Goree Prison New Start

The Goree Prison, a men’s prison in Huntsville, Texas, held its first ever Kairos Inside Weekend #1 from February 20-23, 2025. Forty-two participants were certainly blessed throughout the Weekend as well as everyone else, the volunteers, stewards and staff and even the Administration. Everyone was impacted spiritually in some way. Several men witnessed that they found “forgiveness” with several men sharing that over the Weekend, particularly during the Forgiveness Meditations and the Offering of Forgiveness List, some claiming a miracle from God for their reconciliation. Very Powerful!

The Closing Ceremony was incredibly spiritual. We had over thirty guests. It was the perfect end to a truly amazing Kairos Weekend. We had six members of the Chapel Choir as participants. During the Closing we called them up to sing with the Kairos Inmate Band and it was the most powerful worship music many of us have ever heard. All Praise to Jesus Christ!

The challenge of a New Start can seem daunting at times, but at Goree we could see and feel the Lord blessing the Kairos Ministry from the first day. The men inside desperately needed more spiritual food, and Kairos offers so many important things like feeling wanted, community, and caring. The Administration initiated the call to start Kairos at Goree. After hearing the request and quite a few phone calls, Kairos Goree had fifteen experienced volunteers committed to help get Kairos started at Goree. That’s the Lord’s work! In just a few weeks we were blessed to have men dedicated to the Advisory Board and get officially approved as a New Start; working through Kairos of Texas we were approved by KPMI. We set the date for Weekend #1 one year out, in February 2025.

With the support of the Administration and working directly with the Chaplain, we moved forward with Prayer and Share inside the Chapel. Prayer and Share started with Kairos graduates that had been transferred from other units where they did Kairos. First, we did Prayer and Share once a month, then quickly moved to twice a month and by the summer, Prayer and Share was held weekly, every Saturday with nearly fifty graduates attending every week. These men were very hungry spiritually. Some had graduated fifteen years ago but had not been in a prison that had Kairos for several years. We probably don’t realize how difficult it is for a Kairos Graduate to be shipped out to a unit without Kairos. We could see that they missed the Kairos Family, the community, the feeling of being appreciated and loved. So, from the start the graduates really appreciated having Kairos at Goree and the Inside Community was formed.

The Inside Volunteers were a good mixture of experienced veterans and new volunteers and focused on Listening and sharing the Love of Christ. A special challenge was forming the Support Team from scratch, a team that had never worked together before Goree #1. Praise to God, while after some time we started with six Support Team volunteers committed and lots of leadership changes, we ended up with a beautiful, loving, highly effective functioning Support Team with twelve women and 3 men volunteers, all because of the spiritual focus within the team. Everyone on both the Support Team and the Inside Team expressed how joyful and rewarding the experience of serving was for them. A New Start is a unique, extremely rewarding experience.

The Chaplain appointed the stewards, making sure all were Godly men that could be fully trusted. Considering the stewards had not previously worked together on a Kairos Weekend, two experienced volunteers were assigned as Head Servant and Assistant Head Servant, and while hectic at times, everything was fine. Logistics was also a concern, a new projector, setting up tarps for the first time, runners bringing in food, etc., but the Lord knows Kairos and all went very well.

Chaplain Holmes was with us several times during the Weekend and was always available. Both Warden Pope and Assistant Warden Hoke addressed the participants and shared Weekend meals with us. Warden Hoke even went on a Kairos Cookies Distribution run with the volunteers. She said it was a “wonderful experience” she will never forget. What a tremendous amount of support we had!

For me, a Kairos New Start was a challenge at times but such a rewarding experience to bring Kairos to a unit in desperate need. Seeing Jesus at every step, leading the way, is such a blessing, something we will never forget.

God bless Kairos!