State Baptist churches support Wetumpka ministry to children with incarcerated mothers

Like the cave of Adullam where David found refuge in 1 Samuel 22, members of Alabama Baptist churches are providing shelter for children whose mothers are incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka.
  
They are doing so through their tithes to and volunteer efforts at Adullam House in Wetumpka, where children are cared for until their mothers are released to prevent families from being torn apart.
  
But one volunteer from Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Hanover, in Central Baptist Association said Adullam House’s impact is more far reaching. “It’s really an amazing experience to watch [the children] grow not only physically but spiritually,” said Angel Alford, a member of Poplar Springs Baptist.
  
Members of Poplar Springs have been involved with Adullam House for more than 10 years. The church and other Baptist congregations across the state provide one-third of the ministry’s support. For instance, Mountain View Baptist Church, Wetumpka, in Elmore Baptist Association just finished up a March missions focus centered on helping Adullam House.
  
“We got involved with it because we felt like it was such a wonderful ministry, and we could tell that it was a ministry from the heart and they are not in it for anything for themselves,” Alford said of Adullam House organizers Pete and Angie Spackman.
  
Listening to Angie Spackman, director of Adullam House, tell of the work the ministry has accomplished in the past and its even loftier goals for the future is a testament to her faith.
  
She and her husband took their first leap of faith in 1986 when they came to the United States from Great Britain to work as volunteer chaplains in prisons at the invitation of a Scottish pastor leading a pioneer church in Montgomery. “We came without any support. (We) just trusted the Lord and knew that God was leading us,” Angie Spackman said.
  
Pete Spackman became a born-again Christian while he was incarcerated in Great Britain, and his wife said the experience fueled his passion for working with prisoners. 
  
As president of New Convictions Outreach, he is involved in ministering to inmates in prisons throughout the United States and the world. Adullam House is but one component of New Convictions.
  
As the Spackmans went into prisons throughout Alabama, including Tutwiler, Elba Work Release/Community Work Center, Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest and Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, the couple began to realize the burden placed on a family when a mother is incarcerated, frequently resulting in children being cared for by relatives unprepared to care for them or turned over to foster homes. 
  
Angie Spackman added that often the father of the child is not known or cannot be found.
  
The Spackmans started Adullam House in their four-bedroom home with a crib in each bedroom. The first children to stay there arrived in 1992. The two boys, aged 2 and 5, were staying with a grandfather while their mother was in prison, but the man was manic depressive and had to take them with him to work at night, where they were sleeping on wooden pallets on a warehouse floor. 
  
“He was not in good, stable condition himself, and he felt like he was doing the children harm,” Angie Spackman said. “He arrived at our back door and asked us to take the kids.” 
  
Within months, the Spackmans ended up with four inmates’ children plus the Spackmans’ own four children. “We became aware that this was an overwhelming need — we discovered there was no other place in Alabama that did this. In fact, there’s only one other place in the United States that does it,” she said.
  
The ministry continued to grow as word spread through churches and prisons about what the Spackmans were doing.  “Pretty soon, our house was bursting at the seams, and we just realized we needed to build a place where we could do this properly,” she said.
  
After seven years, the couple was able to raise donations for the current building that has 11 bedrooms and is designed for 20 children — although she said it has hosted as many as 28 children at one time.
  
Adullam House is now building two more houses, one for boys and one for girls, which will each have 12 bedrooms and staff accommodations. The current house will then be used for babies and toddlers exclusively.
  
The continued growth has kept Poplar Springs members busy. Church member Bonnie Camp said the church sends 10 percent of its tithe to the ministry monthly. In addition, church members visit the facility regularly to prepare meals, care for babies and do other chores.
  
The new homes mean there will be an even greater need for furniture, paper plates, clothing, toiletries, diapers and other items that a small family would require with the need amplified in raising several dozen children, along with tutoring them and sharing the gospel. 
  
Children staying at Adullam House participate in assembly each morning in a chapel on the grounds. Pete Spackman said he also believes the example he and his wife set will have a strong impact on the children who may never have heard of the Lord. He said they strive to raise them in a structured environment, “one of love and of peace and gentleness.” 
  
For more information, visit www.newconvictions.org or contact the Spackmans at 334-514-3070, Angie at aspackman@adullamhouse.org or Pete at pspackman@adullamhouse.org.