By Adrianna Roshelle
My grandmother is and will always be one of the most powerful women I know. Her story is one that can inspire many. This week I got to sit down and talk to the beautiful, strong, warrior, Annie Mckinnon, 89, about her life and how her faith in the Lord, though at times challenged, was what got her through life’s toughest circumstances.
Adrianna:”Hello everybody, we are recording the great Mother McKinnon and she will be telling us the powerful story of her life. So mother,(a name all who are close to her call her!) how are you doing today?”
Mother: “I’m blessed”
Adrianna: “You are the definition of blessed mother. The first question I’ll ask is, though you definitely grew up in a Christian home, what made you want to start your awesome prison ministry “Christians Concerned For Prisoners”?
Mother: Well really, it never was in my heart. I found out later it was really ordained by God.”
Her two sons, got arrested for a robbery they didn’t do. One was acquitted, and one was sentenced to 10 years.
Understandably at this time Mother began to have faith in Jesus Christ like never before. Any mother or any family member with loved ones in prison knows how hard this most definitely is.
Mother: “It was at the times when I would visit my son, and he would share some of his time for me to talk to some of the other inmates that didn’t have any family, then it became so many that I didn’t have the funds, so I was granted permission to bring a can and collect funds from others visiting to give to all of the inmates.”
During this time in 1978, guards saw the noticable change surfacing in the attitudes of the inmates of the prison, and Mother was most definitely asked to come back at least one night a week to talk to the inmates and give encouragement. And that’s one of my grandma’s many gifts. And that was the start of Christians Concerned For Prisoners.
Mother: “It was during this time that I was getting closer to the Lord that I was informed that one of my sons was supposed to have committed suicide in jail, but I know he didn’t. Later, it was found out it was a conspired murder. And it was during this tough time that I began to get revelation knowledge.”
For any new readers, that is the supernaturally given knowledge of God.
Mother: “The Lord told me, the devil took your son, but I am going to give you a great multiple of sons.”
Mother was given favor from powerful people to get approval from the IRS, so Christians Concerned For Prisoners became and is accredited.
She also was given ideas to help the prisoners by putting on an annual banquet, revival and concert filled with guest speakers and her great home cooked food for the community alike. The inmates were allowed to come out and help with setting up everything.
Trials and tribulation still came. Mother recalls the times when the ministry wasn’t even allowed to have a light bulb to speak to the prisoners and the had to use an extension. Some of the prison conditions were so bad that it was through Christians Concerned For Prisoners that many prisons like the Talladega County .ail was rebuilt.
Mother says that through it all her favorite things about this ministry it that it is interracial and nondenominational.
Mother: “Every inmate is like my son and I’m their mother. Color never matters.
She recalls the story of an inmate who was Latin American but who told her, “you’re my mother”. Not only were the prison inmates changed by Mother McKinnon’s life, but certainly all others who were willing to help, like Michelle Richardson and such great chaplains for allowing Annie McKinnon to be the first woman allowed into prisons.
Former chaplain Browser said on Mother being the first woman going in to minister to prisoners, …”many couldn’t grasp it.”
She says through it all, God gets the glory and all of the miracles He’s done through CCFP and more, can be found out in Annie’s McKinnons book, The Annie P. McKinnon story.
Her favorite scripture: In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Prov 3:6
Love ya mother!❤
