Jamal’s Story: “The seminary carved out a place for people society had disappeared”

We are not the sums of our worst mistakes. We are the sums of the opportunities given to us.

Jamal Bakr MARJM ’22 began his masters degree in the maximum security Stateville Correctional Center, with a 60-year sentence. Today, because of his life transformation, he is released by the judicial system, holds his seminary degree, and works in violence prevention ministry on the West Side of Chicago.