I cringed as the big metal doors slammed behind me. The guard was silent as he led me down a dark hall to another set of doors. The door was covered in locks. I knew this was there to keep people inside and would by no means be an easy attempt at ever escaping.
What had I done to get here? I sure have made some stupid mistakes, but prison? I was not a hardened criminal I didn’t belong here. I kept telling myself, but reality was I was there and there was no turning back. The door had been locked behind me and there was no getting out until I had served my time.
Luckily I was only there on mininstry!!!
Monday I found myself along with Mark, Charlotte and our Translator. We were at a drug rehabilitation prison that was quite an amazing estabalishment. We where there to work alongside Charlotte who would be teaching an art class there. Her students were working on oil paints and were painting a bowl of fruit.
The prison itself was amazing. It was only people that were involved in getting arrested for drugs and they wanted to offer them away to get clean and when released have things they were able to do. So there were many different programs in the prison. There was an education department and industrial departments. They had agricultural departments. One of the Ex-prisoners that went back with us another day told me when he was in there he had studied to be an electrician and a hair stylist as well as getting his high school degree and learning english. It was beautifully landscaped with little ponds and rivers, flowers and banana trees. We spent most of the time in the art department where people had done all different kinds of artwork from painting to clay to cement.
I got the chance to share with two different groups. The first group was made up of some Christians that were in the prison. They had come to know the Lord through the Prison Choir Outreach. This is another fascinating thing Christian Prison Ministry does. They pull people from all the different prisons and give them the opportunity to be in a choir. The choir actually does very big performances in the cultural center in Bangkok. They are also heavily supported from the Government. Also through this program they have seen a significant amount of people become Christians.
There were four Christians and I shared with them about trusting in God and his provision. I then got the opportunity to share with the art students who were not Christian. I shared about my journey and searching in life. And how I had found Jesus to be the answer to that searching. It was an amazing opportunity to get to share the gospel with them.
The next day I went back to the prison with a team from Japan. We had about 100 people come for our time. The team sang songs and did a drama and shared testimonies. It is amazing how well the people responded. The team even evangelized the guard during lunch who was very open to the gospel. It is amazing how free it is to preach in Thailand in the prisons. I got to share with some english students on one of the other floors and meet them.
The next day we went to a juvenile detention center. Shawna from B Squad came along as well as Amanda Petersen an AIM staff member helping out the world race for a month. We went with the Japanese team again who shared in front of about a 100 teenagers the dramas and songs and gospel. We then broke off and were working with the Teenage prison choir that would be doing a concert on september 1st. We helped them with some of their english pronunciations from one of their songs.
It has been an amazing opportunity to be a part of this ministry even for only 3 days. It is amazing how much God is moving through this ministry. It was so fun to be able to go into the prisons and preach the gospel to non christians. Please pray for this ministry as they are working in 66 out of 120 prisons throughout Thailand. They are seeing huge harvests in many different prisons. In one womens prison they have seen a church spring up of around 500 women. It is really exciting.
