It’s a Sunday afternoon at the Cowlitz County Jail, and worship services for inmates are about to begin. Five people from St. Rose Catholic Church arrive with Bibles, a guitar and open hearts.

“We give an ecumenical service,” says Gena Griffin, who interprets in Spanish if necessary. “We try to make it a general service for everyone regardless of religion.”

St. Rose is one of numerous churches and Christian groups that rotate worship services and Bible studies for inmates, says Sgt. Brian Wrzesinski of the Cowlitz County Corrections Department. “We have over 100 volunteers,” he says.

Volunteers say sharing their beliefs gives them strength, peace and serenity. Inmates say the services help them cope.

“When we give, we receive,” says volunteer Ken Plampin.

Inmate Kathy Robb says, “Sometimes that’s all a person has to hang on to, is God.”

Worship services at the Cowlitz County Jail have been held weekly since 1966, and occasionally before then, said Norman Steyer, who organized weekly multidenominational services from 1966 to 1986. Worship services are held Saturday and Sunday, Bible studies are Tuesday and AA meetings are Thursday.

Wrzesinski says the corrections department brings in spiritual leaders from other faiths by inmate request, but there are no group religious gatherings for non-Christians.

Bridget van Fleet organized St. Rose jailhouse services 14 years ago.

“I thought I’d just like to do something from our church,” she says, because she wanted to give inmates “the feeling that someone cares.”

Griffin joined the team 10 years ago. Plampin, who gives the homily (short sermon), singer Jody Chastain and guitarist-singer Heidi Hodge have been participating about seven or eight years.

“It doesn’t just help (the inmates); it helps me,” Chastain says. “I’m always glad I came.”

The group’s first service of the day is on the third floor of the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice, where about 40 female inmates are housed. By the end of the day the volunteers will have repeated the service four times.

Service attendance is voluntary and is split into small groups for the safety of inmates, staff and volunteers, Wrzesinski says. Maximum-security inmates attend separately from medium-security inmates. Total attendance ranges from 30 to 60 inmates, he says.

The volunteers set up in a sterile room with plastic chairs. Seven women arrive, clad in jail scrubs and slippers, chatting animatedly. Some are awaiting trial for drug possession, while others are serving sentences for the same.

“We do totally appreciate your time in coming here,” Kathy Robb tells the volunteers. “We know you’ve made sacrifices in your personal life as well.”

During the service, Robb reads a passage from Leviticus about lepers.

“… As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean,” she reads in a loud, clear voice. “He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”

Although the same verse is being read that Sunday in Catholic churches everywhere, being stigmatized by society has special meaning for felons.

Ken Plampin expands on that during his homily on the story of Jesus healing a leper.

“The story of the leper is Jesus’ way of telling everybody they’re not isolated like they were then and rejected by society,” he says.

He encourages the inmates to not be emotionally defeated by society’s opinions, but to accept God’s love.

“You’re not bad people, you just made decisions that were wrong,” he says.

Robb, 48, who was arrested Jan. 23 on a bench warrant, tells him being forced to separate from society helped straighten her out.

“I was headed for a train wreck,” she says. “The justice system interceded and actually saved me. My attitude completely changed. God placed them in my way.”

During prayer requests, the women share their concern for a friend who was just sent to prison for 15 years. A young woman wants God to watch over her son, and another is worried about her boss.

“They pray for each other and for other people,” Hodge says afterward. “We rarely hear them pray for themselves.”

Across the street at the new jail, which houses 260 to 290 men, three groups of male inmates listen to the same service with intensity. Sometimes they applaud or blurt out appreciation.

“Right on!” someone says when Chastain and Hodge finish a song. And when inmate Dave Clark reads from I Corinthians, his fellow inmates clap, whistle and shout “Amen!”

But when Plampin begins the homily about lepers they quiet down, often nodding in agreement. The men’s crimes include drunken driving, indecent liberties, harassment, theft, burglary, assault, felony eluding and violating a protection order.

Plampin admits he used to judge people on their appearance before he realized that humans are all the same.

“Everybody in this room is equally loved by God,” Plampin tells the inmates. “Remember, you’re doing the best you can. The past is dead. Tomorrow’s ahead. … We all need help. Every human alive has needed help in one way or other.”

“Amen,” the inmates respond fervently. “Thank you, man.”

Their prayer requests tumble out: for girlfriends, wives, children, a grandmother, a brother, a whole family.

“For my friends, that they can understand what they’re doing and come to God,” says Andrey Golovatiy, 20, whose voice breaks as he adds, “and I have a son on the way. I wish to never come back over here and to be on the straight path.”

Inmates often cry at services, Hodge says afterward.

“They don’t want to come back here,” Griffin says. “Statistics are showing this kind of service that we give can turn people around.”

Many ex-inmates enter jail ministry themselves, Wrzesinski says.

“Once they’re out of jail at least two years and have no new criminal history, we allow them to come back and be a volunteer,” he says. “They want to do something to help people that are still here.”