I started this role at the beginning of March, and have been learning about the justice system and meeting with parole officers, potential partners and halfway house leaders. I have also started making connections with women who are scheduled to be released on parole in the next couple of months. The real work of walking alongside these women will begin once they are released. Serving them will take the form of making phone calls, sharing faith-based resources, providing life check-ins, accompanying them to faith community events, and much more. I’m excited to continue learning more about the role and how to support these women well as they have a variety of needs and concerns as they prepare for release to Toronto.

I have also been getting to know churches, organizations, and individuals who desire to meet the needs of these marginalized women who are starting their lives over after incarceration, and have already seen the excitement and readiness for receiving the women from the churches and organizations that want to be involved.

I am reminded that we all have a story, and it’s a privilege to hear someone’s story and walk with them through pivotal moments in their lives. I can see how this role and walking with these women will continue to expand my understanding of God’s grace, redemption, and transforming power.

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

I love Romans 12:1-2 in The Message. That image of placing my everyday, ordinary life before God as an offering and embracing what he’s already doing for me, feels like something that I can do in a world that often feels full of impossible tasks and situations. For the women that I’ll be working with, I love the invitation to focus on the everyday tasks in front of them as ways to connect with God, and as they learn how to adjust back to life outside prison.

  • Pray for this new ministry as we work to provide hope to women who have been incarcerated.
  • Pray for favour with officials in the prisons, parole officers, and halfway homes.
  • Pray for the women who are being released to the Toronto area, that I would be able to connect with them and support them in meaningful ways.

Kyla Sinclair-Peters
Project Leader,
Toronto Chaplaincy for Women
Toronto, ON