Ron Humphrey

Ron Humphrey

The beige Nissan Maxima and white Chevy Camaro sport similar Virginia vanity plates: KIMRON1 and KIMRON2. The fused name mirrors the unbreakable unity that Kim and Ron Humphrey have shared for 32 years—despite the wracks of war, torture, imprisonment, and bureaucracy.

They met in the battle-torn Mekong Delta of Vietnam in 1969. Kim: a young Vietnamese mother of eight, widowed by the ambush slaying of her husband, a South Vietnamese army officer. And Ron: a Korean War vet from Washington state, now engaged in “psychological warfare” under the State Department and the CIA. His childless 16-year marriage, already precarious, had crashed beyond repair when he accepted a two-year assignment to Vietnam.

Tamela Baker

About 30 miles southeast of Buffalo, in the small municipality of Batavia, New York, quaint old homes flanked by older trees line well-kept streets. Children giggle and tease on the way home from school. Traffic gets a little heavy right around five. Batavia, the county seat of Genesee County, could have come right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Nobody would guess that something radical is happening in this conservative enclave of Western New York. But in a state notorious for its ever-expanding prison system, this is one community that is seeking—and finding—creative nonprison criminal-justice alternatives.

Ron Humphrey

Editor's Note: In the August 1983 issue of Prison Fellowship’s Jubilee newsletter, we told you the story of Zeb Osborne. Zeb, who had spent more than half his life behind bars, was then the only certified PF instructor who was also a prisoner. And—facing a 20-year federal sentence when his South Carolina sentence ended—it did not appear that was going to change soon.

We caught up with Zeb by phone at his Columbia, South Carolina, home and found that God is still serving up surprises. Be sure to read our update when you're done with the original 1983 story.

Tamela Baker

"Every week, thousands of Prison Fellowship volunteers make their way to jails and prisons to conduct Bible studies. Or sit down at their kitchen tables to write a letter to an inmate. Or take a teddy bear to a child whose family has been victimized. Or answer phones at a ministry office. Without volunteers, Prison Fellowship’s ministry couldn’t go forward.