 5 of Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible), I am not adding any more students – it will be too hard for them to catch up on the reading. The students are energetic in raising questions and enthusiastic in our discussions. I do not think any of them have been to college but they are all devoted readers of the Bible and have been doing their extensive homework reading each week. In addition to the assigned material, we are also working on study skills and learning to back opinions with material from the texts. Two Elmwood inmates who were released in the first few weeks of class have come to services at St. Andrew’s and expressed interest in joining the parish-based EfM class when the next term starts in September. Their faith and dedication to learning is inspiring.

Last week, I attended my annual CIC jail ministry training for volunteers. With song and prayer and a interesting presentation by Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, about a hundred of us from dozens of faith communities renewed our connections and updated our understanding. Last year’s speaker was the remarkable and inspiring Judge Stephen Manley, who has served on the bench in Santa Clara County for over 25 years and was a founder of the Drug Treatment Court as well as the Santa Clara County Mental Health Treatment Court. CIC and EfM both run inspiring and life-changing programs. I hope we can create a long-term program that brings them together at Elmwood jail.

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Tagged as Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, Jail, Mentoring, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching

March 16, 2016 · 3:46 pm

Understanding Gaza

In the month since I was in Gaza City, I have been thinking through that journey. Living in East Palo Alto for 20 years and teaching in a prison are two experiences that have given me some perspective on Gaza. I lived in EPA when it was named the murder capital of America. (EPA was where I could afford a house as a single mother working in the Silicon Valley – lower house prices being one of its virtues.) I recently started mentoring an EfM seminar at Elmwood Jail in Milpitas. Both EPA and jail can be dangerous and depressing places, but they can also be home and a ground for community support, growth, laughter, and love. When we visited Gaza, I saw devastation, poverty, and political anger but I was warmly welcomed by hundreds of locals who are building their lives and working to raise their community from the ruins. Five of us went to Gaza together: Erin Keeley, Eileen Brewer, Aliya Janjua, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and me. It was the first visit by a group of executive technical women ever hosted by MercyCorps and Gaza Sky Geeks. Ours was also the first group visit by TechWomen mentors to our Palestinian mentees.

When I got back from three weeks in the Middle East and Africa, I briefly described Jordan, Israel – Palestine, and Zimbabwe to the men in my class at Elmwood. Trying to explain Gaza, I compared its twenty-year siege to lockdown, when inmates are immediately locked in their cells and all jail visitors must quickly leave because of an emergency situation. While we were with the TechWomen Delegation in Jordan and during the two days we toured Israel before going to Gaza, we often heard deep surprise that we would be allowed in at all. While we were in Gaza City, people on the street were very surprised to see us shopping and eating out. We were told that many outsiders who visit Gaza drive through quickly, surrounded by guards. We did follow MercyCorps’ rules to only go out during the day and early evening and always to be accompanied by a MercyCorps staff member but we were treated with hospitality and respect whereever we went. Of course, I mostly was with my 2014 mentee Mai Temraz and her charming family!

Although Gaza is primarily Islamic, we visited the 50-bed Ahli Arab Hospital (supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem) and the Church of Saint Porphyrius (Greek Orthodox) between giving presentations on mentoring, venture capital, design thinking, crowd funding and other professional topics. One effect of the long siege of Gaza is that the small Ahli Arab Hospital treats tens of thousands of patients per year with a mortality rate for diseases such a breast cancer at about triple – partly because of a lack of local medical facilities and the difficulty in getting patients out of Gaza promptly for treatment elsewhere.

One of the most difficult conversations I had several times with professional women in Gaza was whether they should stay or go. Gaza is blessed with many talented and educated people whom it needs to rebuild after each conflict ends. However, those are the people who can most easily qualify for graduate school, jobs, and programs elsewhere – which may be the best choice for them and their immediate families. My prayers are with the people of Gaza every day.

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Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews

Tagged as Education for Ministry, Geeks, Israel, Jail, Jessica, Mentoring, Middle East, Palestine, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, Zimbabwe

November 14, 2015 · 7:40 pm

Farsi, Art, Prayer at Elmwood Jail

This year, I have been working in a ministry new to me: visiting the prisoners at the Elmwood jail in Milpitas, California, as part of the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy. This is one of the outreach efforts of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Saratoga, which has supported a variety of jail ministries for many decades. Since last summer, I have started visiting the jail once a month, after going through an extensive application, clearance and training process. Some volunteers visit more often. The Rev. Peggy Bryan leads our group of three in a Sunday afternoon service of song and prayer each week. We use a basic form of the same service used at St. Andrew’s on Sunday mornings. Peggy brings in recorded music chosen by the inmates – and they also sing songs to us as part of our worship.

I have gotten to know a little about some of the prisoners in the group we visit. One inmate is an older man from Iran who mostly speaks Farsi and asked if we could find him books in his native language. My Farsi-speaking friends found him an English-Farsi dictionary a few weeks ago and this week I am bringing him two novels. Another inmate drew the images you see here. The men only have access to short pencils – he does his drawings on envelopes. He told me that he learned to draw watching his mother who is a tattoo artist, and from reading a basic art book that someone gave him. Prisoners make their pencils longer by using string made from plastic bags woven into a long sleeve that grips the wooden casing. The 35 year old native of San Jose, California, said his advice to other artists is “Never give up, keep trying!”

The inmates we visit can be at Elmwood for up to five years and many are still in the justice process, waiting for their cases to be heard or resolved. They live in a barracks-style room with about forty other men, wearing pale green or brown clothes with orange plastic sandals. Some of the men are leaders or caretakers for their community, others are more passive. Their lives are on hold while they are in jail.

16 Nov 2015 Update: I visited Elmwood yesterday and showed the inmates a printout of this blog post. All three seemed pleased and gave me permission to share their stories. If you are interested in serving in this jail ministry, please contact the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy.

21 Jan 2016 Updated to omit names

Tag Archives: Jail

Learning in Jail, Using Wikipedia

Honoring Jail Ministry

Standing Up in Court

Bishop Mary Visits Jail

Collect for Week 14

Teaching in Jail

Understanding Gaza

Farsi, Art, Prayer at Elmwood Jail

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