About five years ago, Donald and Dona Dei, both 75, parishioners of Corpus Christi Church in South Riding, retired from their jobs and headed to the local prison.
“Don was looking for a place to put his energy,” Dona said. The retired nuclear engineer had heard about Catholic Charities’ prison ministry and joined a team of fellow parishioners providing Sunday liturgical prayer services at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center in 2014. A year later, Dona, a retired registered nurse, began ministering to women in the jail.
Once a month, they lead the Sunday Bible and prayer service with fellowship afterward, and Dona, a Eucharistic minister, also brings communion. They minister to Catholics, people of other faiths and people of no faiths. Once, Don ministered to a pagan.
“We are meeting the inmates where they are,” Dona said.
“It’s tough. It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done,” Don said. Many inmates struggle with drug and alcohol addiction and many other problems. Recidivism is high. “You go in. You do what you do at that time. And you go on. If you get frustrated, it’s not the job for you.”
“That one Sunday a month refuels your spiritual life — just to sit there with those individuals,” Don said. “They’re there to hear the word of God and that’s what we bring them. Each of us feels the Holy Spirit present when we go in there.”
Soon after Don joined the prison ministry, he helped begin another ministry, a 24-hour rapid response team for men and women getting out of prison. The Transitional Assistance Program is designed to offer 24 hours of intense help to returning citizens as they walk out the prison doors. Many inmates have no one to greet them. They have no clothes but the ones on their backs, and no idea of how to find housing, food or employment.
“The primary thing we were focused on: We would show up when they’re released,” Don said. They hand over a backpack loaded with hygiene supplies, socks, hand sanitizer, bus passes, Bibles and, more recently, cell phones. They take the returning citizen out to a local restaurant for their first hot meal outside of jail. TAP volunteers work on helping them secure a place to sleep and the necessary identification cards, and provide resources for other social services help, including through Catholic Charities.
Dona felt compelled to join Don because of TAP. “TAP relies on case management, which nurses are pretty good at doing. It is a calling, I guess.”
Snider is the diocesan deputy director of communications.
How to help
For more info on prison ministry and the Welcome Home ministry, go to ccda.net/give-help/serve-those-in-need/prison-ministry/.
