From prison to public service

|PIC1|SOUTH BARRINGTON, Illinois - Catherine Rohr was making $200,000 a year on Wall Street when she was just 25-years-old. She and her husband Steve lived in a luxurious apartment and had a substantial amount of money in their savings.

But she would eventually quit her job, empty herself of all her money, and move to Texas, surrounding herself with gang leaders, murderers and drug dealers.

What changed Rohr was the shocking experience she had whilst visiting a prison in Texas.

"When I got to the prison, I saw human beings," Rohr said during an interview broadcasted at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit in South Barrington, Illinois, on Friday. "I was so inspired by their potential."

After seeing what was going on there, Rohr began flying back and forth between New York and Texas to teach business classes at the prison, but she realised it wasn't enough.

"I felt like I had to do more - to build a solution that left them with no excuse to fail after they got out," she recalled.

According to statistics, one in 15 Americans goes to prison at least once in their lifetime, and over 50 per cent of released prisoners end up right back in prison again within three years. Rohr admitted that at first she thought the problems lay within the criminals themselves.

"Then I started to realise that maybe society has to contribute to this problem," said Rohr. "These men are released from the prison with $100 ... and all they know is their old gang homeboys. And they try getting a job and at the very top of the application is the felony check box."

Rohr believes that society's attitude towards ex-convicts contributes to the problem. She realised that teaching classes on a monthly basis would only get the inmates' hopes high but could not provide practical help after they were released from the prison.

This led Rohr to establish the Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program (PEP), a one-of-a-kind programme that turns formal criminals into legitimate businessmen.

So far, the results of her programme have been astonishing. PEP graduates have a 98 per cent employment rate and a less than 5 per cent return-to-prison rate. People who have been convicted of deadly crimes are now in the business world, serving society.

"But one of the statistics that I'm most proud of is that these guys have been takers," continued Rohr, 30. "Now 70 per cent of our graduates are donors back to PEP."

Rohr repeatedly stressed the importance of obedience to God in the interview.

"One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that God doesn't really need me. He just needs me to follow instructions. When I get out of the way, He can work and He can open doors," she affirmed.

When asked how she was able to give up her career for the programme, Rohr said God has better plans for her than she does. "So I take a 'chill-out' and let Him be in control," she said.

Regarding the future of the programme, Rohr said she hasn't considered expanding PEP just yet. But she hopes to bring leaders to Houston, where PEP is currently based, to be trained and open similar programmes at different locations.

Over the last four years, 380 people have graduated from the programme. Some of the graduates - one of them just released four hours before the interview - were present at some of the locations where the Leadership Summit was broadcast live to share their brief testimonies about how God has turned their life around and how they are living the new lives that God has given them.

Rohr concluded her interview by urging leaders to remember their callings.

"Here at the conference, we say [words] like 'I'm going to give you my everything, Jesus'. How come that doesn't happen more often?" she asked.

If Rohr had not followed God's will, she said she would probably be in New York making some 100 million dollar deals.

"And how lame would that be compared to what I do now?" she asked.

"I just want to encourage you to reconnect with the vision," Rohr concluded.

Catherine Rohr was one of the speakers at this year's Willow Creek Leadership Summit, which featured Chuck Colson, chairman and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv; Brad Anderson, vice-chairman and CEO of Best Buy Inc; and Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, where the August 7-8 summit. The summit was broadcast live over the course of two days to more than 140 locations across the US.

The annual gathering, now in its 13th year, is one of the world's premier leadership training events.