After a short time at IFI there were two counselors in
particular that I had concerns about. One of them was Mickey.
She was a person with a colorful history. Apparently she had
a troubled past and was the recipient of some of Prison Fellowship’s
ministries. She was from England
and had the accent. She was (I believe)
Sri Lankan by decent. She was
specifically our substance abuse counselor.
Reportedly, she had a nursing degree and had worked as a nurse in some
sort of treatment capacity. She did not
display good boundaries within the prison so she drove security crazy. After a few conversations with her, I had my
doubts that she had any credentials at all.
Mercifully, before the end of my first year, she was no longer with IFI.
Gary was another
counselor I had concerns about, not so much that he was unethical or dangerous
in any way, quite the opposite. He was so loving and empathetic. He really
cared for his guys, and they cared for him.
It was that he became so enmeshed with his men, he would over-advocate
and get tunnel-visioned and ultimately bamboozeled by guys wanting to take
advantage of him.
I think Gary
liked me (I certainly liked him) but he was very suspicious of me because I was
a “tongue-talker.” Gary
had graduated for the same Bible College
I had attended, so I knew he would struggle with my “practices.” The ironic part was that, to me, Gary
was clearly prophetic, especially when he prayed. We had a baptism service on the unit one time
and Gary would pray for the men he
was baptizing. Before long he wasn’t just praying nice prayers of blessing, he
was proclaiming their future with statements like, “You will go on and be a
blessings to the Nations!” which elicited a shout from within me. I looked over
at Gene Feagan and he was nodding and shaking his arm (which was one of those
Holy Spirit manifestations I’d seen from him many times.) Gary
would weep for his men. Actually, he was so tender-hearted he would weep often.
Bur Gary was very
knowledge-based and he resisted the notion that some of the Charismatic stuff
he was so opposed to was actually the very ingredient needed for not only the
men, but his own life. Unfortunately,
his black and white thinking, his sense of justice, and his over-advocacy for
his men got the better of him and before my first year at IFI was out, he was
gone.
chris
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