November 19, 2010
Tim Hill
Vincennes parishioner honored for his prison ministry
Vincennes parishioner Tim Hill holds the Volunteer of the Year plaque he received from the Indiana Correctional Association for his work at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle. “I was never one to do things for awards,” he said, “but they seem to keep coming my way. I’ve gotten the Bishop Bruté award, the Mother Teresa award, two state volunteer awards, and now this award from the Indiana Correctional Association. That was a shock,” he said. (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Even when he was a little boy, Tim Hill was uncomfortable with the harsh treatment of prisoners — even if that treatment was something he saw only on the silver screen.
Today, now in his sixties, he’s able to make a difference, and he recently was honored by the Indiana Correctional Association for his dedicated service at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle. He says his prison ministry grew out of a connection with the Holy Spirit that was kindled during a men’s cursillo weekend.
He was born in New York City, and he first felt a connection to the Divine when he was eight years old and sitting in a movie theater watching “Moses.” During the scene on the mountain when God says, “I am who I am,” Tim remembers, “It echoed in my head. I heard ‘I am’ loud and clear, and I thought there is no other God. He is!
“In my head there was always one God. I always had that in my head.”
He lived in Florida and Georgia before arriving in southern Indiana at age 16 after his brother, a soldier at Fort Campbell, married a woman from Vincennes.
In 1978, Tim lost his hand in an industrial accident. He remembers being in the hospital, and praying to God, asking to be relieved of the pain. Suddenly he stopped, asking himself, “What am I doing? How can I pray to God when I never gave him an ounce of my time?”
He vowed that when he was released from the hospital “I will find a church.” He started taking instructions in the Catholic Church, and “it all fit for me. That’s why I was comfortable with the Church.”
He became a practicing Catholic, but said he started to need something more. “I told the deacon that I was tired of hearing the Word, and then going home and doing nothing. He sent me to a Cursillo.
“I was touched. I went to my room at night, opened up my Bible, and then I started crying. The next night, the same thing. That’s when I knew the Holy Spirit was on me, and from then on I was never the same.
“It turned my life flip flop, and I became totally dedicated to the Church.”
Then in 1995, Father Bob Nemergut invited him to visit the state prison in nearby Carlisle. “He asked, ‘What do you think about prison work?’ I answered, ‘I don’t. It’s not my bag of tea.’
“I was more for putting them in prison,” he said, laughing at the memory.
Father Nemergut suggested that Tim make just one visit to the prison.
It wasn’t a good experience. “I didn’t like being locked in. You went through the first gate, then the second gate, and then you had to wait. Then they put you in a room with these guys. I was totally uncomfortable.
“What made me go back was the Holy Spirit.
“I went back because the urge inside of me told me to go back. It was the Holy Spirit. Father Nemergut asked me, and I couldn’t sleep for two days. I was meant to go. I believe the Holy Spirit was pushing me all the way.”
When Tim retired in 2000, he decided to dedicate his life to full-time volunteer work, working with the St. Vincent de Paul Society and at his parish, Old Cathedral in Vincennes, and continuing his work at the prison.
Two times a week he teaches self-help classes to the inmates. They are asked to answer these questions: “Why did you get here?” “What made you think it was OK to do what you did to get here?”
The work is important, he believes, and when he is asked why he wants to work with inmates he answers with this question: Why do you want them to go out meaner than when they came in?
“They are going to be your neighbors, and I think that this program makes them better citizens.”
He is their teacher, but he says he has learned a lot along the way. “Fifteen years ago, I began teaching Bible study. I had to listen to the Word, and I matured with the Word. I changed my way of thinking through scripture.”
His favorite words of scripture come from Matthew 25:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
Tim said, “I really believe that.”
He smiles at his favorite memory from the prison. That was when a “skeptic” joined his Bible study. “He was skeptical all the way through. Then he asked me, ‘Would you sponsor me?’ He wanted to become a Catholic! That was the greatest moment.”
When Tim begins his classes, he tells the men that he doesn’t need to know what crimes they have committed. “I teach them because they want to know. I don’t want to look at the crime. They are human beings, and didn’t Jesus Christ forgive on the cross?
“In class I tell them I’m Catholic, and that I have respect for the religion they are, and that I speak from the Catholic viewpoint. I tell them, ‘I don’t want to know about your crimes. I’m here for you and your soul.’ I tell them, ‘I’m here for your heart, not your mind.’”
He still remembers his first Bible study class at the prison. “There were 25 guys, and they had hard-looking faces and chips on their shoulders. I thought, ‘Am I in the right place?’
“Six weeks later, their body language had changed. I was looking at them transformed, and it just overwhelmed me. The hardness was gone, and the sarcasm was gone — not in all cases, but in a lot of them.
“That’s why I stayed — because I thought I could make a difference.”
He recently watched a movie about Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. “She put up with all this negativity,” he said, reminding him of the questions he gets from people who ask “why do you want to help these kind of people?”
“I put up with the negativity, but she handled it so well. Often when I talk about prison work, they turn their heads. I guess it’s not their bag of tea.”
That’s when he is reminded of the words Jesus spoke, “Whatever you do to the least of my people you do to me. When I was in prison, did you visit me?”
Tim’s own emotional ties to prisoners go all the way back to the year he was 11. “I could hardly talk because I stuttered so badly. No one could understand me, so I read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies. Sometimes there were prison scenes, with the prisoners being treated so badly. I remember thinking, ‘Why aren’t they trying to help them?’”
He smiles as he answers, “Now at age 65, I’m doing it. Everything led me that way. Jesus Christ was walking with me all the time. I just never knew it.”