Well, I think I’ve finally figured out how we can stay connected. Since I am off all social media platforms (see my blog “Where O Where Have You Been”), I am going to start blogging/posting something on a regular basis on this website. Please tell anyone who knows me and wants to know what is going on with Prison Power Ministries to sign up to receive my blogs. I don’t even know for sure what a blog is, but I will just be writing to keep everyone up to speed on what we are doing in the ministry.
I can tell you for sure that there hasn’t been much ministry going on inside the walls for the last fifteen months. The dreaded Covid-19 made sure of that. My last blog was back in December 2020, and at that time there had been 249,883 cases of coronavirus in U.S. Prisons. Six short months later, that number has grown to 398,625. The inmate deaths in prisons in December 2020 were 1,657. Since that time, death numbers have grown to 2,714, with 209 deaths among staff members.
This disease has been extremely hard on prison inmates. They get no visits from family, no ministry from the outside. Many prisons have been on lockdown, which means no yard time, no gym time. There is an extremely high demand for books to read—that’s where we’ve been able to help this past year plus. We’ve shipped my personal testimony The Ultimate Pardon in for the last several years. Now we’ve taken it up a notch. We just printed 25,000 more copies, bringing us up to over 110,000 copies in print. We, along with our partners, have placed it in over 2,500 prisons and jails in all 50 states.
During Covid-19, we came out with two more books. Nuggets of Gold by 12 Ex-Cons is a mini devotional that has entries from . . . well, 12 Ex-Cons. Already, there are over 60,000 copies in print and it is flying into the prisons. Our newest book, Diamonds From The Rough, was just finished and is on the way to the printers now. I was going to call it Diamonds In The Rough until Debbie said, “Sounds like they’re still in the rough.” So, that’s where we got the name. It contains testimonies (Revelation 12:11) of nine of our close friends who were in deep darkness and have been walking for years now as diamonds full of light.
On a happy note, Debbie and I, and Ray and Lisa Stribling got to go into Morgan County Jail in Versailles Missouri a couple of weeks ago. Many thanks to one of our ministry partners, Jesse Ward, for getting us in. Debbie and Lisa got to stay the whole time in the women’s pod. Ray, Jesse, and I went to four different men’s pods where we shared and left a good number of books in each pod. It was a great night. A breath of fresh air for all of us. It was my first trip back into a prison or jail since December 2019 because of my back surgery in October 2019, then months of complications, and then everything prison wise shut down for Covid.
We are about to be rid of these things bank robbers wore to make their living. PTL!!
I’m believing for some exciting things to happen in the coming months. Prisons are starting to open up on a limited basis in some states. We have prison events in the making. Stay tuned to hear about them.
Thanks to all who signed up for this blog. If you know anyone who wants to keep up with Prison Power Ministries tell them to sign up or get in touch with me.
In HIS grip,
Bill Corum
www.theultimatepardon.com