Angola Prison

About a month ago I had a women call me and tell me she had become friends with a inmate at Angola / Louisiana State Penitentiary after she bought some of his artwork. She told me he saw a picture of Bella from her obituary and painted a picture of her, and he has asked her to try and get in touch with me so he could give the picture to us.  I was very taken back because my first thought was identity theft.  But then as I continued to talk to the women I felt like this could just be a nice jester?  I talked to Trey and after he investigated everything he arranged for us to meet in the Warden's office and have the inmate artist Marlowe Parker present the picture he painted for us.

We went Monday and I couldn't believe the picture Marlowe had painted.  All he had was a black and white picture and he painted everything in color.  He had Bella's eye color perfect! He had a red rose sticking out behind her back, like she used to do to pretend she was hiding something from Baylor.  And a red rose was her favorite flower!  There is a part of the picture where she is sitting in Jesus arms and her hair is darker and pulled back just as it was in the hospital. He told us that Jesus and the Holy Spirit gave him the will to this.  Im not sure if he had some outside help with this picture for all the colors but he swears that it was only the black and white picture.  He showed us his room where he paints and we toured around where he lives.  A warden gave us a first class tour.  We had a fabulous lunch with her also.  I was blown away how well that prison works.  It was a great day!