Volunteers locked out if prison locked down

You are not alone. Even when you feel abandoned — locked in your cell, banished from the chapel — still, you are not alone. You live and move and breathe in the presence of God. All you need do is call on him. And whatever it is you must now endure, he promises it will not last forever. His spirit is with you.

These were the words in Michael Ann Rippen's heart as she stood at the front of the prison chapel on March 11. It had been weeks since Rippen had seen the women in this congregation. All the inmates — more than 4,000 men and women in the various prison units at the Draper complex — had been in lock-down since January.

They were the ones confined to their cells. But Rippen also felt punished, locked away and banished — until that Sunday evening when she could finally come back inside the prison to host a nondenominational worship service.

Rippen did not prepare her sermon, she says. She merely waited upon the Lord. When the words came, they flowed like tears. That night, after the service, Rippen found herself unable to calm down enough to go to sleep.

In the five years since she first became a lay volunteer at the prison, Rippen had not spent such a long time away from the inmates. During the weeks she could not pray with them, she says, "I really felt like a part of me was dead."

Rippen's husband, Craig, began accompanying her to the prison several years ago. The Rippens attend Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Sandy, and other members of the congregation come along as well, to play the piano or guitar and to lead the hymns. Sometimes the Rippens spend an entire Sunday at the prison — leading a service for men, then women. During the week Michael Ann also leads a Bible study.

It took a while for Craig Rippen to decide to join her in volunteering, his wife says. He was afraid of being inside, of feeling trapped. On his first Sunday his fears melted quickly and he found himself beginning to care about the men and women he met.

There may be more religious volunteers per prisoner in Utah than in any

other state and certainly more volunteers here than in the surrounding states, according to prison chaplain Bob Feland.

For example, in Arizona there are about 300 volunteers for 30,000 prisoners. In Utah, at the Draper complex alone, there are 2,000 volunteers for 4,300 prisoners. In a typical month, those volunteers give 6,000 hours of service. "Saving the taxpayer," Feland notes. Feland is one of four chaplains filling a 20 hour-a-week state employee position.