WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HOPE IS BIGGER THAN FEAR?

Fear and hope are not usually the first words we associate with people in prison. But they are two things we hear again and again at One Parish One Prisoner.

We receive applications nearly every day from people in prison who are preparing for release. They tell us what they’re afraid of. They tell us what they’re hoping for. And again and again, what they want most is something that can feel surprisingly difficult to find: relationships.

I want to share several excerpts from some recent applications so you can hear some of the fears people carry as they prepare to come home.

“Opening up to new people is hard for me but I would like to do that. My fear is that it takes a lot for me to gain trust from people. I want to gain new and positive relationships with people that are like minded and always trying to complete goals.”

—MR

“The hardest change is to tell myself I’m allowed to have friends. That I’m allowed to be vulnerable, or share my story. I hope to benefit from this by having a sense of belonging. I tend to isolate myself. I can be socially awkward, so it scares me if someone thinks I’m boring, or a waste of time.”

—AW

“The hardest thing I think I’ll have to face is my lack of healthy upbringing. I never heard ‘I love you’ or was taught how to control or understand my emotions. I feel so behind when it comes to being healthy that I can get dejected very quickly. I need help to keep pursuing and believing that I can grow and change this late in life.”

—EN

Fear of rejection. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of not knowing how to belong.

These are deeply human fears.

Will people accept me? Will they judge me? Will I be able to trust them? Will they want to know me? Will I know how to let them?

For many people preparing to come home, the possibility of relationship is also a source of fear. And yet, they reach toward it anyway.

They’re telling us that they want relationships of embrace and trust. They’re telling us they don’t want to do this alone. And they’re willing to take the risk of asking a group of strangers to walk alongside them.

That is where hope enters the story.

“I am a 50 year old man that was born into the foster-care system and after having spent most of his adult life behind these concrete walls and fences, I look forward to escaping the system's grip on me. I lived most of my life lost as a soul until God revealed himself to me at 47. I’ve found myself finally ready to face the real me. And share that healthy version with healthy people.”

—BM

“Honestly, I never have experienced community. I’ve lived a gang related lifestyle entirely. My mother passed away at a very young age and my father was never there. I was educated and raised in the streets, I’m just ready for a new beginning.”

—AC

Hope inside the prison walls.

Hope that a community could actually care about them. Hope that they could become someone different from the person they have been. Hope that, after years of isolation, there might be people willing to know them—and stay.

That hope is what leads people to reach out, asking us to pair them with a group of strangers and trusting that those strangers will show up.

Right now, 83 people are waiting to be paired with an OPOP team. Fifteen of them need to be paired within the next year.

Behind that number are 83 people carrying both fear and hope into an uncertain future. People who are willing to risk rejection because they believe relationship is worth the risk.

What hopes help you move past fear?

Maybe starting a One Parish One Prisoner team is one way you can put your faith into action—by choosing relationship where distance could be easier, and discovering that mutual transformation can happen when we show up for one another.

Sometimes hope doesn’t make fear disappear. It simply gives us the courage to take the next step.

Dexter Kearny

Program Manager
One Parish One Prisoner