And every time, Mathew transforms the list into a forever-special gift list. How does she do it? She buys each person a personalized, quality Bible.
“People pass in and out of your life – what’s called fingerprints on them – and sometimes you see the immediate results of your efforts, and sometimes you don’t see them for many, many years,” said Mathew, who attends Prestonwood Baptist Church.
“My hope is that the Bible will stay with them through all their travels through life and that they will always use it as a source of power.”
She began contributing to the faith-based dorm at Hutchins State Jail after her son described his experience there.
“He was actually excited about being where he was, and I was like, well, tell me more, tell me more. And in his telling me more, he was like, ‘Mom, we don’t have a lot of current Christian music. It’s a lot of old-school music. ‘And I was like, oh, OK. I said, ‘what else do you need?’ He said, ‘well, not all of us have Bibles.’ ”
The 44-year-old Carrollton mom and 11-year realtor was all in. “I have the means, and I wanted to be able to help them out,” she said.
At first she donated G-rated movies and cases of paperback tract Bibles. Then her son asked for a study Bible. She ordered one online, but he wanted a particular version he’d seen another person at the dorm using – because he wanted to dive deeper into the Word, she said.
The gift to her son inspired an idea. She asked Pastor Reed if he was interested in giving the men Bibles published with high quality. Most people may not buy a more costly Bible for themselves, but what if they received one as a gift?
“I thought that would be really special for somebody who’s trying to make a difference in their life. They want it, but they have to take the baby steps,” Mathew said. “And I thought how meaningful would that be to somebody who maybe doesn’t get thought of that much to have something personalized – with their own name on it – with God’s Word?”
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