My experience with the women in the prison was powerful and
I wanted to continue the story by going back and building relationships with
them but that all changed when a law was passed in El Salvador stating that
prisoners are only allowed to have family visitors. So as the law was passed we
were no longer allowed into the prisons. Although we are praying this law is
appealed God has shown us a bigger picture of what it means to set the captives
fee. Instead of going to the prisons we started working on the streets handing
out bread and hot chocolate to the homeless. Some of the men were sleeping on
cardboard boxes across the street from the park and a few of us felt like we
needed to go over and talk with the men there. I found myself talking with two
of the homeless men who were probably in their late twenties and they were both
very drunk. I asked if I could pray for them in any way. One of the men stood
up and stumbled over to me as he started to climb over the small fence I saw
that he was fighting back tears. When he was standing on the street next to me
he starting telling me how he had Christ in his heart but he needed prayer that
his heart could be cleaned because his life was full of sin because of alcohol.
All of a sudden the man who had been standing next to him started screaming
obscenities and was getting very angry so one of the guys on the other team
came over to see if I and my friend Renee were okay. We got the first man who
wanted to be free of his addiction to alcohol to move to a different place away
from the other man. He continued to talk about how he needed to be cleaned of
his sin by this time he was crying. We all stood around him and prayed for him.
As we prayed for him he fell to the ground crying and as he fell a few of the
other homeless men came over and stood by us. It was heartbreaking to see this
man about my age living on the streets and wanting to have a normal life but
unsure if he had the strength to quit his addictions. I pray that he was truly
set free that night and I am learning that the only thing that has the power to
set people free is the LOVE of God!
