Interviewer: When did you first make an effort to contact Bertil Fox?
Bates: It was after his conviction and when he was sent to prison for murder in 1998.
Interviewer: Why did you even bother? Wasn’t he sentenced to hang at the end of a rope?
Bates: Yes, that’s true, but why would that hold me back? Every life is important, even
someone who took a life. Paul, one of God’s chosen disciples was a persecutor of Christians.
Interviewer: You seem to take your mission pretty serious.
Bates: There are consequences for ignoring those that are in bonds. God’s Word tells us:
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty,
and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not:
sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an
hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison,
and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch
as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment:
but the righteous into life eternal.
-Matthew 25:41-46 (KJV)
