CRUX 2019
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Loving those on the margins<br />
Worthy by nature<br />
INTERVIEWS WITH THE REV. ANN PERROTT & DEACON ELLEN ADAMS<br />
Pam Dawkins<br />
Men and women aren’t their crime, aren’t<br />
their prison time. “It’s not the whole book.<br />
That is a chapter in the book.”<br />
The Rev. Ann Perrott<br />
Faith informs and transforms lives — those of the faithful and<br />
those whose situations can make personal faith a challenge.<br />
But how do the faithful harness their personal beliefs into strengths<br />
they can share with others, particularly when those others have run<br />
afoul of the law?<br />
“As Episcopalians, we are lucky to have the Baptismal Covenant,”<br />
which specifically calls for respect for the dignity of every human<br />
being, said Deacon Ellen Adams.<br />
Deacon Adams, 71, is president of the board of the nondenominational<br />
New Life Ministry of Southeastern Connecticut,<br />
which helps women who are newly released from York Correctional<br />
Institute in Niantic.<br />
“They come out with absolutely nothing. They have to start all over<br />
again,” said the Rev. Ann Perrott, 68, of the women.<br />
Ann is executive director of New Life Ministry, which provides these<br />
women with one-on-one mentors who help them find employment<br />
and social services like Alcoholics Anonymous. The ministry —<br />
founded 20 years ago by Father St. Onge, a pastor of the Roman<br />
Catholic Church of Christ the King in Old Lyme — also runs two<br />
apartments able to house four women at a time, who pay a nominal<br />
rent after they find a job.<br />
Ann, who serves at Christ Church in Middle Haddam, also works<br />
with male prisoners through the Houses of Healing program.<br />
“We peel back the onion of a person’s life,” to discover how they got<br />
to their current situation, she said of the 12-week Houses of Healing<br />
program. “There’s no copping out of their crime,” she said, but she<br />
realizes they usually didn’t get to this place in a vacuum.<br />
“It’s the closest thing to God that I have felt in my calling,” Ann,<br />
who spent most of her life working in social services, said. These<br />
men and women have experienced much trauma but if she can help<br />
one person, it may mean generations to come might not end up in<br />
prison. “It’s all [about] God … I need you to help me.”<br />
The Rev. Ann Perrott at her church office in Middle Haddam.<br />
Ellen, who also works at St. Francis House, an intentional Christian<br />
community in New London, and serves at St. James' Episcopal<br />
Church in New London, taught school in Norwich for 35 years. She<br />
believes she was called to be a deacon because of her involvement<br />
with the Learn and Serve Movement, teaching curriculum through<br />
community service. Teachers at her school asked her to consider<br />
becoming a minister but being a deacon was the only job that<br />
allowed her to continue teaching.<br />
A friend brought Ellen to a Faith Behind Bars and Beyond (a ministry<br />
of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut) meeting, which led her to<br />
the New Life Ministry.<br />
“We only take people that we think are ready to have a new life,”<br />
she said. Some women turn out not to be ready; they work with<br />
parole officers to get those women into half-way houses. Overall,<br />
New Life Ministry has had an 88 percent success rate in 20 years.<br />
As a mentor, Ellen said she teaches the women how to make<br />
choices — what to eat and wear, where to work, whether to reconnect<br />
with family. She aligns this with the Episcopal Church’s<br />
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