Saturday, October 11, 1997

ACU student helps spread the word at French Robertson

By LORETTA FULTON Senior Staff Writer

ACU junior Marshall Coffey has discovered a common ground in the two worlds he knows best, two worlds that on the surface are poles apart.

Much of Coffey's time is spent in the world of learning at Abilene Christian University. But a significant amount of time also is spent in a world foreign to most of us - inside the walls of the French Robertson Unit, a maximum security prison north of Abilene.

"It works wonderfully together," Coffey said. When he returns to the classroom, he finds that what he's learning at the prison "reinforces what I'm learning out here (at ACU)."

Coffey spends about 15 hours a week at the prison assisting senior chaplain Stanley Wilson and Glenn Byers, an ACU graduate who is sponsored in his prison ministry by Southern Hills Church of Christ.

"I'm like a missionary inside the prison," Byers said.

Coffey is not getting college credit now for his volunteer time but will in the future. ACU also has a graduate program which provides for a Certification in Prison Chaplaincy. The program was begun in 1993 and includes courses in sociology, psychiatry and ministry.

It is designed for people currently involved in prison ministry, church members, students preparing for congregational ministry and master of divinity students planning a career in prison chaplaincy.

As a missions major, Coffey is finding an abundant mission field at the prison, but he knows he can't be everything to everyone.

"I just try to make a difference in a few lives," he said.

He, Wilson and Byers all know that prison offers an excellent opportunity for changing lives, but it involves a personal relationship.

"Effective prison ministry is not congregation centered, it's one-on-one" said Wilson, who has been in prison chaplaincy eight years. "That's really where the good is done."

The rewards of the job are immediate and obvious, which isn't always true of ministry in the free world.

"Everything is full blown or not at all," Wilson said. "You see dramatic results."

Byers, who was a volunteer chaplain at Huntsville before moving to Abilene seven years ago, has seen dramatic changes in the way inmates conduct themselves.

"You can see people who used to fight a lot not fight or who used to gamble a lot not gamble," he said. "It's good to see men wrestle with the way they think and feel."

Coffey, too, has experienced those dramatic results. He was called upon to tell an inmate about a family death. The inmate then began to question his own life and to seek changes for himself, Coffey said. The relationship that Coffey and the inmate had developed helped the man with his quest.

"It's not easy to turn your life around, and it helps to know someone cares about you," Coffey said.

About 90 inmates attend worship services in the prison chapel and that's where the chaplains make contact with the ones who want further contact. Chaplains can assist prisoners in ways that no one else can, Wilson said.

For example, only chaplains can facilitate emergency phone calls for inmates. But mainly, the inmates want to talk to a chaplain about family problems, difficulties of incarceration and their own spirituality.

"Questions about their own salvation would probably be the biggest thing," Coffey said.

Although Coffey isn't sure about his future, he knows it will be in some kind of mission work, whether in a prison or a foreign land. He probably will let graduate school help make the decision.

"I'm still waiting on that to see what the Lord would have me do."