The Wings Ministry, a program that connects unchurched family members of prisoners to caring Christians from local churches, was founded in 1995 as a result of the love that my four boys and I experienced in a local church through the LOGOS Program. After my husband was given a 15-year prison sentence, I knew I needed to find a church “family” and I found it. I wanted others to experience what we had - thus the founding of Wings.

The Wings Ministry generally hosts three community parties per year - a Christmas, Easter, and Back-to-School party. Now Wings host parties or “events” in local prisons too.

Recently, I was listening to a rerun of the Jay Leno Show. He was interviewing people outside his studio and asking them “religious questions”. I was shocked at some of the responses.

	•	When was Jesus born? Answers varied from about 200 years ago up to millions of years ago. Leno joked that Jesus either knew President Lincoln or roamed with the dinosaurs.
	•	One anthropology student said that eggs were used at Easter because there was not enough food in the world and to prevent famine.
	•	Others said that rabbits and bunnies were found in the Old Testament.
	•	One young man said the name for the Friday before Easter was Palm Sunday!

These responses from American shocked me, but also reminded me about how important knowledge about Christ and experiencing Christ’s love today is! And that’s what happens at a Wings Party.

I was reminded of a Wings Christmas Party where there were over 500 guests and church volunteers present. We now have members from over 100 churches and 17 different denominations participating in the parties, so when our request to church leaders to bring “Christmas costumes” provided a huge variety of “outfits”. We had several dozen “Shepherd’s robes”, 30-40 angel costumes with wings, wisemen’s crowns and jeweled boxes and vases for the gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We had pig ears and noses, cow vests, many sheep ears and fuzzy vests, and even a rooster costume that a 2-year old wore. Everyone not in “official costumes” wore a paper plate “halo” and everyone’s raised fingers became “twinkling start” at the appropriate time during our Bible study retelling the birth of Jesus.

A wife of an inmate, with her newborn daughter as “Jesus”, took center stage, beautifully draped in a light blue shawl. All the players (500+ of us) were ready as the priest helped us all experience and dramatize the scripture passages. I don’t know if any “Christmas Pageant” had been more fun OR meaningful to me than this one.

A Wings Party starts with singing, then Bible study, crafts and discussion, and ends with dinner and a group game. We close in a huge circle of prayer, holding one another’s hands, and rejoicing in God’s unconditional love and acceptance and recognition that we are all Children of God.

I’ll never forget what happened at the end of that prayer - one little former “lamb” came racing across the gym floor and jumped up into my arms. Thank heaven my years of raising four boys had prepared me instinctively for his unannounced leap of faith. As I held him tight, with his arms clasping me around my neck, he shouted out joyfully, “Now I know who Jesus is!”

I smiled at him and hugged this “little stranger” that I honestly hadn’t singled out of the crowd until this point. Suddenly the meaning of his words dawned on me. This little 4-year old “lamb” had only heard up until this point in his short life, “Jesus Christ! Can’t you do anything right? What’s wrong with you?” And whatever other derogatory words had been yelled at him. But now he knew Jesus was real, came to earth as a baby to live with us and die for us. This little boy had experienced Jesus Christ’s love for him and all of us at this Wings Party.

Now my dream is to help all those “Jay Leno guests” and “unchurched others”, whether inmate family members or not, to know Jesus’ love for you, for me, for all!

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