An Eye for Detail
Since he was paroled a year ago, Ken’s life hasn’t looked much like the traditional American dream.
At first glance, a prison might seem like an out-of-the-box place to find a church. It’s definitely not a spot where guests can google neighborhood churches on a Sunday morning and roll up in time to grab a donut before the 11 AM service.
Getting into Woodmen’s Ark Valley Campus – located inside the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility near Ordway, Colorado – can be a little complicated. But when you get out of Ark Valley and change your homes church to one of Woodmen’s Colorado Springs campuses, there’s always a good story to tell.
Let’s take a closer look at a man who recently completed his sentence at Ark Valley and moved to the Pikes Peak Region – a story that reminds us that our out-of-the-box God is at work in all kinds of people and all kinds of places.
Since he was paroled a year ago, Ken’s transition hasn’t looked much like the traditional American dream. He’s faced restrictions on his time and movement, failed job-interviews, worked taxing part-time jobs, depended on others for transportation and the list goes on.
However, if you spend a few minutes with Ken, it’s strikingly obvious that it isn’t the trials that dictate his outlook, but rather the blessings. “I’ve been given so much. Now I want to give back,” Ken says.
His eyes are watery with tears of gratitude as Ken recounts stories of God’s people blessing him: men from Woodmen volunteering to give him rides, his Community Group gifting him a mini-refrigerator, people offering him help to start his auto detailing business. At the end of every story, he looks up with his index finger pointed at the sky and smiles, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Ken’s unrelenting gratitude pushes him to look outward. He speaks of his desire to one day go back to Ark Valley and encourage his brothers in captivity. He gives a portion of his auto detailing income to the church. In every way possible, Ken gives all the glory and thanks to God.
Return to Stories