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And you visited me

A true story of death row friendships

Questions and challenges

AND YOU VISITED ME
A true story of death row friendships
By Penny M. Wheat
Monarch. 192 pages. £6.99
ISBN 1 85424 682 8

At first glance it would be easy to assume that this is the story of a white, middle-aged woman who has a desire to be a ‘do-gooder’, and who has gone soft on the lowest element of our society.

Penny Wheat would be the first to admit that her initial desire in corresponding with a prisoner was to help them, but her book goes on to describe the journey that she has made in having close friendships with prisoners on America’s death row. She shows that the journey has brought about a huge change in her own concepts and values, and that she has gained enormously from knowing some of these men.

Initially, Penny was someone looking to an outside interest to relieve her own personal problems. In an amazing way she later got involved very deeply with some of the most rejected elements of Western society. She has gained considerable knowledge and expertise in the whole subject of capital punishment and throughout the book seeks to relate her point of view to biblical principles.

This book really challenges our pre-conceptions of death row prisoners, and questions our own views on the penal system and how it could be more effective. More than these important issues it motivates us to analyse what we are doing for the gospel’s sake and whether there are new areas of service that our God would have us take up for him.

Mary Stolarski,
Southport