Incarcerated women at the Ohio Reformatory for Women raise their hands and sing along as Wade Spencer, an award-winning country and gospel artist, performs the song “I’ll Fly Away” at Prison Fellowship’s Christmas Hope event. Spencer and country artist Andrea Holman performed a number of Christian and classic Christmas hits during the event. (Journal-Tribune photo by Kayleen Petrovia)
Stanley Frankart knows what it’s like to feel hopeless.
Once convicted in a shooting and sentenced to life in prison, but now a free man, he also knows that there is reason for hope in even the most hopeless situations.
“Hope can reach us no matter where we may be,” he said to incarcerated women at the Ohio Reformatory for Women this week during Prison Fellowship’s Christmas Hope event.
Prison Fellowship, a Christian nonprofit that advocates for justice reform, hosted a Christmas message from Frankart along with musical performances from country artists Wade Spencer and Andrea Holman.
Frankart shared a personal testimony, which he said likely resonates with many of the women at ORW.
He grew up in Sandusky, raised by a single mother who worked long hours to make ends meet.
Often home alone, he said he “never had that sense of family” and spent much of his time seeking a place where he felt like he belonged.
At 10 years old, he said he became a “runner” – an individual who carries out deals – for a local drug dealer who he saw as a father figure.
“There was a place called the streets that welcomed me,” Frankart said.
This new lifestyle resulted in bouncing in and out of juvenile detention facilities during his preteen years, he said.
Eventually, at just 12 years old, Frankart said he worked with others to start a new gang in his hometown.
While he now recognized the decision as misguided and harmful, he said it was an effort to fulfill a longing that many others feel, too.
“I was really trying to find my family,” Frankart said.
Still, he said a lifestyle that revolved around money and illicit drugs ultimately led him to shoot another individual “in the face” when he was 16 years old.
“It breaks my heart that my life had gotten to a place where that was where I was willing to put all my chips at,” he said.
Frankart said he received a life sentence for his crime though it was eventually commuted to a 10-year sentence.
While incarcerated, on a day he remembers vividly – Dec. 28, 2012 – he said the trajectory of his life dramatically changed.
During a gang fight at Richland Correctional Institute, he said he “found Jesus.”
While desperately praying to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in, he said he clearly heard the voice of God convict him and change him.
“Stanley, you’ve led people in the wrong direction all your life,” Frankart said he heard. “It’s time you start leading them in the right direction – toward me.”
Frankart said he later accepted Jesus as his savior. He said, from that day forward, he believed and shared the Christian gospel.
At its root, he said, is the knowledge that “hope changes our current reality” and “heals us from the damage of the world.”
He encouraged them to allow the hope of their faith to change their lives for the better.
A chorus of voices saying “Amen” rose from the crowd as Frankart told them that “salvation starts today.”
Frankart stood with many of the women, a number of whom raised their hands in prayer, as Spencer played his mandolin and sang a variety of Christian songs.
Groups in the audience also danced and sang as Holman belted Christmas classics like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Run, Run Rudolph.”
She reminded them of the reason they celebrate the Christmas season – the birth of a savior who offers hope to all.
“There’s no judgement,” Holman said. “He just wants to love on you. He just wants to give you hope.”