Women in prison inspire Iowa pastor's approach to church

A dozen women in prison-issue blues that look like nurses’ scrubs were handed choir sheet music by Lee Schott, pastor of Women at the Well.

It’s the only physical church inside the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, and its chapel is a basic room with folding chairs, a sterile hospital smell and banners on the walls that say “Hope” and “Peace.” A small window near the ceiling provides an angled view to the outside world — the night sky dissected by shiny razor wire.

“Most of the time we are beaten down by negatives,” said Anna Sothman, 30, in the second year of a 50-year sentence for child endangerment causing death. “She believes in us even when we don’t.”

She soon joined the choir in the song, “Breath of Heaven.”

“Do you wonder as you watch my face/ If a wiser one should have had my place

But I offer all I am/ For the mercy of your plan/

Help me be strong

Help me be

Help me”

Schott has been inspired by the inmates’ practice of faith and shared it with outside-the-wire churches that she hopes will continue to transform their focus in the coming year. Her lectures, advocacy, social issues workshops with inmates, expansion of the re-entry program and forthcoming book for church leaders promote a church that is open and “real,” not just dressed-up versions of goodness in pews.

“It’s OK to bring who we are into the church,” said Schott, who is one of the Des Moines Register's 2018 People to Watch. “In church there often are things you can talk about and things you can’t. We ask for prayers for broken bones and grandchildren, but we won’t ask for prayers for someone with HIV, or for divorce or a family member who is incarcerated. This saddens me.”

Related Coverage: Learn more about current and former People to Watch

Church should be a place more like what she found on the inside, full of a raw honesty that gets to the heart of both personal and social issues, such as mental health funding and criminal justice reform, Schott said.

When she began as pastor in Women at the Well in 2011, she realized that many people had been invisible to her. She had surrounded herself with people just like her.

The Prairie City woman had grown up comfortably, graduated with a law degree from Harvard, and was zooming along in a 15-year career as an attorney who had earned a promotion when she realized she found no glory in it. She had heard a series of fiery sermons around then and had learned to pray, really pray, and she discovered that the real glory was in her faith.

Schott, 54, quit her job and went to St. Paul’s School of Theology, earned her Master’s of Divinity in 2007, and preached for several years in Polk City before joining the Women at the Well, a mission of the United Methodist Church.

Schott was suddenly surrounded by people who weren’t like her, and she wondered how she could find compassion for inmates who had done serious wrong to others.

“Seventy percent of those in prison have mental illness, 80 percent have addictions and 90 percent have survived sexual violence against them,” she said. “I heard these amazing stories of resilience and hope where I might not have expected to. I couldn’t figure out how they’ve been standing after everything they have been through.

“The human spirit is amazing. I see faith firsthand, that even when everything is lost, they find hope. When you hit bottom, you can be honest in a way you can’t in the outside world. In telling the truth, there is an opportunity for healing.”

One woman had been institutionalized for decades and came to Schott at a low moment, telling her she had burned all her bridges and that absolutely no one could stand to be around her.

“I’m glad to be with you,” she told the inmate. “There is no place I would rather be.”

The inmate looked at Schott like she was nuts. But the two began to talk, and Schott could plant her seeds of acceptance and faith. When the woman was released, Schott worried she would be just like another longtime prisoner who committed suicide after release. But the woman called Schott two months ago to tell her she had a job and apartment.

“It brings tears to my eyes. I would be happy if she was just alive, but I see her finding her way,” she said.

A part of Schott's job is a program to connect outside church congregations to help inmates re-enter society once they are released.

One inmate who went through the re-entry program was released but returned to prison. The woman thought there would be no way she’d be given another shot at the program. God, Schott told her, believes in second chances.

“You saved me,” the inmate later wrote to Scott.

Schott insists she doesn’t save anyone. Inmates don’t just take direction from a pastor, but have a say in the decisions of the church, which is open to all inmates of any faith or none. Of course, prison rules must be followed, such as no touching, but the focus isn’t on the wrongs.

“We’ve been judged real harshly by society, but we come in here and we aren’t judged,” said Kristina Manasil, 40, who is serving 25 years for first-degree arson. “It really is our church. She calls on to us to have a voice.”

Schott says she sees God everywhere inside the prison.

“I get to show them that God can love us, and it doesn’t matter what we do,” she said. “That’s not just in here, that’s all of us. If we could live in the love that God gives us instead of trying to earn it, we’d be more loving of others and ourselves.”

Too often, she says, our troubles are hidden in church, and congregations don’t challenge people who are being unkind, disruptive or settling for broken relationships. But in prison, there is no walking away. People must address the troubles and iron them out.

Fifty weekends a year, she tells the story of her prison ministry to other church bodies outside the prison, hoping they will learn from it.

“The people in the pews look holy, but we are not. We have to acknowledge we are not perfect. At that point there is a connection inside and outside the walls,” said Heecheon Jeon, central district superintendent for the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, which launched the prison church.

“What Lee is doing is building a bridge to community by acknowledging we are all human beings and not perfect at all. These people are human beings, and we have to treat them with love.”

Schott has also launched a series of discussions with inmates inside the prison on social issues such as racism and sexual harassment that she hopes to bring to the free community in the coming year.

She’s come a long way from tackling issues mostly from the intellectual side as an attorney.

“I used to think everything was black and white, but it’s always gray,” she said. “I don’t know bad people or good people. I see people who have been through a lot of things trying to make their way to good.

“Change is possible. It’s a basic belief of the Iowa Department of Corrections. But that is also a faith stance.”

Lee Schott

AGE: 54.

LIVES: Prairie City.

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s in English, University of Iowa, 1985; law degree, Harvard, 1988. Master’s of Divinity, St. Paul’s School of Theology, 2007.

CAREER: Pastor, Women at the Well, 2011-present; pastor, Polk City United Methodist Church, 2003-11; earlier jobs as an attorney at AmerUs Life Insurance Co. in Des Moines for eight years and at a Cleveland, Ohio, firm for seven years.

FAMILY: Married to Daniel for 33 years; three adult children, Gabe, Will and Charles.

15 People to Watch in 2018: About the Series

These are central Iowans in business, arts, nonprofits, civic activism and unelected government positions who are expected to make a difference in their fields of endeavor in 2018. Readers were invited to submit nominations. Selections were made by Des Moines Register editors and reporters. Look for profiles through early January.