Home Is Not Always Four Walls: A Mother's Day Story About Fighting to Get Back to the People You Love

I sell homes for a living.

I have spent 25 years helping people in Tulsa find them, leave them, buy them, and build their lives inside them. Home is the word at the center of everything I do.

But today, on Mother's Day, I want to tell you a story that has nothing to do with square footage or closing tables. It is a story about a best friend, a ten-month wait, and a visitation room that became the most meaningful homecoming I have witnessed in 25 years of this work.

July 8: The Day Everything Changed

On July 8 of last year, my best friend walked into the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

While her husband took her to check in, I took her daughter for coffee, doing for her what her mother would have done if life had not just taken a very different turn.

I am not going to tell you it was not devastating. It was. But I am also not going to tell you that devastation is where this story ends. Because it is not.

The moment she walked through those doors, I made a decision. I was going to find a way to get in there with her. My intent was not to 'fix it'. Not to change what was happening. But to show up. Because that is what you do for people you love. You find a way to still be there.

How Jennifer Mount Was Approved To Volunteer At Eddie Warrior

I started the process of getting my Oklahoma Department of Corrections volunteer certification. Believe me when I say that it is not a simple process. There is paperwork and training and background checks and waiting. But I did every single step of it because that is what you do when someone you love is on the other side of a door you have the power to open.

Along the way I met Lisa Wright and Freedom Ministries.

Lisa is the reason I was approved for volunteer work at Eddie Warrior. She is a leader, a minister, and one of the most extraordinary human beings I have encountered in 50 years of living in Tulsa. Lisa took me under her wing, made room for me in her organization, and showed me what it looks like to walk into a correctional facility with love and without fear. She was the door. But I did not want to walk through it alone. So I called my best friend from elementary school, told her what I was doing and why, and asked her to get certified too. She said yes without hesitating. On the first Monday of every month, the three of us go in together.

What Happens on the First Monday of Every Month

Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility in Oklahoma has 968 women enrolled currently.

Nine hundred and sixty-eight mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. Each one with a story. Each person has someone waiting on the outside.

When we go in, we prepare and share for two hours. We bring encouragement and truth and the kind of presence that reminds someone they have not been forgotten. We have had up to 94 women in that room at one time.

And every single time we leave, I carry the faces and stories with me.

What does a volunteer ministry session look like inside a women's correctional facility in Oklahoma?

A volunteer ministry session inside a women's correctional facility like Eddie Warrior in Oklahoma involves trained volunteers with Department of Corrections certification entering on a scheduled basis to lead group sessions focused on encouragement, spiritual support, and community connection.

Organizations like Freedom Ministries, led by Lisa Wright in Tulsa, work within the framework established by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to provide consistent, meaningful programming for incarcerated women. Sessions typically run one to two hours and are open to any resident who chooses to attend. The consistency of these visits, arriving on the same day every month without fail, is often what matters most to the women inside. It communicates something that words alone cannot: you are worth showing up for.

This Month: Revival, Baptism, and Six New Women at the Door

This month's visit was unlike anything I have experienced in the months since I started going in.

There had been a revival in the yard all day. When we arrived that evening, something was already moving. Women had been baptized in the yard. Women had been saved. The Holy Spirit had already been at work for hours before we ever walked through the gate.

When we started at our normal session time, six new women came through the door for the first time. Six women who had not been there before. Six women who chose, on that particular night, when it was 75 degrees outside and they could have been anywhere else on that yard, to walk into a room where someone was going to tell them they mattered.

We told the women in that room something I want to say clearly here: there are 968 women on that yard. The women in this room have the power to go back out into that yard and multiply what they received tonight. You can carry hope to every corner of that space. You can create revival everywhere you go.

The 18-Year-Old Who Walked In

As I was saying goodbye at the end of the session, I met a girl who had just arrived at Eddie Warrior.

She was just 18 years old.

She had nine months ahead of her. And she chose to walk through our door on her very first opportunity.

I looked at her and told her the truest thing I knew to say.

These are going to be the most transformational nine months of your life.

Not the easiest. Not the most comfortable. But transformational. I reassured her that transformation does not require ideal circumstances. It requires a decision to let what is hard make you better rather than bitter.

I meant every word. And I will be praying for that girl every first Monday until she walks out.

The Hug at the End of the Night

At the end of the session, a woman came up and hugged me.

I said what I always say: I will see you next month.

She pulled back and looked at me and said something I was not expecting.

"No you won't. I get out on the 15th. I have been here three years. And I am going home to my four children."

I stood there for a moment and just held that.

Three years. Four children. The 15th.

She is going home.

The Mother's Day Miracle: Ten Months Later

My best friend has been separated from her husband and her daughter since July 8.

Ten months.

In that time, the paperwork to authorize their visit got lost. The person responsible for processing it left their position. Then another one did. A discrepancy was discovered because my best friend's last name did not match her husband's. Every time a door seemed to open, something closed it again.

Ten months without seeing the people she loves most.

Today is May 10. Today is Mother's Day.

For the first time since July 8, my best friend gets to see her daughter. She gets to see her husband. On Mother's Day.

I have been in real estate for 25 years. I have watched people walk through doors that took everything they had to get to. I have watched them hold keys in their hands for the first time and try not to cry and cry anyway. I know what that moment looks like on someone's face.

Today, in a visitation room at Eddie Warrior, my best friend is walking through one of those doors. It took ten months. It took lost paperwork and staff changes and a name discrepancy and a kind of patience I am not sure I could have held. But today she gets to walk through it.

And I have never been more certain that this is exactly what home feels like.

What This Has to Do With Why I Sell Real Estate

Everything.

I have spent 25 years in Tulsa real estate because I believe that home is one of the most fundamental human needs. Not just a roof. Not just square footage. Home is safety. Home is belonging. Home is the place where the people you love are waiting for you.

That belief does not stop at the closing table. It goes with me into Eddie Warrior on the first Monday of every month. It goes with me when I sit across from a seller who is leaving the home where their children grew up. It goes with me when I work with a first-time buyer who has never had a place that was fully theirs.

The women at Eddie Warrior are not separate from the work I do. They give me a reason for why my work matters.

Every person deserves to come home. And some days, fighting for that looks like a real estate contract. Other days it looks like getting certified, finding Lisa Wright, and showing up on the first Monday of every month no matter what.

How can someone get involved with volunteer ministry at Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility in Oklahoma?

Getting involved with volunteer ministry at Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility requires completing the Oklahoma Department of Corrections volunteer certification process, which includes an application, background check, and orientation training.

Organizations like Freedom Ministries, led by Lisa Wright in Tulsa, provide a structured entry point for new volunteers and make the certification process significantly more navigable. Jennifer Mount volunteers with Freedom Ministries at Eddie Warrior on the first Monday of every month. If you are interested in getting involved or learning more, reach out through lrahomes.com and she will connect you with Lisa Wright and the Freedom Ministries team directly.

What is Freedom Ministries and who is Lisa Wright?

Freedom Ministries is a Tulsa-based ministry led by Lisa Wright that is dedicated to walking alongside incarcerated women with practical support, spiritual encouragement, and consistent presence.

Lisa Wright has built Freedom Ministries into a consistent, certified presence inside Oklahoma correctional facilities, creating space for incarcerated women to experience community, hope, and genuine human connection. Jennifer Mount serves as a volunteer with Freedom Ministries at Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility on the first Monday of every month. If you feel called to support or join this work, reach out through lrahomes.com.

3 Things Worth Remembering

Home is not always four walls. It is the people you fight to get back to. Today, on Mother's Day, a woman at Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility in Oklahoma is seeing her daughter and her husband for the first time in ten months. That reunion is a homecoming as real as any closing day I have ever been part of. The address does not matter. The people do.

Nine hundred and sixty-eight women live on the yard at Eddie Warrior. The women who walk through the doors of Freedom Ministries on the first Monday of every month carry the capacity to multiply hope throughout that entire yard. You do not have to reach everyone at once. You reach the ones in the room and trust them to carry it forward. That is how hope travels.

The most transformational seasons of a person's life are rarely the most comfortable ones. An 18-year-old walked into a room at a correctional facility on her very first opportunity and chose to sit down. That choice is the whole story. Transformation begins with the decision to show up for it.

2 Things Worth Sharing

Share this with someone who is going through a hard season and needs to be reminded that the people who love them are finding a way to get to them. Showing up is always possible. It sometimes just requires certification, patience, and a woman named Lisa Wright.

Share this with someone who has a loved one who is incarcerated and does not know how to stay connected. Organizations like Freedom Ministries exist for exactly this reason. You do not have to figure it out alone, and you do not have to stay on the outside.

1 Thing to Do Right Now

Tell someone you love that you would get certified for them. That you would find the Lisa Wright in your life. That you would show up on the first Monday of every month no matter what. And if buying, selling, or investing in a home in Tulsa is part of your journey back to the life you are building, I am here for every step of that too.

Start that conversation at: https://link.cncsdirect.com/widget/booking/2BPftOW1aYttaxdttERz

Get Involved With Freedom Ministries

Freedom Ministries is led by Lisa Wright, a Tulsa-based minister who has dedicated her life to walking alongside incarcerated women with practical support, spiritual encouragement, and consistent presence. Jennifer Mount serves as a volunteer with Freedom Ministries at Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Facility on the first Monday of every month.

If you are interested in getting involved or learning more, reach out through lrahomes.com and Jennifer will connect you with Lisa Wright and the Freedom Ministries team.