Article

Prison Ministry Helps Inmates Begin New Lives

By Margaret Smith/ Staff Writer
The Billerica Minuteman
Thursday, November 3, 2005

Luis Mangual, 31, of Lowell, was 15 when he said he turned to drugs. "I grew up in Lowell in a rough neighborhood. Drugs were around - heroin, cocaine," he recalled.

A life marred by violence and addiction changed when he encountered Mark Hemenway's prison ministry in 2003 while serving a two-year sentence at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica for breaking and entering, car theft and receiving stolen property.

Since his release earlier this year, Mangual has been meeting Sunday evenings with Hemenway at a busy Dunkin' Donuts in Lowell. Over coffee, they study Bible passages and talk about Mangual's triumphs and challenges.

By and large, Mangual said things are on the right track - and Hemenway agrees. "He's really built himself a support group. He's got me. He's got his pastor," said Hemenway, a long-time Billerica resident now living in Lowell and director of the Acton-based Vision New England Prison Ministries.

Vision New England is a network of evangelical Christian churches and other organizations providing ministry services throughout New England. Vision New England Prison Ministries will bring together ministers working with current and former prisoners at a conference Saturday, Nov. 12 at the Immanuel Church in Chelmsford. The conference will address numerous topics, from working with Spanish-speaking populations to problems faced by former inmates, including sex offenders, trying to re-enter society. Among the guest speakers scheduled is Middlesex Sheriff James DiPaola.

A wrong turn

"I wasn't born to become an addict and spend the rest of my life in jail," said Mangual, who is married, works for a concrete company, maintains an apartment and does what he can to help other inmates. Among other things, he has his own Spanish-language prayer call-in radio show Friday nights on WCAP 980 AM, a radio station based in Lowell. He sends Bible study sheets in the mail to prisoners at the House of Corrections. He is active at his parish, Iglesia Pentecostal Movemiento Internacional - Pentecostal Church, International Movement - which serves a predominantly Spanish-speaking congregation while working on providing programs in English.

Family, friends and spiritual mentors afford Mangual a source of strength to banish the loneliness and boredom Mangual said were the catalyst driving him to drugs and theft.
He said he wants to do what he can to help himself and to help others who have been where he's been, through his bilingual capabilities, newfound dedication to his faith and life experience.

Growing up in the Acre - a neighborhood in Lowell - Mangual said he had good influences, in particular his parents, both Pentecostal ministers. He excelled in sports, and for a while - the high crime in the neighborhood notwithstanding - his prospects were good. But because of his athletic achievements, he said, "I met people, got connected. When you are good at sports, you get connected." He said his status afforded him access to parties and recreational drug use that mushroomed into a habit.

At age 15, he said, a friend's shooting death landed him charges of armed robbery and attempted murder. Mangual was remanded to the state Department of Youth Services.
At age 18, he was on his own once again. "I was still young, still ignorant. That's when everything took off from there. I was selling and using from state to state. I found myself in a real crazy place - rough neighborhoods in New York, in Philadelphia, sleeping in the streets and in cars. It was just a crazy life, because of drugs."

He returned to Lowell several times. "My family wanted me to come back home," he said. But there, he often ran into former friends and quickly lapsed into old habits. His mistakes cost him most of his youth, he said, noting that he did five stints at the House of Correction.

During the most recent term, he said one day he was having lunch with a fellow inmate and did what convicts rarely confess to doing - he broke down in tears. "I wasn't afraid of prison," he said. "[It was fear of] What's going to happen to me when I get out?"

With Hemenway's help, including regular Bible study sessions, he found some answers. It wasn't the first time he'd turned to religion as a source of strength. Asked what was different, Mangual said, "In the past, I wasn't paying attention. I really surrendered this time."

Hemenway said prison ministries such as his help inmates and their families not only with spiritual services such as Bible studies but with many other needs. Those who work in prison ministries, he said, must address problems inmates and their families face, including acquiring basic skills to create new lives.

Changed lives

Through prison ministry, Hemenway has found himself on his own journey. "The defining moment was a heart attack at age 36 in 1985," said Hemenway, who worked in high-tech defense for 30 years before retiring in December 2004 to pursue ministry work full-time.

"About a year and a half ago, I went to a seminary and discovered I really wasn't called to be a pastor," said Hemenway, who attended Andover-Newton Theological Seminary to pursue a dream - and an alternative to a stressful career. While working with the homeless in Boston, he said he realized, "I guess the Lord wanted me in prison." At a religious conference of Protestant and Evangelical ministers, he said, "I heard people tell about how their lives had changed." He added, "They looked to Jesus to get their lives together." Afterward, he began to volunteer at the House of Correction, working with the prison's previous prison minister, Lenny Spitale. When Spitale left, Hemenway said he took his place.

'Invisible victims'

Hemenway visits inmates twice a week at the House of Correction and at the Cambridge Jail on Friday evenings. He also speaks at prisons, including MCI-Concord and MCI-Framingham - the latter being the only state facility for female inmates. In addition to working with those serving time and those adjusting to life outside prison, Hemenway said he and his staff work with the families of inmates, whom he called "the invisible victims of incarceration."

When he goes to facilities such as the House of Correction and MCI-Concord, he said he often sees family members - often wives or girlfriends and children - standing outside in the cold waiting to visit loved ones serving time.

Female inmates are another invisible population, said Hemenway, who said, "Often, they are dealing with abuse issues. They have to rebuild relationships with their kids." Many, he said, ended up serving prison sentences after they were caught dealing or holding drugs for someone else - often a boyfriend. Hemenway said this trend has been especially strong after tougher drug sentencing went into effect in the 1990s.

When inmates leave prison, many lack basic life skills needed to be successful, he said. "One guy after 10 years didn't know how to use a washing machine. So he bought clothes every day," Hemenway said. "These are people who have never had a check book, or relationships. Sometimes they are without family or housing." A lack of these necessities can put a former inmate at risk for committing crimes that got them incarcerated in the first place, Hemenway said.

Certain problems can be found across the prison population, including mental illness and drug abuse, which together can be found among the majority of inmates, Hemenway said. Hemenway said helping former inmates is a way to protect the community. In an age of shrinking budgets for inmate services, Hemenway said prison ministry is often welcomed in correctional systems because, very simply, it's free. "This is a federal statistic - 97 percent of all inmates will be released," Hemenway said. "They're going to come out and live with us. Unless we give them skills to live a new life - well, you know what that leads to."

Hemenway said working with inmates and their families also makes one aware of another reality - that prison touches more lives than is always apparent. "I have yet to speak at a church where there weren't several people who had served time in a prison," he said.

For clients such as Mangual, forging a better future often means overcoming a tragic past - but remembering its hard-won lessons of understanding and forgiveness of others who may also be at risk. "I never forget who I used to be, what God took me from," Mangual said. "I never want to go to back to that stage."