We Plant. We Nurture. We Wait.

Hot’s mouth was running a mile a minute.

Hot has what we call “the gift of gab.” A body in motion stays in motion and Hot’s always on the move – whether it’s moving his mouth or waving his hands while he speaks animatedly to you about whatever is on his mind. You never know what he’ll say.

Everyone seems to be his Uncle or “Cuz” or partner.  He’s a natural born hustler, friends with everyone he encounters – guards and inmates alike. I’m not sure how he got the moniker “Hot”, but it fits him perfectly – short stature, prominently featured gold tooth, suave hairstyle. One moment he can be dancing and joking loudly while the next he’s pulled you to the side, yapping incessantly about his latest idea. Each time we grill out during our horticulture graduation ceremonies, you can always find Hot manning the grill, grease flying everywhere, flames leaping high, rag mopping the sweat from his brow, mouth perpetually running. The only time he’s ever quiet is when he’s working on a problem that’s really stumped him. You can always count on him to get the job done.

I suspect that the constant chatter is some form of coping mechanism – I doubt he’s ever been alone with his thoughts. Silence can be uncomfortable and when we do our breathing exercises at the end of class, he’ll often walk off back to his dorm. As much as I’ve tried to get him to stay and sit in stillness, I know that I can’t push him too hard or I’ll end up pushing him away. I trust that with God’s help and guidance (and a little patience), Hot’s time will come.

It had been a good day in our garden. We’d worked hard all June and July and the fruits of our labor were finally coming to fruition – literally. Earlier that day, we harvested ten pounds of cherry tomatoes, adding to the five pounds we’d gathered the week before. I took some of the extras home, roasted them in the oven, and combined them with onion, cilantro, corn, and peppers - all grown right there in our garden - to make a spicy salsa for the guys. Two of our Latino students declared it “the real-deal, authentic salsa” and told me I should be honored by the compliment, especially since it was coming from “two real-deal, authentic Latinos.”  Compliment accepted. Another student joked that “I never thought I’d have to come to prison to taste the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” That one felt like a bit of hyperbole. But I’ll accept that compliment, too.

Our time in class was drawing to a close. The men had feasted on baby-back ribs, mac and cheese, watermelon, and a strawberry feta salad. In case you didn’t know – food is a BIG deal in prison. Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain famously summarizes the core needs of a sound prison as "good playing, good praying, good food, and good medicine.” Burl Cain is a legend. He helped turn Louisiana State Pen (colloquially called “Angola Prison”) from the bloodiest prison in America to the safest. He’s now doing the same in Mississippi. In the words of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, he appointed Burl to take the prison system from “beatings to Bible studies.”

I’ve known Commissioner Cain for nearly two decades now. His knowledge of prison dynamics has helped shape my own thoughts on prisons and ways that we can better reform them.

Let’s look at our horticulture classes. Do we provide the four things that Burl Cain says a prison needs to run well?

Absolutely.

Good playing. Working outside is hard. Digging in soil, uprooting weeds by hand, turning compost – these common activities work the body well.

Good food – this one’s obvious. We don’t use pesticides, fertilizers, or anything inorganic in our gardens. The fruits and vegetables we grow taste and look completely different than anything you’ll buy from a grocery store. While our fruits and vegetables can be misshapen and have a hole or two, they are living representations of the real world – where not everything is perfect and uniform. And despite their imperfections, they taste wonderful. You’ve never tasted a tomato like ours; they are simply decadent.

What about good medicine? Sure, not only do we grow herbs like mint and lemon balm, but gardening is scientifically-proven to be therapeutic. Not to nerd out on you too much, but soil is full of this bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae. When humans come into contact Mycobacterium vaccae, the body produces serotonin, decreasing stress-levels and increasing happiness. That’s medicine to me!!

Finally, the question of good praying.

A while back, I wrote about a young man in our gardening program who sat quietly holding a tomato in his hands. When I asked why he wasn’t dicing it for our salad, he simply said, “I’ve never seen a whole tomato before.”

Months earlier, he had planted a tiny seed. He watered it, protected it, pulled the weeds around it, and watched God bring forth fruit - first a fragile sprout, then a flowering plant, and finally a vine heavy with bright red fruit. As he held that tomato, he was holding more than the fruit of his labor. He was holding a reminder that God can take something small and seemingly insignificant and, with patience and care, bring forth something beautiful. And when he finally sliced that tomato open, he found inside it more seeds - more potential for life, more evidence of God’s abundance. That, my friends, is a glimpse of the Gospel. We plant. We nurture. We wait.

Trust me when I say that there’s more growing in our gardens than just plants. Inside each prison where we have a garden, there’s a place for growth, safety, and beauty. Our students get to encounter their Creator daily in those gardens

Your donations help to build and maintain these gardens. After an initial construction cost of $2,000-4,000, our gardens are largely self-sustained. Because they’re inside prisons, we don’t have to pay for water or gas or electricity. Our students are learning to harvest, dry, and store seeds. Later in their education, they’ll learn to graft plants to produce new cultivars or offsprings of their personal favorites. Our compost bins constantly produce new, healthy soil, freeing us of the burden of buying bag after bag of gardening mix. In the wintertime, we sow our beds with clover to help rejuvenate the soil after the growing season.

As Lillian, our intern this summer, so eloquently said, “on my first day in the garden, a resident taught me that healthy soil doesn't appear overnight. It takes care, time, and the right conditions before anything can grow. I think people are much the same. That's what HeartBound does every day.”

Please consider making a donation to support our programming inside prisons. More than 80% of every dollar given goes directly to programming—not administrative expenses, fundraising costs, marketing, or office rent, but to hands-on, in-person ministry with men, women, and teenagers inside prisons across Georgia and Tennessee. Your generosity is making a tangible difference. It allows us to continue this life-changing work and expand into new prisons, bringing hope, purpose, and practical skills to those who need them most. Our prayer is that we can keep planting gardens and teaching skills that can take root long after a prison sentence ends. Teach a man to fish - or, in our case, teach him to garden - and you give him more than a harvest. You give him hope, purpose, dignity, and the opportunity for a new beginning.