Emmaus House is the result of a little band of Catholic Workers with a “stated mission” to open a house of hospitality for women and children visiting loved ones in prison. Owned by Michael Sprong and Beth Preheim, the stately Victorian home located on 4th and Green underwent a substantial transformation, with the help of many, to become a house of hospitality.

Beth recalls one man who came with his family to visit Emmaus House after being released from prison. “The family traveled out of their way to come here and thank us. The man stood in the kitchen with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘I heard all about you. I knew they had a safe place to stay and be supported, to deal with their emotions.’

This is a way to be with families on their journey. It creates a center of support, and that’s service at its best, for me.”

Neither Beth nor Michael are strangers to service. In regards to Emmaus House, when asked why they do it, their response is simple, “Service is simply part of our life.”

Beth spent most of her growing-up years as a “Mennonite kid" -her parents worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), mostly in Akron, Pa. When Beth was in 4th grade, the family moved to Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as MCC volunteers. “I grew up with that grounding of peace, theology and service,” Beth says, “and also seeing people put their college degrees into practice.”

Beth spent two years studying for a teaching degree, but in Beth’s word she was, “Mostly trying to find my way”. She went on to volunteer as a community organizer in Kansas City and was introduced to the Catholic Worker movement, and her husband Michael Sprong. Born in Chicago and raised in Northern Indiana, Michael has spent most of the past three decades in the peace, resistance, and Catholic Worker movements, living and working in South Dakota and throughout the Midwest.

While not a Catholic herself, Beth has lived with Catholic Worker communities for 20-plus years. “I chose [the model of] a loosely knit network that is still grounded in tradition,” she says. “That fit with my Mennonite upbringing.”

Beth and Michael were married in 1987. “We wanted service to be our whole life. My husband is skilled at strategizing and organizing campaigns. The challenge was: How do you deal with the economics – have a job but still be able to take the time for organizing projects that require significant time commitment?

We decided to send me to nursing school – it was a career that fit our service ethic and that would be versatile and pay reasonably well.”

In 1991 Beth and Michael made a family farmhouse east of Freeman, S.D. their home base. During this time they networked with other Catholic Worker groups in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Throughout those years, Beth worked at Freeman Academy, ran a small drop-in clinic and did public health. Michael and Beth also ran a small publishing house, Rose Hill Books, while living on the farmhouse.

“We spent a year talking to our local contacts and praying about what we should be doing,” Beth says. “We didn’t set out to start a Catholic Worker community in Yankton but that’s what happened.”

It became increasingly obvious to us both that the hospitality for prisoners’ families was one pressing need.

South Dakota has the largest incarceration rate per capita in the six-state region that also covers Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota. After Michael served a 60-day sentence for civil disobedience at the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton in 2000, he and Beth and others in the community who were active in peace and justice issues began to notice the often-forgotten needs the prisons created. Michael states, “my time at the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton taught me about how many prisoners have family in need of hospitality when they make the long trip to our little corner of the map.”

“What I learned from MCC and from my parents’ work responding to needs is that you have to have a long-term service understanding,” Beth says. “You have to learn to see the need in the community.”

In 2004, they bought the house in Yankton and Michael and others worked on rehabbing it. Beth and Michael split their time between the Freeman farmhouse and Yankton while preparing to open the hospitality ministry called Emmaus House.

Emmaus House provides women and children a place to stay while visiting inmates at the Yankton Federal Prison Camp, the Yankton Trusty Unit, the Human Services Center, the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield and the Springfield Academy. No adult men are allowed, and women and children can stay with them for no more than two days.

There is no charge for lodging or food and no income limitations.

It’s not charity, “based on economic need,” Beth says. “It’s a model of justice that fosters mutual aid. People find it helpful to spend time with others who have a common experience. We’re helping to create a culture in which it’s easier for people to naturally come together and serve each other.”

Typically, this means a houseful of eight to 12 folks each week from Thursday thru Sunday. Those are the regular visiting days at the institutions.

Emmaus House visitors find out about it through information posted at the prisons and hospital, through chaplains and institutional staff and through word of mouth. Michael provides the primary hospitality, and the house runs on Beth’s salary (she currently is the director of cardiac rehabilitation at Freeman Regional Health Services) and outside donations. Often those who stay in the house will leave a gift of money or a gas card to be used by someone with more limited funds, or will buy or cook food.

Because Emmaus House is small-scale, “it stays manageable,” Beth says. “In the Catholic Worker, we say just because it’s small doesn’t mean it can’t have a powerful effect. This is not intimidating – others can look at it and say, ‘I could do that.’”