Family Tragedy Ends in Forgiveness and Hope

.When Steve met Kathleen Skaar, the executive director of Christian Library International. Although Steve was not normally the type of person who spent time volunteering, especially for a prison ministry, he agreed to help the organization pack boxes of books to send to prisons.

“Steve had no reason to believe he would ever get anything back from it,” said his wife, Jennifer.

But more than 10 years later, CLI would affect Steve and Jennifer in ways they couldn’t imagine.

In October 2014, Steve’s son, Dan, found out that his girlfriend was pregnant. To the family, Steve and Jennifer seemed happy and excited. But the pregnancy created a lot of stress for the couple. 

“When you step outside of the Lord’s will, people usually say, ‘Well, I can do this because I can handle the consequences,’” Jennifer said. “The fact is that you don’t know what the consequences are.”

Six months later, Dan shot and killed his girlfriend during an argument. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. 

As time has passed, Dan has been serving his sentence.  During that time, he ha has been focusing on reflection and repentance. Although Dan was a Christian before the incident, he said he has grown much closer to God while in prison. Books and devotionals sent by CLI have helped this growth, and communication with CLI has given Dan hope.

When he was first incarcerated, Kathleen visited him at a local jail. Dan first became connected with the ministry there and began CLI Bible studies. After some time, he was moved to another prison, but he found that CLI also had materials in that prison. He has continued the Christian Leadership Bible study and is currently on Lesson 11.

CLI has also ministered to Steve and Jennifer by arranging a meeting between them and a former inmate who CLI had discipled. The inmate encouraged them by showing them that there was hope for their son.

Recently, Dan, whose full name is Daniel, was searching for a commentary on the book of Daniel. When he found one in the prison library, he opened it and saw CLI’s address stamped in it. God had used the organization to meet his needs. 

“Now more than ever we appreciate CLI,” Steve said. “CLI is loving him in the name of Jesus in a way that we can’t. You are ‘there’ (through books) when we can’t be. This gives much peace to us.” 

Jennifer has three prayer requests for Dan. Please pray for spiritual, emotional, and mental well being; that Dan will take it day-by-day; and that Dan will be faithful. Lift up these prayers for Dan and all the inmates we serve.