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My Call To Be A Chaplain
By Ed Ranck
When a boy
dreams of becoming a fireman, he thinks of the excitement, the speeding
red trucks, the flashing lights, and the sirens.
He thinks of how brave he will be as he rushes into a burning
building to rescue helpless victims. There
are dreams of praise and honor and gratitude for what he does.
What he doesn’t realize, however, are the days spent in training,
the hours spent washing hoses and preparing equipment for the next run,
and the periods of waiting between those brief times of excitement that
will be so much a part of his life. Sometimes
we, like that child, tend to idealize the job of a missionary chaplain.
Surely such an environment where he works and the challenges of his
job will provide a continuing source of excitement.
Not so.
Before I moved south in the spring of 1980 for my first term of service
with We Care, then known as New Life Foundation, Chaplain Martin Weber
gave me some advice that has stayed with me and served me well, not only
that year but also in this second term in prison work some twenty-five
years later. He said,
“Don’t come into prison ministry unless you are sure that God has
called you into it-for some days the knowledge that God has called you
here will be all that will keep you going in your work.”
Wise words from a man who I’m sure has experienced exactly that.
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I am currently
serving as chaplain at the Atmore Community Work Center, a minimum
security prison located just north of town.
The Work Center is part of a series of four prisons located
in the Atmore area. This
prison is a place for men nearing the completion of their sentence,
or within two years of parole
date—short timers. There
are approximately 250 men incarcerated there, living together in one
large room. The majority of the men are assigned to day jobs outside
the prison facility, mostly working for the surrounding towns and
counties, while the ones who remain in the camp during the day have
assignments involving the operation and care of the prison facility.
While the larger prisons in Alabama have fulltime state
chaplains, the smaller prisons, such as the Atmore Work Center, rely
on volunteer chaplains—volunteer defined here as not paid by the
state. |
It is one of
the missions of We Care to provide such chaplains.
Because of the small number of men who remain in the camp during
the day, I work there part time, mostly in the afternoons and evenings
when the men have returned from their jobs.
The remainder of my working hours are spent in various other duties
within the We Care organization, including building and grounds,
maintenance, and service with Doris as Mom and Dad for
the young adults who come to We Care to serve in a variety of ways.
There is a quiet satisfaction that comes with this job, a satisfaction I
don’t think is unique to this ministry but I believe is a gift God gives
to all those who have a place in His family, those who live and operate in
His will. I find this
satisfaction in sharing with John, who just found out he needs an
operation that may prove fatal. I
find it in praying with Wayne, a friend concerned because his thirteen
year old daughter Brittany is getting sassy and failing in school, and he
feels helpless, being in prison and not there to be a father to her.
It is there in having Norris say that during the New Year service
he laid his tobacco on the altar and hasn’t picked it up since.
Satisfaction comes from having a grizzly old fellow with a tooth
here and a tooth there give me a bear hug after a Bible study and thank me
for ministering to him. It
comes when a man of another faith accuses me of messing up people’s
minds because I’m teaching the gospel of God’s grace to his fellow
inmates.
Frustrating times include being told by the inmate leaders in my camp that
since I took over a certain ministry, the Holy Spirit has left those
services. Frustration comes
because I am afraid of a crusty old inmate who defends his lifestyle of
drug sales before he was incarcerated as harming no one, and states that
if marijuana were legalized, it would cause no problems.
I know what he needs to hear and have even prepared my speech for
him but have not found the courage to deliver it.
Frustration
comes from a certain inmate who tries so smoothly and insistently to
extract that extra favor from me. . .and another. . .and another. . .and
another. It comes on those
days when the hours drag on and on and nothing seems to be happening; when
a visit I thought consumed at least a half hour only lasted five minutes.
| Being a missionary chaplain with We Care is only a small part of the
team that makes this type of service possible.
There are daily reminders of the support of so many folks who
free us to serve in this way: letters of encouragement, prayers,
people who earn their living by hard work and have chosen to make
this ministry a part of their giving. There is always in the back of
our minds the realization that we are stewards of others’ labors
and have an ongoing responsibility to be good stewards of that trust
and the resources invested in us.
And we realize that God has entrusted us with the greatest
gift of all, His solution to our sin problem and an open way back to
Him, and the privilege we have to be called the children of God.
The work of a missionary chaplain is a trust, a challenge,
and a privilege. |
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Ed Ranck,
Chaplain Atmore Work Center
Talk given at
We Care Crusade, January 20, 2007
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