09/01/2026
We're going to prison.
Last Friday I walked into the prison in Raymondville not knowing what to expect. I walked out six hours later knowing God had opened a door I did not knock on.
The chaplain had been reading Simple Grace. He loved it. He wants it in the hands of the men there. Over the course of the day I sat with dozens of them, counseled them, prayed with them, and watched what happens when a man who has spent years measuring himself by his failures hears that Jesus already finished the work. Grace does something to a room like that. There is no performance left to protect. Men who have nothing to offer God are exactly the men who receive Him most gladly.
We are now setting up a full Simple Grace class inside the prison. The chaplain is expecting at least a couple hundred men to go through the entire course. That means books. That means Bibles. That means the ordinary expenses of showing up week after week for men the world has written off.
Meanwhile, the work overseas keeps growing.
Classes are continuing in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. What is happening in Pakistan is especially exciting: the new classes there are self contained, meaning the believers are carrying the teaching themselves without needing us in the room. Jerry is leading a new group through the Simple Grace class in Karachi and another in the Sindh area. The photos below are from one of those sessions.
And here at home, we started a new Bible study at SpaceX last week. Over 25 adults and around 20 kids came. It was amazing. Engineers, families, kids in the next room, all of us sitting under the same simple truth.
Here is where I need to be honest with you. None of this runs on nothing. Books, Bibles, translation, travel, and the steady cost of keeping classes going on three continents and inside a South Texas prison all add up. What we need most is not a one time gift. It is monthly support. Monthly support is what lets us say yes to a chaplain in Raymondville without wondering whether we can afford the books.
If you would like to partner with us, you can give here:
https://givebutter.com/HMjQtS
I want to say clearly that I am not asking out of obligation and you should not give out of guilt. That is not how grace works and it is not how giving works either. God loves a cheerful giver, not a pressured one. But if the Lord has put this on your heart, your partnership puts a book in a prisoner's hands and a Bible in a home in Karachi.
Would you also pray? Pray for the men in Raymondville. Pray for Jerry and the believers in Pakistan, who carry a cost most of us never will. Pray for the new study here at home.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Shawn Reinsel
Simple Grace
simplegrace.life
By Surrender Church Ministries
