Bzzzzzt ... click ... CLANK! … Bzzzzzt ... click...CLANK!

Every other Thursday afternoon this familiar, yet eerie, sound welcomes me as I enter the Arrowhead Juvenile Center. AJC is the main detention facility for Northeastern Minnesota.   Literally, it’s the lockup for kids. It houses up to 48 male and female juveniles and provides correctional services for Carlton, Cook, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis counties.

Last spring, AJC contacted Youth for Christ to inquire about its interest in facilitating some Bible studies with the student inmates.

After much prayer, several meetings and a background check, a new ministry outreach called Ransomed began in June 2008.

This entire opportunity was orchestrated by God. Prior to my involvement with YFC, I had spent several years in the secular system working with at-risk youth and families. The reason I left was directly related to the inability to truly address the underlying spiritual issues of the families I was entrusted to help. I mean, how can one treat a compound fracture with a Band-Aid? And, how can someone find healing without knowing the Healer?

To re-enter this sphere of service from a ministry standpoint and to focus from the start on the only answer that truly promises hope and healing is a tremendous blessing — and responsibility.

These young people are important to our heavenly Father. He understands the loneliness, anger, hurt, rejection and hopelessness they feel. And, He desires to bring them the hope, comfort and healing that can only be found in His Son. But, unless someone goes and shares the truth with them, how will they ever know? And so, I go.

Oftentimes, as a culture, we tend to write this group of young people off. Out of fear or false assumption, we set them aside as not reachable. We tell ourselves that they do not care about the things of God nor do they have the potential to change.

However, at AJC, I have discovered firsthand that this is not the case. On a typical Thursday afternoon, after introducing myself, I open up the floor to questions. And, they have questions, not silly questions, but real heartfelt, difficult questions like: “If God is all-knowing, why would He create us knowing that we would screw up and then still be OK with sending people to hell?”

They have questions about the reliability of the Bible, what truth is and what makes Christianity the truth and not other religions.

I never know from session to session where their questions will take us, but I have learned to trust and to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the Gospel is always clearly shared.

I have discovered that the very name Ransomed (taken from Mark 10:45: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”) acts as a springboard into the Gospel.                

Discussing what the word ransom itself means naturally leads into the spiritual application and explanation of the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Most of these young people come to AJC without hope, but through Ransomed they can leave with the seeds of truth planted firmly in their hearts.

God, in His time, has brought me full circle. For this, I am grateful.

Please pray that these relationships that begin behind bars will continue to flourish as each young person is released and that they will come to truly experience the healing and the freedom that only Jesus Christ can bring.

Kari Becken is the Ransomed facilitator and administrative staffer.