If you told me a year ago that I would walk into an El Salvadorian prison and have one of the most real experiences of my life so far I would have told you that was not in my plans for my life. Thankfully God has bigger and much grander plans than I do because that is exactly what I have been blessed to be able to do this month. The night we went to the prison I remember being afraid because I had never been to a prison before. We had been briefed that most of the inmates were gang members and I wasn’t sure if it would be all men or if there would be women. So as we drove I just tried to prepare myself for whatever was going to happen. I kept thinking of my favorite chapter in the bible Isaiah 61. The verse that always sticks out to me is “set the captives free”. As we began our walk towards the cells I kept thinking of that verse. When we walked into the room where the cells were it was a very surreal moment. The cell closest to the door was holding about 70 men and across from that cell another group of men. The cell next to the men was a cell of six women and past them a cell with the “worst of the worst” as they put it. Then they told us “alright go ahead and preach”. At first we all hesitated because we hadn’t prepared anything but I was reminded of Isaiah 61 so I decided to just share that. One of the women read the chapter and then they all began to share their favorite verses and we all started to sing Open the eyes of my heart Lord. The names of the women are: Sonya, Marta, Ingrid, Maria, and Marilene. They were the sweetest women and all of them were hungry for the word of God. I felt at one moment like I was the one standing behind bars and the women were singing to me. One of the women put her arms outside of the cell and tole me to take the bracelet off her own wrist because she wanted to give it to me as a gift. It was such a humbling moment for me because she was imprisoned and didn’t have anything but she was giving me her bracelet.
To be continued…..
