256
The executive director of IFI was Jerry Wilger. I don't know the story of how Jerry got involved with IFI, or how he became the Executive Director. I just knew he was rich, and at the time, Prison Fellowship looooooved rich people.
Jerry was a self-made man who did something with buying companies and revamping them, making them profitable and selling them for big money. It also had something to do with airplanes.
Jerry was a good-hearted guy. but again, he seemed oblivious to how God's Kingdom worked. He approached managing IFI like a corporation. Jerry was not a listener, he was a talker and a doer.
In Texas one time I had dinner with Jerry, his wonderful wife Glenna, and Jack. We were trying an Italian restaurant. As we are standing in the lobby Jerry says, "I'm going to go see if they are cooking this food right. I'll be back." He then strides past everyone else waiting and the servers and directly back into the kitchen, out of sight. I look at Jack and Glenna and they don't seem shocked at all. Finally Jerry comes back out of the swinging kitchen doors and reports to the whole lobby, "They are cooking right, so we can eat here." That was Jerry.
Jerry loved "Community Bible Study" and we used that curriculum on Wednesday nights. Glenna was also greatly involved in "CBS" so it was the core of our Wednesday night curriculum in the prison.
Sam had a good relationship with Jerry, so generally I didn't have to deal directly with him. The deep discussions we were having amongst ourselves as an IFI staff would have (and did) fall(en) on deaf ears. We had to frame information so that Jerry could receive it. He was a bottom-line guy, and that bottom line had to be IFI graduates not coming back to prison.
Ultimately we did well on that particular expectation.
chris
No comments:
Post a Comment