Receiving a Great Gift - painting a picture of The Fellowship

Perhaps one of my most special days as a Fellowship Baptist occurred a couple of Fridays back. There are several threads to this story and I will try to keep it simple. Together it paints a picture of “the Fellowship.”

Last December, the Fellowship received a gift from Ricky Rollins, an inmate at the men’s prison in Bowling Green , Missouri . That prison has 2,000 inmates. The donor wanted his contribution to help Dianne and Shane McNary and their ministry with the Roma people in Slovakia and the Czech Republic . The Fellowship notified Doyle Sager –– one of our Missouri members of the national CBF Coordinating Council –– about the gift from a non-typical CBF donor. Doyle forwarded the info to me asking “who do we know who could visit this man?” Doyle also wrote a letter of encouragement to Ricky thanking him for his gift. I decided that my next visit to the St. Louis area would include an attempt to visit Ricky at the Correctional Center .

I knew I needed to get my name checked and cleared before I would be allowed to visit an inmate. I called the prison and indicated “a fellow there made a donation to our group and I would like to visit him.” The receptionist wanted to know if “CBF” was “a church.” I said “well, sort of.” She said, let me connect you with our chaplain, Tommy Barnhart.

I KNOW TOMMY BARNHART! Tommy and I met about 15 years ago when he was a bi-vocational pastor wanting to help Central Seminary. He continues in a bi-vocational church and is the prison chaplain for his full-time job.

The question curious minds wanted to know was: How did Ricky Rollins, a prison inmate in a Missouri prison, know about the McNarys? He read about them in fellowship!  Tommy Barnhart gets fellowship! and has a copy outside his office. Ricky heard and responded to a sermon by Tommy Barnhart about giving. Ricky picked up a copy of fellowship! after that sermon. From there he made a gift to CBF to support the McNarys.

Ricky Rollins: I had never met him before. I was just following up with a visit since I was in the St. Louis area. Ricky’s monetary gift was more like the widows mite than something major.

Chaplain Barnhart made arrangements for Ricky and me to meet in his office – rather than the prison’s Visitor Area. It is a small functional office and it was there we met.

Ricky is 35 years old. He murdered someone when he was 17 and has been in Missouri prisons for the past 19 years. His family has never visited him. He told about being beat by his mother and living under the supervision of his “auntie.” He told how he was the brunt of all the family problems “because I am a mulatto.” He became a Christian in recent times and helping others is what he wants to do. Visiting Ricky was perhaps one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. This whole blending of experiences – 

·         he has not been outside a prison wall for more than half his life and I can do about anything I want with my time. 

·        He gave a gift from the $10 he earns each month, and I find myself making reasons why “I can’t” help someone else. 

·        He told about his own racially mixed background and I told him about our daughter’s racially-mixed background.

·        He told me about his being beat with a garden hose and trying to protect himself as a child and I thought about how I enjoy visiting my parents and sister 

·        I have friends and family too numerous to count and Ricky has had no one visit him in 17 years.  

I learned that Ricky wrote to the parents of the person he killed apologizing and asking for their forgiveness. They responded back by extending forgiveness to him. (I don’t know if I could be like those parents). They also challenged him to “learn to forgive yourself.” Ricky said one of his daily challenges is doing what those parents challenged: “learn to forgive yourself.” (Chaplain Barnhart says he knows only about three inmates who have written the kind of letter Ricky wrote.)

We closed with prayer. It was a divine moment for me. Tommy Barnhart said that Ricky’s story of incarceration could be told hundreds of time in Missouri with the inmate population – which just compounded all those feelings swirling in my head.

Chaplain Barnhart and I talked about how the Fellowship could continue to “be the presence of Christ” to Ricky.  His suggestions were to find some folks to write Ricky from time to time and for me to visit him when I am in the St. Louis area. I am working with a St. Louis pastor to identify someone who can visit Ricky more frequently than I will be able to.

On that Friday in the Chaplains office, I met a new friend, Ricky Rollins. Even more special, I met a new Brother in Christ that day.

If you have time or interest here is contact info for Ricky:

Ricky Rollins

179219

Northeast Correctional Center

13698 Airport Road

Bowling Green , Missouri   63334

His birthday is coming soon and I am sure he would value a card or note from any of us

Birthday: 3-28-1972

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Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Missouri
5 East Kansas Street     Liberty, Missouri 64068
Phone: 816.415.0009     Fax: 816.736.0122     Email:info@cbfmo.org

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