Alpha for Prisons

GAT team member, Nic Shearer, shares his experience:
The Alpha for Prisons Global Alpha Training event in Sierra Leone took place in the city of Bo from October 6-9 2011. It was a tremendously successful event, providing a much needed opportunity for prison chaplains, prison officers and pastors involved in prison ministry from across different regions of the country to come together and help one another in building a plan for the future of the prisons and prison populations in the country.
It was hugely encouraging to see how Alpha was picked up by all the different areas and ministries represented and seen as a vital tool that can play a crucial part in transforming the lives of prisoners across the country. There was a real sense of the vision for what the future could look like with Alpha running in the prisons alongside other practical rehabilitation and skills- based courses and how the Caring for Ex-Offenders Programme could be utilised by local churches in engaging with the prisons in their area and supporting ex-offenders on their release by embracing them in their community.
During the days before the training, we were privileged to have the opportunity to visit some of the prisons; the maximum security prison and the women’s prison in the capital Freetown, and three others in the provinces, and to speak to some of the inmates. We spoke about Alpha and the hope of a life lived in a relationship with God and the freedom that Jesus brings.  We were also able to take basic supplies, sleeping mats mostly, into some of the provincial prisons.
Finally, on the last day of our visit, we were able to speak at local churches about Alpha for Prisons and the Caring for Ex-Offenders programme and how the church can be the link in the community between the ex-offender and society, an idea that was embraced.

Sierra Leone is an extraordinary country, beautiful and diverse, it is still recovering from the wounds of its decade long civil war, and some of the scars are deep. But there is such a sense of hope and a vision for change and for the future, a desire to see the lives of its inhabitants transformed and for the country to be reconciled to itself as it forges a new identity. It was humbling to be around people who give of everything they have, including of themselves.
Please continue to pray for Sierra Leone as the country takes tentative steps towards its bright future and for all the amazing men and women, of such deep conviction and wonderful humility, who are involved in the work in prisons and prison ministry. Please pray too for the director of Alpha in Sierra Leone, Pastor Joseph Francis Williams, and his team as they seek to build on these three days and continue to cultivate the seeds that have been planted. They will be embarking on a trip around the country to all of the regional prisons to help chaplaincies take the next practical steps towards setting up Alpha courses in the prisons.  We pray for God’s blessing and protection on them.  And God bless Sierra Leone.