FreshStart Fellowship was started by Bill and Tina Martin from a vision given to Bill in May of 2003. They have a desire in their hearts to help those in need. They started providing Hope & Encouragement in September of 2005 to those passing through some difficult situations in their life. One of their main focuses is providing support to women and their children that have been left behind by a husband or father that has been sent prison, leaving them behind with all the financial burdens of the home and family. Our purpose is not only to provide support and comfort to the women and their children left on the outside, but to help keep the incarcerated marriages and families together. We will be doing this by providing Hope & Encouragement through our Churches with Helps Center outreaches, our FreshStart Internet Radio Programs and our FreshStart Internet TV Programs. Some of the services and/or support our Helps Center outreaches will provide are; (1) Transportation Services for Visitation Trips and getting back and forth to work. (2) Support Groups and Church Services that will teach the basics of the Bible and the importance of a Biblical Marriage. (3) Services for the Children that will help with School supplies, Christmas and Birthday presents, and help provide them with Current Trend clothing. (4) Job and/or Computer Training that will help the left behind spouses and the incarcerated (once they are back into society) with basic training on how to operate a computer and learn job interview skills. (5) Housing Assistance that will help locate affordable housing for those will less than good credit or criminal records. (6) Handyman Services that will help the left behind spouse with fix it jobs around the house or repairs for their automobile. (7) 24/7 Prayer and Support Services that will allow for anyone to receive prayer or allow them a shoulder to cry on during times that things seem to be overwhelming.
You can visit our Helps Center page by clicking on the Blue Arrow below to find out more information about what our Helps Center is and the services it will provide.
Communication is a very important part in keeping the incarcerated marriage or family together. We encourage everyone to try and make visitation trips as often as they can or keep as much communication as possible during these difficult times. It means a lot for both the person incarcerated and the person left behind and helps their relationships. The visits will help keep relationships, marriages and families stronger, while going through these difficult times. The visitations will also help to keep the communications going and gives each person the opportunity to know and feel what the other is going through. It gives the husband the opportunity to help his wife with decisions that she needs to make in regards to providing a living and guidance for their family while he is away. It gives the wife the opportunity for her husband to help lead her in the matters and directions that she has to face on a day-to-day basis. The visitation trips also give them the opportunity to comfort each other. It is their time together.
Our Helps Centers will be open daily for the women to come to when they need counseling and guidance during difficult situations. It will not be a place where they can just come to receive financial help, but a place where they can bring their needs to our attention and we will pray over them and rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance and help where we can financially and in other areas. It will be a place where they can learn training and skills that will help them to be able to provide for themselves and their family while their husband is away from the home. Most importantly, we are here for them. If their situations begin to feel overbearing and they need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, we want them to be able to use ours. We are here to server their needs. We will teach them the Biblical ways and importance of a marriage and help them keep their kids off of the streets and out of gangs. We will provide a weekly bible study where they can come to learn about God and how to receive Jesus Christ into their life. We will show them how to let Christ help them through this difficult time they are going through and how they can have an even stronger marriage with their husband once he is back at home. Since we are helping the wife on the outside grow in Christ and to get her life in order, we have to make sure the same thing is happening for the husband that is incarcerated on the inside. If not, once the husband is released back into society, the family, home and marriage will not be on equal grounds and they will be un-equally yoked. The husband will have the opportunity while incarcerated to attend different church services given by the prison chaplains, outside ministries and other ministering inmates. FreshStart Fellowship will be networking with many other ministry organizations and churches that minister to the inmates directly while they are incarcerated. We will encourage the inmate’s attendance and involvement in these different ministry opportunities, FreshStart Fellowship's Helps Center will stay in contact with the inmate through our Pen Pal program and Inmate Newsletters. We will be explaining to them the importance of growing their life with Christ while they are away and explain to them how we are helping their family do the same on the outside. Growing and teaching both the husband and wife about Christ is a very important part of the Helps Center. Without doing this, usually a marriage going through an incarceration ends in divorce. If communication and periodic visits are not kept up, the husband on the inside can grow away from the marriage and easily get involved in the inside gang activity and become what is called “Institutionalized”. With the wife having to deal with the bitterness of the incarcerated person’s criminal activity, having to deal with all the daily financial situations, the loneliness, embarrassment and having to raise the children by herself, can also be enough for her to start growing away from the marriage. This is a very tough time to get through, especially if God is not in their life. It is Very Vital that FreshStart Fellowship is able to start providing support and ministering the word of God to these people at the beginning of the incarceration sentence. We need to be able to touch the lives of the incarcerated and the women and children left on the outside, as soon as possible.
The Helps Center is also a place for the incarcerated person in many different ways, once they are released back into society. With our resources and by networking with other ministry organizations and local churches, we want to be available to help them find jobs, transportation, housing, help them with work clothes, work tools, basic computer training and be able to give them the counseling and guidance they need to begin their Fresh Start. A large percentage of offenders that are released from incarceration, end up going back to prison; because they have been away to long and have nowhere to turn to. They have trouble finding jobs, making a living legally and they are not able to reconcile with their spouse or families. They feel they have no choice, but to turn back to crime, for survival and acceptance. We want to be there to help them in anyway we can - to show and teach them how much God loves them and what His word says about them. We want to express to them that with God in their life, all things are possible and He will help and guide them through any situation they may face, no matter how tough it is, if they seek His kingdom first.
When a person is sent to prison, most of the time that person was the income provider for their family. Now the wife left behind has to deal with all the financial responsibilities of the home, raising the children as a single parent, on top of having to deal with loneliness and all the embarrassment and social rejections from her husband being incarcerated. Most people do not realize that these women and their children are left behind in a Prison of their own. Not behind bars, but one of the world. The husband on the inside has a roof over his head, he has food served three times per day and has no rent or utilities to pay. It is just the opposite for the wife on the outside. Sometimes they loose their home, their car and have no money to buy food or proved for the children. They are the innocent victims that are being placed in a prison of their own. The children go through the same things of loneliness and social rejection and harassment from other kids in their schools and communities. This is not right and FreshsStart Fellowship can not solve all these problems. However, we can help them in many areas of support and by helping them find Christ and allowing Him to come into their life, we will be able to ease some of the pain in getting through these difficult times while helping the incarcerated marriages and families stay together and be reconciled by providing them with Hope & Encouragement.
"If you know someone needing some Hope & Encouragement in their life, we want to help"
You can click on the Arrow below to go to our Internet TV Channel where you can find more information, watch Inspired Programs or Listen to our FreshStart Radio Station.
