[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5418-5419]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING THE LIFE OF CHUCK COLSON

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, Chuck Colson, a former 
Nixon administration lawyer, founder of Prison Fellowship, and a good 
friend, passed away.
  I first got to know Colson through his incredible ministry. I knew of 
his time serving in Maxwell prison in Alabama, and after he was 
released, I invited him, as a young State legislator in Pennsylvania, 
to come and speak to a dinner in my district. I had 535 people show up. 
He spoke and shared the concept that he had gotten as he served in 
prison of this idea of Prison Fellowship.
  He asked me and another fellow to go up to a couple of Federal 
prisons in Pennsylvania and select four prisoners to bring to 
Washington for the first time of this group, and I did. I went to 
Lewisburg and Allenwood, met over six weekends with the little 
Christian fellowship in those prisons, and they selected two from each 
prison. One was a bank robber, a hijacker, a labor union racketeer, and 
a drug dealer.
  And without guards, the prison officials permitted me to drive them 
to Washington. We dropped them off here, left them for a week, and then 
I came and picked them up and took them back. But this idea of Prison 
Fellowship started back then. Chuck, when he would speak to me many 
times, would call me his first prison volunteer.

[[Page 5419]]

  It was a wonderful ministry. Chuck is going to be greatly missed. 
Chuck Colson's story is really one of grace, grace that was given to 
him, that he worked tirelessly to spread across the Nation and across 
the world. He will be sorely missed.

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