Church

CAPA Corner: A Good Graduation Report!

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    I join many in Central who are excited about seeing friends and relatives graduate during these May days!  My wife and I attended a graduation in New Orleans last week for our future daughter in law!  How proud we were!  I rejoiced as I scanned the pictures in the paper of the Central High and Central Private graduates.  Brought back memories from many years ago of my graduation in the 1800s, or so it seems! What a fine looking group of young people!  And to read about the graduates from LSU, Southeastern, Southern, and BRCC to name a few!  What great potential they all have to be a generation that will bring positive change to a world that needs to change!  God, give them wisdom to make good choices concerning their future plans.  Help them be attentive to your future plans for them!
    But, the icing on my graduation cake came this week as I had the privilege to attend a graduation at our Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. 52 men proudly marched down the aisle and received a college degree in Bible and Ministry from New Orleans Baptist Seminary!  These men had obviously made some mistake!  Who hasn’t?  But they chose not to dwell in the past and not to let the past control them!  In 4 years, they completed 120 hours of ministry and bible classes taught by local pastors and seminary professors!  Their faces beamed, their families cheered, their teachers applauded, and heaven roared with approval.
    This program has grown over the last 20 years.  As inmates have been trained in ministry, the culture of the prison has changed!  Each of these graduates will be sent as prison missionaries to a place of ministry in the Louisiana Department of Corrections!  Hats off to Warden Burl Cain!  Hats off to New Orleans Baptist Seminary!  Hats off to Pastor Jim Efferson of Indian Mound Baptist Church, a Central pastor who teaches in this program!  Hats off to God who is ready to make a way in our wildernesses and  streams in our the deserts!  Let Him do it for you!
Dick Metz 
Pastor, Cornerstone Fellowship
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