Trying to even come up with a blog about my day last Tuesday seems almost hopeless
why?
Because the day was filled with so much
hope.
Jesus is so much in and around Nsquad that I wonder sometimes what MORE will feel like.
I felt the more on Tuesday
This last Tuesday I put on my long skirt and walked out of the gates of Inka Link with 5 of my other N squad family members to head to a maximum security prison in Trujillo to have church all day long.
Two busses later Daniel, Justin, Nick, Jeffrey, Alyssa and I stood outside the gates of the prison loaded with stuff from Sarah- wife to Mario- the pastor of the prison and inmate.
We had really no clue what to expect.
We just knew that God was going to show up.
After getting patted down, searched and stamped we made our way to the first church location we would have which was in the maximum security section.
Over the course of the next several hours the 6 of us along with Pastor Mario and his crew of worshippers we each spoke words God gave us and sang worship songs with scores of different inmates in four sections of the prison.
And the amazing thing was I felt so much peace and joy.
I was hugging, having conversation with, getting kissed on the cheek by men who most likely have done things that most of the world can’t comprehend.
And if I could spend every day of a month doing this ministry I would.
I helped Justin worship in the pit which is a long hallway of cells stuffed with men, cells filled with vulgar words and pornography
But God?
God was there in the midst of all of it
I spoke to a group of men that were about to baptized about redeeming relationships with their mothers.
God asked me to speak words of healing and restoration over those relationships.
He asked me to apologize to them on behalf of the mothers that had hurt them.
He reminded me of their brokenness. That they walk in the same brokenness that I do every day.
He showed me their humanity with His eyes.
I watched a group of men come out the baptism waters literally new, different and filled with the Holy Spirit.
I was filled with so much love for them, for their hurt.
And I learned what it was to have immense freedom in captivity.
These men literally are in captivity. They cannot go outside the walls of the prison. They have no choice but to daily reflect on what they have done to lead them to this place. To have conversations about it.
And inside that same group of walls there is a group of men who are choosing to use this time to show others how to have life. That even if the gates and fences of that prisons are all some of them see for the rest of their life that they can still indeed have life, they can have hope and a reason to live each day.
This group of men have brought God’s holy presence into the walls of the prison and He isn’t going to leave anytime soon.
My hours inside the prison walls in Trujillo were some of the most free hours I’ve had in my life.
The blessings from the men who may never see the outside of the gates are ones I will cherish. The honor I felt in being a woman among them, the chivalry that has not died- because in each place we went the first order of business was to make sure that Alyssa and I had a chair in the shade.
I’m so thankful for the love I felt their, so thankful for the gift of freedom.
I have so many more things that I learned inside those walls. More than I can still comprehend.
I am thankful for the privilege of being able to step inside and worship with the murderers and thieves of Trujillo.
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