Prison Life

Hi My Sweet Family & Friends,

      So, Sandie sent me a copy of my blog last week, which was nice because I've totally forgotten everything I've written you.  I was surprised at how much I've neglected to tell you- probably because I write you mental letters all the time, but ummm... you can't mail those!  Wow, I fail.  I think it's because to paint you an accurate picture of this place seems like an outrageously huge task, so I just write about the other stuff, and leave all the prison stuff out.  (I mean, the God stuff is just the way more happy & exciting!)  But I've had a lot of people ask, and I've come to realize that giving an accurate picture of the only Women's Prison in Arizona is important, too.  After all, orange is not the new black, and this is no Federal Prison.  

     My friend, April is taking English 101 right now and is currently working on an evaluation essay. Her evaluation:  Perryville.  So, I've decided, in order to make this more manageable for me, keep me focused and on track (thus making it easier to read for you), I will write this in installments based on her outline.  :) Today's topic:  Housing.  Here goes.

      When you arrive at Perryville, you are taken to R&A (can't remember what it stands for). Depending on how crowded it is, there are 2-3 women per 8'x 12' cell.  Your custody level is determined at that point and you are assigned to either a minimum, medium, or maximum custody unit. Currently at Perryville, there is one max unit (Lumley) which houses the max custody inmates, death row, suicide watch, and the central detention unit.  This is also where R&A is.  There are two medium custody units- Santa Maria and Santa Cruz (I am currently on Cruz).  The other four units are minimum custody- San Pedro (the medical unit), Santa Rosa, Piestiwa, and San Carlos.  Aside from my time on Lumley in R&A, I have only been on Cruz.  I cannot speak about what it is like on the minimum units because I've never been there, but our housing is the same on Cruz as it is on Lumley and Maria, but Maria is smaller, having only 2 yards instead of 4.  When entering the V-gate (vehicle gate) on Cruz, you are greeted by a giant dirt field (about 2 football fields in length) with a dirt track surrounding it. Across the field you will see four yards, each fenced in: 14 yard, 16 yard, 18 yard, and 20 yard.  I live on 20 yard.  Each yard has four two-story pods.  Each pod can house 48 girls, so when a yard is at capacity it can house 192 girls.  There have been times when the prison was so overcrowded that they were housing girls in 10 packs in side rooms and they also housed girls in 20 &14 kitchens. Thankfully, it hasn't been like that since I've been here.  The pods are L-shaped with showers at either end, 6 showers per pod.  They are all nasty and moldy.  I thought shower shoes were a must in college; I had NO idea how gross a shower could be!  Twice now, somebody pooped in there!!  Who does that?!? I said, "Well, they have our DNA on file- I can't think of a better time to use it!"  Anyway, back to our rooms- They are 8'x12' cells (I just measured my room with my 9' comb :)).  Everything is metal or concrete- very industrial chic.  I have the upper bunk that stretches the width of the room, with a little metal desk/cubby at the end.  It is where I am writing this right now!  If is sit up straight, I hit my head on the ceiling.  (But I am a bit taller than your average bear.)  Below my bunk is a built in desk and plastic chair.  The bottom bunk is perpendicular to the top bunk, tucked slightly (they make an L).  At the head of the bottom bunk is a metal half wall with a little shelf big enough to set a soap dish.  It separates our "room" from our "bathroom."  Well, kinda.  The sink is on the other side of the "wall", and a toilet is right next to it.  The large metal door is opposite the top bunk and the wall opposite the bottom bunk houses two metal shelves and small "wardrobe."  This so called wardrobe is really just an 18"x 2.5'x 4' box with no front, bolted to the wall.  It has a bar inside where you could hang things if we were allowed to have hangers.  We use it a counter to cook on, and my shoes live underneath it.  There are two bulletin boards (industrial ceiling tiles painted white) on each side of the room where we can hang up pictures, cards and post cards.  There are two large metal drawers that slide under the bottom bunk, and we are allowed up to four cardboard file boxes to store our things (I have two).  Our floor is concrete and has been painted about 5 different colors, but is currently mostly gray.  Oh, and we each have four wooden peg hooks by the door where we can hang our towel.  There are two windows on each side of the top bunk.  They stretch from the ceiling to the top of the desk- (4 ft maybe?) and there are 4-5" wide.  One of them is supposed to open about an inch or so. We have one window that won't close all the way- so we stuffed it with newspaper and both of our windows have clear trash bags taped over them.  It helps keep the bugs and dust out.  That's it!  I'm super thankful that our room is in pretty good shape.  I am also really thankful that our ceiling doesn't leak, 'cause that happens a lot.  Sometimes our toilet flushes and flushes and won't stop for like 40 minutes or until the neighbor flushes theirs, but it hasn't done that in a couple of months. Yay!  We have a swamp cooler, but no AC.  It works pretty good most months, but doesn't help much from July to the end of September/middle of October.  During those months our rooms stay between 90-95 degrees.  I call it our hot yoga studio :)

     That's pretty much it about housing, and I don't know how long this will be typed up, but I'm already at the end of page 5.  I'll wrap up this installment with what I was reminded of this week:  Deuteronomy 8:2- "And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart..."  I will be forever thankful that my time spent in the wilderness is a mere 28 months and not 40 years.  If there is one thing prison is good at, it's humbling a person.  I needed the humbling.  And perhaps God needed to know what was in my heart, but what I've come to know for sure, is that I needed to know what was in my heart.  And I shall remember the whole way that the Lord my God has led me, and continues to lead me.  13.5 months left.

                                                             Love from Fat Camp,

                                                                     Missy

P.S.  

Jenn & Jacqueline, my faithful writers- thank you.  You have no idea how much you encourage me.  

Cherlyn & Paul- Thank you for my new music! It's wonderful. :) 

Tammy & Megan & my sweet Trudy- I know you are walking through your own wilderness. I love you, you are constantly on my heart and I’m praying for you.  Don't grow weary, dear friends. 

Beth, your painting are beautiful!  

Mary Beth- Hi & congratulations! 

Kaci- We're never gonna cry over spilled milk! :) 

     It's so good to hear from all of you!  With every letter, I am reminded of how good God has been to me throughout the years.  I have been and continue to be surrounded by the greatest cloud of witnesses to have ever walked the earth.  

Davey, Grandma & Grandpa Dalton- You are molding my boys, our boys, in to the greatest of men.  I know I don't tell you enough, but I think it all the time; Thank you - for picking up the pieces and keeping their hearts from being broken, for the sacrifices you make for them on a daily basis, for leading and guiding them in Truth.  I am eternally grateful.  I love you, more than words can say.  K- bye for real. I'll write again soon. XOXOXO

Prison Fundraiser

Hello Friends,
 This is Sandie... Missy and I have been friends since we were 16, so most of you probably know me.  If not- nice to meet you!  I lived in Colorado for a few years and moved back into my old house this year which is coincidentally 5 minutes away from the Perryville Prison! Under any other circumstances, this fact may be disconcerting, but it is quite wonderful for me!  I have had the opportunity to visit Missy just about every Saturday for the last few months- and it has been so encouraging- so uplifting.  God is at work in Perryville Prison!  He is using Missy to share the gospel, encourage inmates, and I have seen that this "tearing down" of my sweet friend, has set the stage for God to build her up again.  In Missy's first blog post, entitled Eleven More Hours, she wrote:

"It hurts... a lot, but I am thankful that I have a God that loves me enough to pull me out of darkness, no matter what it takes.  I will consider the next (hopefully) couple of years not simply a punishment, but as discipline.  For punishment can bring about bitterness but discipline brings wisdom, strength, and restoration.  Thank you so much for being there.  For loving me through this.  1 John 4:12 says, 'No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.'  I never understood how God's love could be made more complete through people - until now.  The forgiveness and mercy you have shown me, the love I have felt from you in the past year has been life-changing.  Truly God's love has been made complete in you.... I hope you will stay on this journey with me - I want you to be able to see God turn our mourning into joy." 

She wrote this post 14 months ago, and although there have been a few bumps along the road, this is even more true today than the day she wrote it.  God is turning our mourning into joy in a real way.  She is growing, maturing, and being Missy.  She had been in a funk with the writing and she asked me to apologize for her if she hasn't responded to all of the letters she has received.  But know that the letters you all have sent (and will hopefully continue to send) really help her.  It is necessary to continually renew her mind in there, and with little teaching/resources and a lot of prison drama- "normal" interactions with people via letters and visits are so beneficial.  Writing the blog has also been a really healthy outlet for her as well.  I have been nagging encouraging her to start writing regularly.  She doesn't believe me that it is encouraging other believers on the "outs" (that's prison lingo for the outside world- Oh yeah, I'm pretty street now!)  But the blog is making a difference to people- it just is- so if you write to her, make sure to nag encourage her to blog!

One last thing!  Many of you have asked me, and asked Missy, if she needs anything.  She felt weird about saying anything- but there is a prison fundraiser going on this week- so I told her that I would put it out there on the blog so that if anyone wanted to contribute financially, they could, but that there would be absolutely NO PRESSURE on anyone.  So here are the details:
Well, first, here is a little information about prison life, then I'll give the fundraiser details!  Missy has to buy just about everything from a prison store- soap, razors, shoes, sunscreen, any extra food, etc.  She has a decently paying job in there (she makes 40 cents/hour teaching other inmates so that they can pass their mandatories -8th grade equivalency tests)- but after paying rent, taxes and fees, she only takes "home" about $9/week (I asked how much it would take to live comfortably- relative to the fact that you are still in prison- and she said that she would be in the lap of luxury on $80/month. Crazy!)  Anyways, she if fine.  She wanted me to say, she is totally and completely fine!  But, as her friend, I just wanted to let you know that anyone can put money in her account, anytime. Just saying!    I go through www.jpay.com.  You just enter her inmate # and Wallah- she gets the money deposited into her account within a few days.  Her inmate # is 280198.
Ok- for the fundraiser.  A few times a year, certain stores/restaurants come into the prison and do fundraising for victims groups.  The idea is that the inmates have access to buy items that they usually cannot purchase (like lipgloss or a cheeseburger), and the merchant charges a high price for the item.  So, if Wendy's did a prison fundraiser, they would charge the inmate $2 for something off their dollar menu.  $1 would go to Wendy's , $1 would go to the Victim's rights Non-Profit, and Missy would get to eat a frosty!  One of these fundraisers is going on this week.  So... in the most non-pressurey way that I can put it, if you want to- just go to www.jpay.com and you put money into Missy's account and she can participate. There ya go!  Every little bit counts so please do NOT feel any pressure to put a ton of money in there.  Thanks guys!

Anyhow, I am hoping to get a letter from Missy any day now to update the blog. She told me last weekend that she was just finishing a blog post.  Who knows, maybe it's in my mailbox right now! To make it less confusing, when a blog post is informational, I will post it through my own personal gmail account, but when I am transcribing a blog post from Missy, I will go through her account, so that those entries will say "Posted by Melissa Dalton."

Well, I'm not sure how to end this- and "All My Love From Fat Camp" is already taken, so- Over and out!

Written April 17, 2014

My sweet Family and Friends,
     I have written you this letter like 5 times (even more in my head), got about half-way through, realized that it was not at all what I wanted to say and chucked it in the trash. Then last night I went to church and God thunked me in the head. I was reminded of two things:
     #1 - Sometimes God allows us to be shaken so hard that ll that's left is the eternal.
     #2 - Often it takes being emptied of EVERYTHING else to realize that God is the only thing that makes us feel truly satisfied.
So, yeah, I've been told this before - many times in many different ways, but I tell ya, there's nothing quite like learning from experience. I know God has taught me like a million things this year, but those two things from last night kinda sum them all up. Through the consequences of my actions I was shaken to my core and pretty much emptied out. I feel a little bit like a tree that's been through a big storm. It reminds me of that song by John Mark McMillan - "He is jealous for me - Loves like a hurricane, I am the tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy." So here I am - bent but not broken, stripped bare of all my pretty leaves and missing a few limbs, but still firmly rooted in the only thing that really matters. At this point I find myself strangely thankful for the storm, 'cause can I tell you something that really irritates me about myself? I seem to need a good shaking! I'm pretty sure God would have done a nice pruning job had I allowed Him to, but nooooooooo. I totally needed those branches! (Nevermind that they were growing all willy-nilly in the wrong direction or just all together rotten...) Ugh. I disgust myself. So really, how merciful for Him to hold me firmly by my roots and allow the storm to rip off my temporal branches. But next time, I'm totally opting for the pruning shears.
     As far as my day to day goes, things are going alright. I stay very busy and time is going by fast. I got a job teaching G.E.D. and mandatory (8th grade education class). I spend a lot of time teaching math - everything from fractions to algebra to geometry. I forgot that I knew all of this stuff :) Maybe by the time I get outta here (15 1/2 months, but who's counting?) I'll actually be able to help my boys with their math homework!
     I remember a year ago I got here, looked around and thought to myself, " I will NEVER be friends with these people." Everyone seemed so...different? strange? scary? I mean, I'd never seen so many women with tattoo's on their neck. or face. Lord, forgive me for being so judgmental. One of the kindest people I have ever met has a tattoo that crawls up the side of her neck and around her face. Anyway, I have been blessed with a group of friends that I truly like being with. They are kind and caring and encouraging. I'm so thankful to have them. Although none of them have tattoo's on their neck - hmmm... what are the odds? I should really figure out the ratio on that. I should also stop turning everything into a math problem and stop writing down everything that pops into my head. Sorry about that! O.K., back to what I was saying - I am so thankful for the friends I have. If you don;t mind praying for them by name, they are April, Staci, Becky, Cheryl, Michaele, and Margaret. They are great and I know they'd appreciate your prayers.
     O.K., this letter is getting long and my best friend since I was 16, Sandie, should be here to visit any minute (Thanks Sandie!), so I'm going to wrap this up, I'll write again (sooner than six months, was it?) Sheesh, I fail. But Sandie's been on me about it, so I'll write and mail it! Know that I think of you all daily, I pray for you without ceasing and I love you endlessly. Thank you so much for the letters you've sent (for the books and C.D.'s too!) You've helped keep me sane. I appreciate your Love and encouragement more than I will ever be able to say. I really will try and do a better job writing - both to the blog and to you individually. Know that I get your letters and they are my greatest treasures. I would love if you'd send pictures! They don't limit me on how many I have, just as long as I don't get more than 30 at a time. I like to see your faces :) I miss your face... <3
                                                      With all my love from Fat Camp,
                                                                                              Missy

Thank You! September 16, 2013

My Sweet Family & Friends,
Hi! It has been a little over two months since I wrote you last - please forgive me. I initially slowed down as we worked on the logistics of my posts, not wanting to overwhelm any one member of my wonderful family with having to type up numerous verbose letters. And then I just got into a funk. Nothing truly terrible, simply an adjustment to my new reality. So please don't worry - I've snapped out of it, all is well, and I will be sure to write more consistently. It really does help me process things and tends to cement in the things God is teaching me.
The past couple of months have flown by - I can't believe we are already half-way through September! I am officially under my two year mark - only 23 miles to go! I have always felt that the first mile or two of any race hurt as your heart and lungs adjust. This has proven to be the same. But the initial shock is over, I have settled into a stride I can maintain for the endurance, and in the back of my head I can hear the voice of a small blue fish: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." :)
Thank you for continuing to write me faithfully, even (especially) when I remained so silent. It means more to me than I can say. And thank you so much for all the birthday cards and letters you sent - they were the best! They made me laugh and cry, and laugh so hard I cried. I was so blessed by you. I also received some great books and CD's from friends and family. (Thank You! You know who you are. :)) I have enjoyed them immensely.
Alright, I'm gonna try to give you the condensed version of the past two months: After observing the girls on my yard and hiding in my room until somewhere towards the beginning of July, I decided to venture outside. I made a friend Staci - she is in my counseling group and on my yard. She is normal and nice and loves Jesus. We try to keep each other sane. She introduced me to a few other girls that she is friends with and they've been really great. The Fourth of July was the first day I was able to look around and see the women around me for what they really are - not scary, just broken. It was a good day filled with hamburgers (well - soyburgers) and turkey hotdogs, a big slice of watermelon (Gift #120), corn on the cod & apple pie (#126), frisbees and a hula hoop contest. Oh yes, we found some hula hoops buried in the rec room that day and let me tell you - they provided hours worth of entertainment, despite the 110 degree plus heat. Hula hoops - Gift #127. Lock down is at 8pm and we weren't allowed to stay out in search for fireworks that night. But at 9pm, I decided to peek out the window, just in case, and do you know what I saw? Fireworks. :) Jenny was amazed - she hadn't seen them at all in the three years she's been locked up. We both stood there faces smooshed up against our 5"x24" window, fully aware it was a gift, #125 on my list, I'm not sure what number it was for Jenny. She won't tell me, not until next November. The night before she goes home we're going to read each other our gifts - the ones God has given us while in prison. I'm not sure if we'll make it to one thousand, but I know that if I don't it's not because God hasn't continued to give them, it's because of my lack of discipline in writing them down.
My birthday came later in July and I was showered with cards all month. Thank you! The day after my birthday I got a visit from my boys & husband & in-laws. It was the best gift ever. My sister, brother-in-law and niece are the nicest and come see me just about every single weekend. They stuff me full of over-priced vending machine food and let me win at Sorry and Uno. My Dad, his wife, my brother and his wife, and three of my besties have been able to come up a couple of times also. It has been so nice! I am able to call home just about every night and that has been such a gift. I've survived my first summer with no AC, learned that swamp coolers are laughable during monsoon season, and that they don't work without an adequate water line running to them. In July and August, our rooms stayed at about 96 degrees, colling off to 90 at night if we were lucky. But the worst is over and Fall is just around the corner. I also made it through my first haboob! Two or three, actually, but the first was the worst! Dust blew through the cracks in the door, windows and through the vent, leaving a thin layer over the entire room. I've never seen anything like it.
I've applied to a bunch of jobs, but my schedule is a little wonky with my counseling and computer class, and we aren't a working yard. There are more girls than jobs. So I keep applying, and in the mean time I'm helping a couple of girls in mandatory with their homework so they can pass their test. Mandatory is the class inmates are put in until they can pass at least an 8th grade equivalency test. Until they pass, they can't make more than 10 cents per hour and they don't qualify for their 85%. I'm still reading A Lot - more than I ever have. I'm on book 36 right now - C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. I also finished my chronological Bible reading plan last week, finishing in a little over 2.5 months. I'm currently doing a study on Romans. God continues to teach me something new every day. I could fill books. But this letter is getting long and for the sake of my sister I'm going to wrap it up. I'll write again soon - for reals. In the meantime, know that I love you, I think about and pray for you daily and miss you fiercely. Please pray for the girls on Santa Cruz, and for me too. "...but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Romans 5:3-4.
Love from Fat Camp,
Missy

Happy Birthday to Missy

July 19th is Melissas 35th Birthday. Lets storm the gates of Perryville ALL MONTH LONG with birthday cards. Please just take a moment. It means so much. A reminder: no glitter, foam, standouts, simple cards are best, no colored paper. The address is on FAQ panel to your left. It takes five days for mail from Tucson, so please start getting them in the mail ASAP.  Thanks, Donna

PS: Please follow previously published guidelines for sending books, magazines or money orders for Missy's expense account.
(See Letters From Home Post 4/19/13)

A Big 'Ol Rock

My sweet family and friends, Well, I am looking at my list of months, the one I have written on the back of a tablet of lined paper.  It stretches the length of it, and some days it just looks long. I try not to look at it until the end of the month when I get to check it off. (Why does it seem so satisfying to check things off a list?) But today I looked, today I counted-26. Well, about 26.2 to be precise. When that realization of 26.2 sunk in, relief washed over me. It's a marathon-I only have a marathon left! O.K., some of you may think something different when you hear the word marathon, but it brought me great relief, and even a little joy. Don't get me wrong, marathons hurt. They give me blisters, claim my toenails, burn my lungs and make my heart feel like it is going to melt inside my chest. Somewhere between mile 18 and mile 24 I  feel like my legs are simultaneously made of lead and sharp knives. It hurts to walk, so I just keep running. But in the end, when I am finished, I feel strong, maybe not so much my body as my heart. SO Praise God! I only have a marathon left. I pray He helps me run it well. I press on, knowing when it is over, my heart will be strong. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Its been an interesting week around here. We have been locked down a few times, not entirely sure why. Ive heard alot of stories on "orange.com."ha. But you can only believe about half of what you hear. Anyway, yesterday about 4:15am they decided to spice things up by popping our doors open and while yelling"Get up and Get outside!", (yelling profanities) That was a little dramatic for me. So we ended up siting outside while for awhile while they shook our rooms and brought the dogs over to sniff us. Everyone was irritated and looking down. I was sitting outside my door looking at my shoes contemplating squashing a baby cricket, ( girls around here say having a cricket in your room is good luck, I just say eww... gross, there is a bug in my room, step on it!) So while considering crickets, I hear God whisper, "Look Up". Sometimes, I don't listen very well, but this time I did. I saw the sun begin to rise. The clouds went from purple to having a lining of soft pink, and as the sun continued in ascent they became like fluffy balls of fire. It was beautiful. It is amazing what you discover when you change your perspective. In one moment I felt big and what I saw was ugly, and in the next, I felt small and what I saw was beauty. Funny how God does that.

I dont know if you noticed that in May the moon had a couple of nights when it was so big and so bright, it lit up the sky like it was day. There were two nights it was so bright through my window that around 2:30 am it woke me up. I'm so glad it did. I would have hated to miss it. I layed in bed an stared at it, remembering David Crowder's "Illuminated" album. Inside the cover it talks about the difference in an illuminating object-something capable of producing it's own light, and an illuminated object-something that simply reflects light; it has no capability of creating it's own. The sun is illuminating, the moon illuminated. The closer the illuminated object is to the illuminating object; the brighter it will seem. The clouds yesterday, the moon in May-their proximity to the sun showed. It reminded me of the face of Moses in Exodus, when he came down from Mount Sinai. He had been so close to God that even after he came back down, his face was still glowing bright. When Paul reminds of the story of Moses in 2nd Corinthians he tells us because of Christ we get to stand and be illuminated and reflect the glory of the son. What more can I ask? If God can light up that giant rock in the sky like a lamp, maybe there is hope for me, if only I walk closely.

I went to church tonight. Worship remains my favorite time of the week. I sing alot on my own, but there is something powerful, something beautiful about singing to the One who is worthy in the company of a bunch of convicts. Their facades have been stripped away, they come with their hearts bowed low and broken. These girls dont just sing, they cry out from the depths of their hearts until I can feel my soul vibrate along with the waves of their praise. All I can think of are the words of an old Lifehouse song-"How can I stand here and not be moved by you?"I cannot-It is impossible, and I am moved to tears. I can only mouth the words as tears continue to stream down; their worship so honest, pounds through my chest. "Lord, I love You." More than life..." It is desperation at its most beautiful. For that, I wish you were here.

Thank God, that there is no place where he won't meet us. That all he asks is to walk closely; even if wer'e just a big 'Ol Rock or a bunch of water vapor, we can be transformed to reflect his glory in the most beautiful way. Praying for you to be illuminated this week-Here's to unveiled Glory! :)

Love from Fat Camp, Missy

You know you're in prison when.....