Operation Break The Cycle

CEDAR GROVE, LA. – Elisia Minton, Cedar Grove Seventh-day Adventist Church personal ministries director, along with Jaqueline Bell, the church’s community services director, has been leading out in celebrating the Shreveport community. Every fourth Sabbath is the Friends and Family Community Guest Day, and on this day, they honor an active member of the community and provide grant monies to help with various initiatives.

On Sabbath, June 24, David Boone, director of the Caddo Parish Detention Center, was honored for his work to prepare incarcerated men to reunite with society. Grant monies were also awarded to the families of inmates. On this Sabbath, one inmate’s partner and her sister decided to get baptized. It was the last day of the Let’s Grow Together Revival preached by Winston Taylor, pastor of the Cedar Grove church. 

The Cedar Grove church family recognized that God had just opened the door to a new frontier of ministry, reaching the families of the inmates of the Caddo Parish Detention Center where Taylor teaches the inmates every Tuesday.

As a result, the church voted to launch Operation Break the Cycle: Inmates’ Family Ministries (BTC:IFM). This new and innovative ministry will provide CREATION Life summer camps for children of inmates, CREATION Life after-school programs, tutoring, mentoring, adopt-a-family programs, inmate spouse’s club, group therapy for spouses of inmates and more. The Cedar Grove church will also be looking to partner with local stakeholders. Carlton P. Byrd, D.Min., Southwest Region Conference president, has been coaching Taylor and we thank him. 

Taylor and Commander Ricky Farris met to discuss Operation BTC:IFM. The project was approved to be launched in Unit D of the jail. On July 4, Taylor led a team to launch the program. The team, composed of Kamala Glenn-Taylor, LMFT, Rosavelt Bell and youth team leader Orlando Bates spent three hours with the inmates playing, eating and praying. As they wrapped up, an inmate interrupted the closing remarks to thank them for coming and expressed that, “For the last hour I did not feel as though I was locked up.” 

Over 20 men have signed up to be a part of BTC:IFM.

By Winston Taylor
Pastor