Dear True North Ministry Supporters!

A lot of times ministering to imprisoned youth is a serious work.  With so much darkness and brokenness in the facilities doing the work of the gospel in this mission field is spiritually demanding.  However, one thing that we have learned about the youth is that no matter how hard their exterior might be, deep down their children at heart.

 This is a photo from the group of young men from Indian River JCF who come out to the True North Ministry Compass Center on Wednesdays.  Between working in the shop and having lunch they took sometime to have fun in the snow.  It was awesome to see their creativity and teamwork skills in action.  For a lot of young men in the facilities, building a snow man is either a distant childhood memory or something they have never done.

As you can see this snow man is a hard working, blue collar, kind of snow man.

For those of you who don’t know True North Ministry has a special program where youth who meet a certain behavior standard can earn the privilage of coming out to our property to do community service.  The youth come out to work on the farm-like property, have a sit down family-style meal together with our staff and volunteers, and then have a Bible Study.  For the new guys who come out we typically ask them what they like best.  Almost every single young man tells us something like this; “it’s peaceful, I can clear my head out here.”  The second thing, of course, is the food.  They may be children at heart, but they have teenage guy stomachs!  These guys can eat too!!

Continue to pray for the young men who visit the True North Ministry property.  When the hours of peaceful farm work pass by, they make the trip back to the facilities to endure another week of their sentence.  Many young men are already Christians trying to grow in faith amid the opposition of their surroundings.  Pray for our brothers and sisters in the Lord who are currently locked up.  Also pray for the young men who don’t know the Lord, that they would come to know the liberation and freedom of Jesus Christ!

by State law we are required to blur out the young mens faces

Hello True North Ministry Supporters!

 This is the first post of our official weekly-blog.  We will be keeping you in the loop with how God is liberating imprisoned youth on our property as well as in the many State and County level facilities we work in, so stay tuned folks!

 The past few weeks Becky, Fred, and myself have been visiting the four State level institutions doing recruiting for the mentor initiative.  This mentoring initiative is big!  We’ve partnered with the State of Ohio to have more access to youth than ever before.  Our goal is to pair them up with Godly men and women for long term mentoring.

 The Initiative is entitled M4:6 which stands for Malachi 4:6 where it says “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers;”  This is our heart for the initiative.  You can view all the details at www.truenorthministry.org/m46.

 During our visit to Scioto last week we visited a young man in “lock up” Unit.  This is a special unit for young men who acted out in extreme ways.  They are only allowed out of their cells one hour a day.  When you walk into the main part of the unit all of the young men stare at you from out of the small window in their door.  It’s hard to believe that 15-year-old kids can be locked up in this way.  We walked over to talk to one young man named Darren.  We had to yell to him through the window to have a conversation.  Fred began to explain to him the mentor program.  Darren then  asked very sternly “is this about God?”  We said yes.  Then he replied “ok, then count me in!”  We slipped the application under his door and he immediately filled it out.

God is moving in the darkest of place.   He’s already calling hearts to him It’s exciting to see the glory of Jesus invade such darkness.

 But here’s the thing, Darren is still waiting on his mentor.  At this point we have far more mentees than mentors.  Many like Darren have been sitting in they’re cells waiting for weeks for the love and fellowship of a spirit filled Christian mentor.

 We are now in the recruitment and training process.  If you have a mens group, a Bible study, a church, a pastor, anybody; we are ready to come and present the initiative and recruit men (and women) to take up this calling.  The brochures will be shipped in this week, the webpage and promo video is complete, we are ready, are you?  Help us promote the initiative in your area of influence.  Help see these youth liberated!

 Most importantly pray!  I want this blog to be a connection point for our supporters to join us in prayer.  We as a ministry want to keep you better informed with what the Lord is doing so that you can be strategic in your prayers.  We love you and thank you for your support.

 Nate Slaughter – Assistant Programs Director

True North Ministry