Mentoring

What are we doing here?

“Drew, I like being with you at Prayer and Share* and I like receiving letters from you. But, I want more time with you.”

 The idea of going into Torres** and mentoring individual men in white*** had not occurred to me until a man in white planted the seed.

I lived with the possibility for a bit before concluding that I wanted more time with the men in white I had grown to know and to care about.  I learned that there was a volunteers’ mentoring program in Torres I could join and be permitted to meet with men in white of my choice.

My first day to mentor at Torres was on March 3, 2018, a Saturday.  I had written the men in white I wanted to meet with asking them whether they wanted to meet with me.  Each could have said “no” but none did.

I went to the Education Building (where the chaplain’s office was) and the man in white I wanted to meet with was called out from his cell to meet with me.  We sat in student desks in a class room opposite each other, both no doubt wondering—“what are we doing here?”  

*Prayer and Share is held on a weekday evening between 6-8:30p. It is run by men in white for men in white.

**Torres Unit is a Texas state prison near Hondo, Texas.

***In Texas prisons, all inmates wear white.