Author: Rebecca Lyles
Publisher: Perpedit Publishing, Ink Published: 2011-12-08 ISBN(s) 0615523781 / 978-0615523781 Illustrator: Joel Abeyta Language(s): English Category: Non-Fiction Audience: Adult Genre(s): Christianity, Religion, Life & Relationships Read Excerpt > I grew up in a small farming community in Kansas. My parents were farmers and devout Methodists, who took me to church with them throughout my childhood. When I was 18, I married my high-school sweetheart, Warren. We had our first child, Luanne, a year later. Our son, Nathan, was born three years later, during the Vietnam War. Shortly after Nathan’s birth, Warren enlisted in the Marine Corps. When he completed boot camp, he was stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina. Luanne, Nathan and I joined him there, but Warren was soon sent to Vietnam. The children and I remained in Beaufort, where I owned and operated a daycare center. I also worked part time as a waitress. One evening, I allowed Luanne to sleep at her friend Tanya’s house. What was to be a night of six-year-old fun and giggles turned into a nightmare when Tanya’s mother’s boyfriend brutally raped my daughter. Shortly after I brought Luanne home from the emergency room, the man who raped her came to our house to tell me he didn’t do it. Then he offered to have sex with me to compensate for the molestation of my beautiful daughter. I became very upset, and we got into a heated argument that ended when I shot and killed him. That sounds like a simple statement, but that’s what happened. My parents cared for my children while I served five years for manslaughter. I can’t begin to say what prison was like for a 23-year-old Methodist white girl from Kansas incarcerated in the South during that dark time of war and racial tension. I didn’t think I would live that first year, but in order to survive, a person changes. I changed for the worse, becoming angry and full of hate. I couldn’t understand how God could let something like that happen to me. I think that’s when I began to doubt God’s existence. Later on, I hated God. How I could deny that there is a God and hate him at the same time, I don’t know, but I did. |
"Prison ministry is my passion because I know how it changed my life." -- Pamela, Ex-inmate
The night God told Donna Roth he was sending her to jail to share his love with incarcerated individuals, she said, “Lord, you have the wrong house!” She had no experience or interest in prison ministry; yet, she was obedient, and Freedom Fellowship was formed. "On a Wing and a Prayer" features stories of inmates who found freedom inside prison walls through the ministry of Freedom Fellowship.
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