Did you ever meet a person who was so on fire about a cause, you feel like you’ve spent your life looking at your own navel? Andrea Shelton is that person – a total spitfire who’s so cute and snappy, you just know she was voted Most Popular, and Homecoming Queen, and was the one cheerleader you actually liked. So how unexpected is it that her passionate cause is the treatment of inmates in prison … and she is most comfortable walking down the hallways of jails in Georgia and Louisiana, engaging prisoners with her laugh, her ferocious Christian faith, and her thick-as-honey southern charm?
Joe and Andrea Shelton, the definition of good people.
Andrea started HeartBound Ministries after her brother went to jail and she realized how isolated, abandoned and utterly neglected the inmates in prison are. In response, Andrea vowed to be a voice for the invisible; she felt called to bring God’s redemptive love to those behind bars, remembering “And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them unless someone sends them?” (Romans 10:14)
HeartBound Ministries works to provide counseling to prisoners who come out of prison and need help finding housing and jobs. Andrea’s biggest focus is to keep prison chaplains in the jails because they are a true lifeline for the incarcerated and arguably one of the key pathways for rehabilitation (remember that concept??) She is relentless about encouraging, lobbying, nagging and embarrassing (if necessary) lawmakers into funding the chaplains, improving conditions and ensuring humane treatment of inmates. And she also makes sure (by corralling every person she knows to participate… and who can resist Andrea?!) that every Georgia inmate gets a Christmas present and a word of remembrance during the holidays.
Andrea's captive audience of friends, making holiday baskets in the prison
HeartBound Ministries has done all this and more, including reinstating six of sixteen dismissed chaplains in 2009 alone. In case you don’t think there’s a need, consider these statistics: one in every 100 adults are behind bars in America, including 1 in every 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 15 black men. America imprisons more than people than any other nation in the world — and an average of 7% (or $44 billion) in state budgets go for corrections. Shouldn’t some of that go to help prisoners redeem themselves and build a life on the outside?
If you ever want to experience pure amazing grace, just go with Andrea on one of her prison visits. Lulu, Larry & I traveled 10 hours on a bus with Andrea, Joe and some other prison officials to visit Angola Prison in Louisiana and it was one of the most memorable trips of my life. No matter how you feel about people in prison, I guarantee you, when you watch Andrea at work and see her dispensing love, kindness and compassion to the toughest of inmates, you’re watching love in action.
To join me in donating to this really worthy cause, click here
What Gives 
Though this is a good idea–I have to say that there seems to be hundreds of programs for inmates ( I have a friend who works in the prison system–if they want they can get counseling, job training etc) But where are the programs to assist crime victims–they are sadly lacking. Victims of crime and their families are left out–there is no financial assistance, no counseling, and in many cases –not even compassion–sometimes even blaming the victim for the crime. I have family members and friends who have been crime victims so i have very mixed feelings about this ministry–how about starting one for crime victims/survivers too?
Thanks so much for featuring a cause which is not as pretty or necessarily easy to support as most of the others, but in my book, just as important. It is easy to give to cute children, but they grow up and are just as needy. And then we totally tend to forget about the innocent children they once were, and want only to cast blame.
Thanks for promoting a faith in action story like this.
I read about and mentioned the difficult situation at an Angola in researching a post on now retired professional football player Warrick Dunn and his visit there to meet with his mother’s killer (she was a police officer who was shot during a robbery).
Andrea is inspirational.
Thank you for this inspiring insight into what can happen. Our prisons are not all made of stone.
“Each one must find the key to the Teaching in his heart. Understanding of the universal Teaching can unfold the creativeness of the spirit. The Image of the Teacher can provide an illumined path into the cosmic expanse. ”
Infinity I, 60
Andrea is definitely an inspiration!
Go Andrea. She is definitely an inspiration!
I love your first sentence – I do feel as if I’ve spent my life looking at my navel when I read your blog.
The US prison stats are horrifying!
“America imprisons more than people than any other nation in the world!”
Thanks for telling us about “HeartBound Ministries. And thank you Andrea Shelton!