Christmas cards needed for prison outreach

USA (MNN) — Christmas Cards — just about everyone receives one this time of year. But, there’s one segment of society in the United States that goes without — prison inmates. That’s why Crossroad Bible Institute is asking you to help supply them to those who are a part of their prison based Bible correspondence classes.

CBI’s President David Schuringa says it’s called ‘Send A Card’ program. “80-percent of prisoners receive no personal mail at all, let alone Christmas cards. So, we’re providing an opportunity for anybody that’s out there to get involved in this program.”

Schuringa says individuals, Sunday school classes, churches, and small groups can make it their Christmas outreach project this year. “You simply select a Christmas Card and this can be in English or Spanish, by the way, leave the name blank at the top, we’ll fill that in because what we do is we take the Christmas card and we include it with one of the students lessons when we send that lesson to them. Then, you can add a special greeting or encouragement or a Bible text.” For security reasons only sign your first name. Also, the cards can not have any stickers, foil, pop up parts, etc.

“Last year we received about 10,000 cards, which was very, very much appreciated, but we have 30,000 students, Greg. So, we can us thousands more. There’s really no limit to how many we can take”

Schuringa says evangelistically, these cards go a long way to opening doors to share the Gospel. “This kind of thing just makes a huge impact on them that someone cared enough to send them a Christmas card it’s like the touch of Christ right in the middle of that cold cell.”

If you’d like more information on Crossroad Bible Institute’s ‘Send a Card’ program, go to their web site http://www.CrossroadBibleInstitute.org or send your cards to Crossroad Bible Institute, P.O. Box 900, Grand Rapids, MI 49509.