Mary Kay Beard

Mary Kay Beard

Mary Kay Beard is a hero because she is an example of a person who started out with a bad life but, by the grace of God, turned it around and is making a difference in the world by providing joy to children of inmates and by ministering to the inmates themselves. Mary is the founder of a program called Angel Tree. This program collects and distributes toys to children whose parents are incarcerated. Angel Tree is a ministry of an organization called Prison Fellowship, which was founded by Charles (Chuck) W. Colson (Prison Fellowship, 2006, About Chuck Colson).

Mary was raised in a Midwest farming community; her mother took her and her eight siblings to church every Sunday where Mary dutifully memorized her bible verses like a good Christian girl should. Unfortunately, her father was an abusive alcoholic; she grew bitter toward him and began to resent him. Mary left home after graduating from high school at age 15, she then went to nursing school and got married soon after graduating at the top of her class at age 18. Mary’s first marriage was to a career criminal who involved her in robbing banks and gas stations. He left her after she was hospitalized for a period of time; the bitterness increased. She continued in her life of crime until eventually the FBI caught up with her and put her in jail. She came to know Jesus through a local church that held services for the inmates at the jail (Prison Fellowship, 2006, What is Angel Tree?).

Once she found Jesus, her heart of bitterness changed and she was at peace. God worked a small miracle in regard to her prison time; she could have been sentenced to 180 years; however, she only got 21. While in prison she graduated from junior college, graduated from Auburn, and started on her master’s degree. Mary received her parole two years early in 1978, and earned her masters degree in education in 1982. Immediately after this, Mary was appointed the state director of Alabama for Prison Fellowship by Charles Colson. Her first task was to create a Christmas program. This is when she came up with the idea of giving presents to inmates that they can give to their children. Mary recognized that children were suffering as a result of what their parents did; that didn’t seem right to her. So she put up Christmas trees at two malls and submitted an article to the paper describing how the children are the real victims. The response was enormous; the first year 556 children received up to four different gifts each. That was not the only windfall; in January, Mary’s Bible study groups at the prison doubled or tripled in size. The inmates really appreciated that someone would do something so special to help them out, so they decided to come and see what it was all about. The angel tree ministry is still going on today. During Christmas 2000, almost 600,000 children were given a gift by the angel tree program; the cumulative total of children touched by this ministry since the program started is estimated at more than 5 million (Prison Fellowship, 2006, What is Angel Tree?).

Mary Kay Beard

Today Mary lives with her husband Don in Birmingham, Alabama. She is currently serving as the Area Director for Mississippi, as well as being involved in Encourager Ministries which is a counseling/teaching ministry founded by Mary and Don (Encourager Ministries, 2006). Mary is a hero to me because she overcame adversity and because she is the model of Christ in prisoners’ lives. When I say that she is modeling Christ I mean that she does not judge the people she helps, she does not beat them over the head with a Bible. She loves them first, then if God moves their hearts to attend a Bible study, she is there to share the love of Christ with them. That is what all church ministries should look like.

References:

Encourager Ministries (2006). Our Story. Retrieved October 2, 2007, from http://www.marykaybeard.com/showandtell.asp?id=2026

Prison Fellowship (2006). About Chuck Colson. Retrieved October 2, 2007, from http://www.prisonfellowship.org/Bio.asp?ID=43

Prison Fellowship (2006). What is Angel Tree? Retrieved October 2, 2007, from http://www.angeltree.org/generic.asp?ID=67