August of 2000, we made the transition from Tennessee
back (for me) to Iowa. We found a newly remodeled house large enough
for us in Newton. The boys were 8, 6, 3, and 1
respectively. We were close to my
parents and brother and closer to Amy’s sister, Molly in Hannibal,
MO.
I knew things would be difficult. I just wasn’t sure “how”
or “where” they would be difficult. And
of course, the “trouble” came from directions I was not necessarily expecting.
Some interesting tie-ins for me personally were that John
Mathis, the warden, was friends with my parents. Also, my mother was good friends with Warden
Mathis’ secretary.
I also had some history with the IFI-counseling staff. I had gone to Central
Bible College
with one of the counselors, Steve Castaneda. I had even sung at his wedding in 1984. I had met another counselor, Gary Cox. He was also a Central graduate and originally
from my home town of Knoxville. He had previously been an instructor at Iowa
Christian College (ICC). I had been a
featured artist at a Youth Weekend at ICC one time and we had a lengthy
conversation, but he didn’t remember me.
Dan Kingery had been a volunteer who was hired as a counselor a month
before I arrived. He also lived in Knoxville,
but originally was from Newton. The
previous Program Manager, Bruce Paulus was someone I knew from Central. The “Drug Treatment” counselor was of Sri
Lankan descent and from England,
her name was Mickey Pope. The Aftercare
Manager Greg Allen was from Pella
and it just so happened that I wrestled against the Pella
squad he was on. Of course Sam Dye was
the director.
I had a clear belief that I was “assigned” by God to be
there. It was a fall-back position I
went to often that first year when things were bad. The Holy Spirit was communicating clearly to
me at that time, probably because I was so desperate and so inadequate. It was a hard start, but a good one (not one,
however, I’d like to repeat.)
Prison itself has a very static culture and there was a
firmly established culture at IFI when I arrived. There were so many “things” floating around
and I knew enough at the time to not answer any questions or requests. I was
there to learn and absorb.
None-the-less, I was bombarded by questions from the
inmates, DOC staff, and IFI staff. I
can’t describe to you how intense the questioning was. “Can I do this, can we get that, will we do this, hey, Bruce said this
was going to happen, I was promised that, I have an idea, are we going to do
this…” These questions came from
everywhere, particularly IFI members and volunteers. 99.9% of my answers were “No”, “I’m not
looking at that right now” or “I’ll check and I might get back with you.” I committed to nothing. Mainly because I
didn’t know anything, but also I immediately knew, IFI needed to narrow its
focus. The amount of peripheral stuff
that was floating around was un-do-able.
Needless to say, I immediately started pissing people off.
DOC staff, IFI staff, volunteers, and IFI members alike. There were so many under-the-table-end-around-pet-projects
out there, I thought I would just go ahead and squash them all.
Not fun, but necessary.
chris
Thanks for sticking it out Chris!
ReplyDeletethank you Chris for not settling for half way some fences are harder to climb down from than others and before I committed I had to know that I could do that without failing.You are my Spiritual Hero Thank you for keeping me real.
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