Cedarville Alum Finds Treasures in Prison

Recently, we were blessed to have a long-distance, online conversation with Charles “Chuck” Lawrence, a Cedarville University graduate.  Chuck’s story illustrates so well how God leads His sons and daughters in the faith into fulfilling vocations which He has prepared for them.

[JOHN ●] Thank you, Chuck, for being willing to share your story.  Would you mind tracing your steps professionally since graduation from Cedarville University?
[CHUCK ●] Sure!  I graduated from Cedarville University in 2004 with a Bachelor Degree in cell and molecular biology.  My first job was in a biomimicry lab at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in nearby Fairborn, Ohio.  After about two years, I was granted a graduate teaching assistantship at the University of Notre Dame where I earned my master’s degree. 

[●] How did your graduate school experience at Notre Dame affect your career path? 
[●] My research involved infectious disease and tuberculosis.  However, it was my teaching assistantship at Notre Dame that helped me realize that I loved teaching more than research. I should also add that if I had it to do over again, I would probably have done my grad work in ecology.

[●] That’s interesting.  But you came away with your master’s and a clearer sense of what your career fit might be.  Then what did you do?
[●] I worked in public health for a few years.  Then, in 2013, we went to Tunisia where we started a cheese-making business.  We made cheese from goat, cow and eventually camel milk. Eventually, we added a maple syrup-type product from the sap of date palm trees. 

[●] Fascinating, Chuck!  How long did you stay in Tunisia?
[●] We returned to the states in 2021.  The export side of business was running into too many challenges.  Also, two of our kids were ready to start college.  So, we moved back in South Bend Indiana where I currently work for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and am enjoying it.

[●] Speaking of your family, can you tell us more about your wife and children?
[●] My wife, Kristin and I met at Cedarville University while we performed in The Pirates of Penzance.  She performed on stage and I was in the orchestra pit.  Kristin finished her degree from Michigan State and we were married after our graduation.  Josephine was our first child (now 18) followed by Charley (16) and Madeline (14).  Then we adopted Bujuga from Ethiopia who was already age 5, the same age as Josephine.  Our youngest is Olivia (9).

[●] I suppose you and Kristin are beginning to see them make career choices.
[●] Yes, Josie has an Olympic Weightlifting scholarship and is probably on a track to go to graduate school for Art Therapy.  Bujuga is playing soccer at his school and majoring in Nursing although he might think about adding or switching to PA or NP school after graduation.  Charley is in high school, loving his Welding program, and considering going into Welding or Industrial Diving.  Madeline and Olivia both have more time to seek clarity about their future. 

[●] Understand there was also a time when you ended up in prison.  Tell us about that.
[●] My full-time job is with IDEM, but in the summers, I’ve been teaching as one of the faculty of the Moreau College Initiative (Click HERE.).  MCI is an academic collaboration between the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College in partnership with the Indiana Department of Correction. College student inmates at Westville Correctional Facility (WCF) can earn credits toward an Associate Arts (AA) degree.  Those who complete their AA can seek admission to a Holy Cross Bachelor of Arts (BA)degree program.  They can enroll either as inmates or as on-campus students at Holy Cross College upon their release from WCF.

[●] Tell us about your teaching experience at the correctional facility.
[●] I teach a botany class as an adjunct during the summers in addition to my full-time job with IDEM.  I have taught at the community college level and at Notre Dame as a graduate student but I have never had the kind of students that I have at the prison.  These men have significant strikes against them to be allowed back into society even after they have served their time.  But earning a degree in prison gives them something to lose when they are released (that was their words regarding why this program lowers recidivism so significantly).

[●] I assume your main teaching setting is in a classroom.  Do you include a hands-on lab component?
[●] Yes, the inmates already have access to small gardens we can use for some lab work and small experiments.  There is an enormous amount of open mowed grass available to us and I would LOVE to create a native prairie space but I am thinking the controlled burns might not be looked upon with favor [Chuckle].

[●] I understand.  Maybe you could establish some small, say 5 x 5-meter plots surrounded by mown grass as a firebreak. 
[●] How has your teaching at the correctional facility affected you personally?
[●] My experience at WCF has changed (and is still changing) the way I think about my own identity; and also, how I create identities for those around me.  Before I began teaching at the correctional facility, I was pretty comfortable placing an identity on the inmates as criminals, convicts, offenders, etc.  And, although my students had committed crimes, I soon became convicted that I was assigning to these men identities that Jesus had not.  He saw them as His children; those for whom He had given everything. 

[●] That’s inspiring, Chuck.  Your relationship to Christ was helping you to see your students through His eyes.
[●] Yes indeed.  I began to think, "what right do I have to place on someone an identity that Jesus has not."  I began to realize that I had given myself a better identity than I was giving these men-- one that was clearly not from Jesus.  I had neglected to believe 1 Tim 1:15 - This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - and I am the worst of them.  How arrogant I was to give these men the identity of an offender, but not myself.  All of these men are deeply loved by Jesus, and even more, many were already my brothers in Christ.  I began to realize that Christ had given me the opportunity to be an extension of His loving heart to these men (Matthew 25:36, Hebrews 13:3).   Anyway, those are some of the things I have been mulling over since I finished teaching my Botany Class. 

[●] Thank you for sharing how God called you into this ministry.  Your response is a great example of how to integrate faith with vocation (“calling”).
[●] Thank you.  I love my “day job” at IDEM.  My boss and colleagues are great to work with and it provides the income and essential benefits my family and I need.  But, if I could be full time at the prison, I would certainly welcome the opportunity.

[●] Thank you again, Chuck.  It’s been great to reconnect and to hear how God has been working in your life, family, and vocation.
[●] Thank you for the privilege of sharing.