After every school and ministry site had fully re-opened and online-only ministries were just memories, the Remann Hall volunteers were still hopping on Zoom calls, as recently as late March. How does a community of volunteers stick with three long years on Zoom, never seeing the youth they’re ministering to face to face? And what was God even doing all that time?
A lot, as it turns out.
Youth for Christ has been going into Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Center for nearly 40 years, long before there even was something called Juvenile Justice Ministry. What started as chapel services turned into volunteers spending time with incarcerated youth during the week between chapels. In March 2020, a large volunteer team was heading into Remann Hall three times per week for an hour and a half each time. They’d meet kids in their pods (common living spaces) and play cards or other games, have one-on-one or group conversations, do Bible studies, and basically build relationships. Often they would hold celebrations or services for holidays like Christmas and Easter.
In March of 2020, like so many other things, that type of ministry shut down. “(Remann Hall administration) did want to keep us intact as much as possible,” says Timothy Chavira, Community Director. “They started the Zoom calls, gave us that option, and it turned out we were the only consistent programming that stayed with the youth throughout these last three years.” Other organizations that had been entering the detention center found they were unable to maintain interacting with youth over Zoom.
For three years the Remann Hall team would hop on Zoom calls twice a week for half our increments with each group of young people. Sometimes it was a two-hour stretch broken up. Remann Hall staff would cycle groups in and out and volunteers would start a new conversation with new kids.
Instead of a group of grownups coming into their pods, kids now had to opt-in to the calls. “We would put together quarterly gifts, bags of items that the youth really like having, like Sour Patch Kids and Takis, things like that. And then I would include a personal letter to them to try to encourage them to be on the call. It would include a gospel presentation and maybe a little bit of a testimony in there, as well…it would invite them and introduce them to what we were doing.” Tim says. “Over time the numbers increased, but we still weren’t getting one hundred percent of kids.”
With slow growth and all the complications that come with Zoom calls, it would have been understandable for volunteers to get discouraged. And while the facility wanted the team back inside, with regulations, staffing, and a host of other issues, that open door kept moving farther and farther away. There may have been some pleading involved early on, but the team stayed committed. Some members of the team moved out of state during those three years but were still able to make the Zoom calls. In a way, being online created an opportunity to stay connected that couldn’t exist in-person. Some volunteers even joined in while on vacation. “They’d go to California, but they would make time during that time slot to be on their call from their hotel room or from their car,“ Tim shares.
“The interesting thing about the ministry at Remann Hall,“ Tim says, “is conversations are integrated into everything we do. And so we go deep fast. We don’t do a lot of icebreakers. Especially with Zoom, we don’t do any games or we’re not playing cards. So it’s just all, ‘Where are you at? Who are you as a person? Here’s a little bit of my story. Here’s some of God’s story. And that’s the basis of all of our conversations that we have.’”
Because kids were choosing to participate, they’d walk into those Zoom calls with the expectation that they will hear about the Bible. They were asked every week, “Are you gonna attend Youth for Christ?” Sometimes a kid would ask, “When are we gonna get to the Bible?” Even if the kids weren’t into hearing about God, the team always makes a point to pray.
Eventually, some youth would show up with their Bibles, ready to talk about what they’d been reading. The Lord has placed some staff within the facility who are followers of Jesus and also encouraged youth to pray and engage with the Word.
“God started doing a lot of work in there,” Tim says. “Just since January, we’ve had seven youth put their faith in the Lord and verbally say they are following Jesus.” After three long years, the team heard seven miracle “yeses.”
Teams were able to enter the detention center just at the end of this March and so the conversations can continue in person.
Tim shared about one youth, Carter*, who had no concept of God when he came in. He had an ideal living situation prior to the circumstances that lead to his incarceration. Now he’s following the Lord and the first book of the Bible he read was Job, relating strongly to his circumstances of having everything taken away. He admits that he had everything he wanted, was prideful and arrogant, and now he’s looking at a long-term sentence. “When he first got in there, he was very down,” Tim shares. “And now every time I see him, he’s just got this light about him. He’s got a kind of lift in his spirit.”
He’s also reading his Bible regularly, talking to his family about his faith, and even discipling another young man in his unit. They’re reading the Bible together. “And the Lord is even working within his sentencing,” Tim shares. “He was facing close to 20 years and now it looks like it’s going to be closer to 10, which is a big reduction.”
“We don’t assume guilt,” Tim says, “and the reality is some are falsely charged, but in his situation, he self-admittedly understands his guilt in the situation and is ready to face his time and is hopeful.” Tim says a lot of youth who have confessed faith are also much more optimistic about their journey.
“What we really need,” Tim says, “are adults who are willing to wade into these hard spaces, who can come in with the love of Jesus and a non-judgmental mindset, and who can see these people as what they are: children.”
He wishes people knew that for youth inside the detention center, their situations are varied and complex. “It’s more than where they live or assumptions of family dynamics…It’s the best of situations. It’s the worst of situations. There are kids that have multiple family members in prison and kids who don’t have any, who had every opportunity not to walk the path they’re on.”
“And the majority of them want hope and help. They just don’t know where to go.”
The opportunity is there for people willing to walk with these young people as long as they’ll allow it within the facility, and hopefully after. Tim says, “Just like Jesus did, we enter into these spaces, willing to be there, be present with them and sit with them and not allow hard language or hard stories to make us afraid. It’s an opportunity to show them love and then tell them about God’s love.”
“If nothing else, you’re disrupting the flow of hopelessness.”
God’s not done in Remann Hall. If you would like to be a part of what He’s up to in the juvenile justice system in Pierce County, click below. We’d love for you to learn more about our ministry and how you can be involved.
*Name changed to protect privacy.
Timothy Chavira
Meet Tim, our Community Director! He oversees our Juvenile Justice and Parent Life ministries, empowering staff and leaders to meet young people right where they're at.
