Oh Me of Little Faith

I glanced at my phone. “Missed call from Zach.”

I gulped.

Unscheduled calls from former students elicit some trepidation. Over the years I’ve come to learn that sometimes, no news is the best news. Surprise phone calls are often accompanied with a problem – issues with a probation officer, troubles finding stable housing.

I called back.

Zach’s voice was gleeful. “Yo! Spence! Whaddup?”

Still, I was nervous. I apologized for missing his call, explaining that I was in prison and as he knows from his incarceration, I didn’t have a phone. I asked politely what I could do for him.

Zach’s joy radiated through the phone. “Nothing! We haven’t talked in a while. I’m just calling to check in with you.”

He proceeded to fill me in on the latest in his life. The skinny:

-       His daughter was happy and healthy.

-       He’d been promoted at work and was travelling across the state managing projects for his employer.

-       He’d finally met his daughter’s grandfather, who overwhelmingly approved of him.

As he shared each update, the smile on my face grew bigger and bigger. Then, he mentioned that he was looking at buying a house in the countryside.

My joy turned to confusion.

“Hang on dude. How old are you now?”

“23,” he replied.

“And you’re buying a house?”

Zach was nonchalant. “Yeah.”

“Zach, I’m almost thirty and the only way I’m buying a house anytime soon is if I hit the lottery. How can you afford a house? You just got out of prison two or three years ago.”

By the tone of Zach’s voice, I could tell he was confused.

“Dude, I just did what you told me when I got out. I opened the checking, savings, and investment accounts like you said. I put money away. I budgeted. I invested. I just followed your steps.”

I thought back to when Zach first got out of prison.

He had nowhere to go. No address he could parole out to. No family that could let him crash on a couch for a few days. Nothing.

John Richardson, his mentor and one of HeartBound’s chaplains, found a homeless shelter for Zach to live in so he could leave prison. He was 19.

Every week I would pick Zach up from the shelter and take him to a local restaurant. I wanted him to try all sorts of foods – dishes he had heard me talk about but had never eaten. He was just a kid when he entered the prison system. Prison forced him to grow up and become a man, but I knew from my own experience that at 19, you’re still very much a kid. Though Zach never complained, I knew there was some part of him that just wanted to be a normal kid again. Instead, he was homeless, unemployed, carless, and trying to navigate his parole conditions so he wouldn’t return to prison.

During our lunch meetings, I taught him the basics of finance – how to budget, how to open a brokerage account, the difference between a Roth and Traditional IRA.

As the adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I only hoped that Zach would take what he was learning and apply it to his life. I’ll never forget the day Zach texted me a photo of a whiteboard. He had created a budget. He used a pink expo marker.

Thanks to all of you who help incarcerated men, women, and children like Zach rebuild their lives behind – and beyond – prison walls.

Spencer