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Kathryn Jarvis: Deputy
Chief of Federal Probation Officers
by Emily Pauw
At church Kathryn is just another dedicated member who
attends cottage suppers and comes early to setup communion.
But Monday till Friday, 9 to 5, Kathryn is the Deputy Chief
of the Federal Probation Officers. Somehow I can’t picture
this woman, who is average height and weight, telling
muscular, tattoo covered ex-prisoners to get their life back
in line. But that is just what she taught me, to not have
biases or to presume things about people. I have never been
in a jail, but somehow I already think that I know what
prisoners look like. The idea of distrustful, scary men must
have come from a Hollywood movie I watched long ago. But
Kathryn pointed out that if you sit down and listen to
someone’s story without presumptions, you realize how human
they are, and how much, deep down, they are like you.
Kathryn mentioned that a major part of her theology is that
“people can change.” She repeated this numerous times, so I
got the impression that that is also the motto around her
workplace. She works with administration now, but she used
to be one of the people that provide services of all sorts
to offenders. This is supposed to help them “achieve their
full potential as productive, law-abiding members of our
communities” (this is her office’s official description of
the work that they do). It is a mix of a social worker and a
police officer. They help the offenders, but they also
arrest them again, if needed, to protect everyone else. As
you can probably see, there is a major connection between
her job and her faith life. Isn’t God all about
transformation and forgiveness? After someone has served
their sentence for what they have done, and God has forgiven
them, shouldn’t we too? Shouldn’t we follow God’s example?
Most of you were at church on August 2nd, when
the youth prepared a service based on our experiences at
Montreat. I invited my friend Erin on the trip, and she
spoke for a few minutes as a “mini” sermon. She talked about
spreading the fire of God to people who don’t have much
hope. This had an effect on Kathryn, because she considers
her job as lighting someone else’s candle, giving them faith
in God. So forget about the “official” description of her
job, when you get down to it, Monday till Friday, 9 to 5,
Kathryn spreads the love and the word of God.
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