Home > Opinion > Journey asks Beatriz Skippen: What does hope mean to you?

Journey asks Beatriz Skippen: What does hope mean to you?

Beatriz Skippen. Photo by Phillip Johnson
HOPE IS very important for Prison Ministry; hope in Jesus.

Christ means hope to everyone who wants to reach hope.

In the prison hope is tangible. Many times when we talk with the inmates we need to share the hope of Christ.

Last Friday I was in one of the prisons and one of the inmates said to me, “I’m here and I really don’t know what to do.

I just received the news that I will be here for 20 years and I didn’t do what they are accusing me of, but I will be here for 20 years.”

At that particular moment we need to say, “Well, we have hope in Christ.

We need to overcome the situations we have.

We must identify Christ during that journey.”

When I go and see the guys in the detention unit, which is a confi ned place, they don’t have access to anyone, the only one that they can reach is Christ and they need to have that hope.

When I was journeying with cancer, many times I thought, “Lord, I just want to see your face and I will be happy”.

But the guys said to me, “Beatriz, we need to have hope and we want you to stay here.”

They did this drawing (right) and sent it to me.

All 575 inmates from that prison had the hope that one day I would go back to them and we would worship God.

We need to pass that hope that we have in Christ to the families when a mother calls us and says, “My son is in prison and I don’t know how long he will be there”, or when a child says, “I want to see my daddy and daddy won’t be with me for Christmas”.

Christ means hope to everyone who wants to reach hope.

Photo : Beatriz Skippen. Photo by Phillip Johnson