Our Artist - “Tom”

All Franknbibles are designed and created by Tom, who is currently incarcerated in Indiana. This is his story:

     I was a terrible person. I came from a divorced family where both parents remained single for the remainder of my childhood. I was bounced between them both and received no real raising from either. My life became a mess of drug and alcohol abuse, petty crime, and mental problems. At the age of 24 I committed a horrible crime for which I am presently incarcerated. This made me painfully aware of my great need for help. A pastor from a local church came to the jail and offered me that help in the form of the gospel. Though I was an atheist, my need was so great that I accepted. From that instant, God began mining my life and replacing it with one I do not understand and did not ask for. He has changed me in ways unimaginable to me, and has never given up on what He started. I regret so much of my past behavior, especially the pain and disappointment I have caused to those around me. Yet I know that if I had not fallen so far down, I would never have accepted help—especially from God. So I consider this “good”, not for me but for God's glory, because he saves sinners—even terrible ones like me.

     Franknbibles got their start because of a mistake. My first goofy idea was to cut the cover of my new study bible so that it would fit into my fancy bible case. Of course, that didn’t work so I sewed the pieces back on and ended up with a repaired monster of a bible. My second goofy idea was to use a cover I had saved from a discarded bible to disguise the injuries on my bible. I drew a design, hacked the shapes out of the spare cover, and then sewed them onto my disfigured bible.

     While sewing I began to have an idea that although still goofy, were also Godly. I thought that I might be able to sell a bible like this one I was creating. It looked cool and original, and might be popular as prison art. The longer I worked on it (weeks!) the more the idea developed. I wanted to sell it for money to buy study aids for prisoners and two more bibles to make another one. By the time I finished sewing, I had a fairly complete idea of a ministry made from a strange and horrible looking bible—A Franknbible!

     I plagued my brother/roommate with my concept and convinced him that God was giving me a ministry. He supported me and encouraged me, and most of all tolerated me. We prayed for others to join us in the strange new mission to send Franknbibles out into the world as an advertisement for prison ministry and approached people here in prison. Nothing. We bought more bibles and made more Franknbibles and still went nowhere. We prayed and decided to give them away just to have them do something more than sit in our cell.

     God was not saying no to us, He was just finding us the right person. When we contacted a long-time friend of my brother’s, he “got” the idea of the ministry and joined in. For almost 5 years we have stuck with the Franknbible ministry. There have been ups and downs, dry spells and abundance, worry and discouragements, etc. Through it all God has kept us all (friend, brother and myself + some surprise supporters) putting Franknbibles out into the world where we pray they are promoting participation in prison ministry.

     My desires for the ministry have remained the same since I was sewing on the very first Franknbible. I want people to buy them at the highest possible price, so we can provide sound bible study materials to Christians in prison. And I want the owners to use them to encourage Christians to support prison ministry in any way they are enabled. So, I keep sewing and praying to that end. Thank you for your interest in Franknbibles!