Writing to those in prison as a Family Worship Project

[JudyO]

My son and I have been working on a new Family Worship Project. We have been writing small encouraging notes to our local brothers and sisters, a few at each meeting. Each envelope is decorated on the inside and out with appropriate stickers, tuck-ins and upbuilding scriptures we've hunted down for each person. (not the same scripture over and over)

 

Now, we are looking to expand a little. We'd love to write some (or all!) of the brothers and sisters who are currently in prison for their faith.  The only time we did this was when as a worldwide brotherhood, we wrote letters to Russian leaders.

 

How would we go about getting addresses? Should we translate using Google? Has anyone else done this?

 

All ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome.

[BLEmom]

Did you ever get any tips on this that you could share?

[Parale]

 

For Russia, you can use the organisation's official website to find the individual postal addresses for those in prison.

 

You can also often send letters electronically, and pay online - if this is possible the links are on the website.

 

Letters need to be in Russian.

 

https://jw-russia.org/en/prisoners.html#layout=people&restriction=исправительная колония

Edited June 1 by Parale

[hatcheckgirl]

I have a question regarding how we pay to use the email system. Of the list, we can use:

• Bank card (Mastercard, Maestro, Visa, MIR, UnionPay) https://www.zonatelecom.ru/services/letter/payments-letter

But, due to sanctions against Russia, I’m not sure about this option. Aren’t the western banks banned from interacting with Russia?

 

I guess it’s best to just write a literal letter, in Russian of course, and post it to the address of the prison, as per the link above by Paul. Slower snail mail. Because I don’t think we can do the zonatelecom prison email system.

 

[hatcheckgirl]

And, it seems from the Australia Post website, we can’t post letters to Russia either. I’ll ask for sure at the PO when I next go, but from my google search, it seems western countries don’t send mail anymore to Russia (unless you want to use a courier service which is very expensive).

 

 

Prayer always get through ❤️

 

 

[JudyO]

5 hours ago, BLEmom said:

Did you ever get any tips on this that you could share?

No, we are still just focusing on local friends. I'd love to expand, though. Still hoping.

[BLEmom]

23 minutes ago, hatcheckgirl said:

And, it seems from the Australia Post website, we can’t post letters to Russia either. I’ll ask for sure at the PO when I next go, but from my google search, it seems western countries don’t send mail anymore to Russia (unless you want to use a courier service which is very expensive).

 

 

Prayer always get through ❤️

 

 

I tried that during the pandemic and they sent my letter back. I’ve never tried the online version. 
 

[Parale]

3 hours ago, hatcheckgirl said:

And, it seems from the Australia Post website, we can’t post letters to Russia either. I’ll ask for sure at the PO when I next go, but from my google search, it seems western countries don’t send mail anymore to Russia (unless you want to use a courier service which is very expensive).

 

I understand that the Royal Mail in the UK is still sending mail to Russia?

 

https://www.royalmail.com/international-incident-bulletin

 

 

[LeolaRootStew]

We were told to never send letters directly to brothers in prison unless you were part of an official group assigned to do that. The reason is we have to be very careful what information is put into letters because it's highly likely to be read by the police and we don't want compromising information to be revealed that could endanger our brothers or be used against them in court. I would ask your elders what arrangements there are. If there is an arrangement you will be given parameters about what to say, what language to write it in (I've heard to write it in your mother tongue), and what not to say.