I didn’t have a column last week, because I was in prison — I guess that deserves an explanation.

For a year now, I’ve been involved with a Kairos Prison Ministry at Donaldson Correctional Facility, a Level 6 maximum-security prison near Bessemer.

It’s rewarding work but also frustrating at the same time, because it’s hard to really know what kind of impact you are making.

A team of about 50 volunteers goes in Thursday, and we meet the 42 inmates who are taking part in the weekend. We have coffee and homemade cookies during introductions. It’s amazing to watch some of these guys put away several dozen cookies in a matter of minutes.

The rest of the weekend is spent in talks and then discussions about those. These talks cover topics like choices, forgiveness and how to live a spiritual life.

There are two Kairos weekends a year at Donaldson and each are different. Some weekends, I’ve had tables where everyone was serious and wanted to make the most of the weekend. Other weekends, it’s been a struggle with people who joked the entire time or came just for the food, not that I blame them for that.

For the most part, most of the inmates get around to acknowledging that they are at Donaldson because of the poor choices they have made.

There are breakthroughs about understanding that choices have consequences and that we need to accept responsibility for our decisions and quite passing blame and making excuses.

So that’s rewarding in some ways, but the weekends are always tough too.

These guys committed crimes, many brutal ones. The choices they made hurt a lot of people, their victims and own family alike.

But most of them never had a chance. Few ever had a father or positive male influence in their life.

I couldn’t help but make the connection this week as we covered Teen Challenge, the Hope Academy grand opening and the Dallas County Fatherhood Initiative receiving a grant.

It’s these kinds of programs that can make a difference and keep young men out of trouble. We need to do everything we can to support these efforts.

A lot of people ask me why I do prison ministry. A simple answer is Christ tells us to visit those in prison in the Gospel.

That said, I have no doubt many of the inmates who come through our weekend would, if freed, go out and do the same kind of stuff that got them into Donaldson in the first place.

However, if only one heart and mind is changed, it’s worth the effort. The inmates at Donaldson and the troubled youth right here at home can get there as long as we don’t give up on them, again.