Posts by Kim Turner

unCUFFED’s Kim Turner has formed a partnership with Barbara Rowe from Christ for the City International Ministries (https://cfci.org/) to correspond with and disciple the Latino Boys at the Baltimore County Detention Center.

Yesterday was a sobering day. Even in such a challenging day, we are able to hear juveniles’ pain and pray that God will give them healing and hope.

A popular warm up question to a small group is often, what was the high and low of your week? Another warm up question might be, describe a significant event in the form of a photograph or snapshot. Given that as a backdrop, I wanted to share two recent snapshots from working with detained youth…

Week after week we talk to the boys at Hickey hoping that the message of Jesus will make a difference in their lives. We know that they are listening, discussing, and connecting to the message but we often don’t always know if it is making a difference, if there is fruit. One young man, Terrell,…

“I pray that God can help me to positively, handle my anger and emotions, to be able to identify positive and negative people in my life, to help me stay focused on my music and getting in to Bowie State University and that God can make something positive out of my situation and that everything…

Sometimes, when we have Bible study with the youth we do a warm up where we spread a collection of 30 photographs on a table and ask the guys, “What photo represents God to you?” This short exercise gives us a window into their spiritual journey and perception of God. Below are some of their…

Have you heard the term disconnected youth? That is the latest sociological term for youth between the ages of 16-24 who are either not in any school or are unemployed. So they are disconnected from educational and employment opportunities and really disconnected from achieving their goals and dreams. So many of the youth we work…

Billy had been on 4 S, the Youth Tier, for 23 months awaiting his trial and sentencing. During his exit interview, I asked him if there was anything else unCUFFED could do to for young men in the system. He said nothing, paused, and then said it would be helpful if the guys could hear…

It’s easy to be discouraged working with our boys. Are they hearing, believing, understanding, or trusting us? We pray and prepare only to find guys on lock-up, having a bad day, or being disruptive by walking out of class or choosing this hour to pick a fight with their co-defendant. Recently, we challenged the boys…

Sometimes I struggle when I try to explain to others what it is, exactly, that I do here in my role with unCUFFED. When I’m speaking to church folks, the easiest connection for me to make is ‘youth ministry.’ I mean, that’s essentially what I am doing: I am building relationships with kids, hopefully encouraging…