This month we did one of my favourite ministries – prison ministry – we went to the jail every Thursday morning. I was in a small group inside an outdoor cage. This cage is home to 43 prisoners, there are no beds so they sleep on cardboard on the floor.
Although we were given the opportunity to move around different ministries I decided that I would stay with the same group, I like consistency and the ability to form relationships with the people I come into contact with.
The first time I went inside the cage and they locked us in, I panicked. But I had nothing to worry about, all I felt from the prisoners was love and compassion and all I felt for them was love and compassion. The type of love that could have only come from God.
There is one guy in particular whose story saddens me and touched my heart. It was so compelling to see his love for Jesus shining through the circumstances he was in and his faith that he is there for a reason.
His name was Victor, for the first two weeks I went to the prison he didn’t really say anything but after I shared my testimony about drinking and rejecting God when I was 18 he shared his story with me and the group, how my story related to his story, how he had also wandered away from God and turned to alcohol.
He had been told by people that he was going to be an evangelist and that God was going to use him. But he said that he felt like Jonah – that he has been running away from the way God wanted to use him and that is why this happened, to get his attention. He said that now he is open and ready to be used by God.
He started a relationship with a women but she was married. Her husband found out about the affair and threatened to leave her. He wanted revenge on Victor and so told his wife that he would only stay with her if she reported him to the police for sexual assault.
Here in Nicaragua you don’t need evidence, it is very easy to get a man locked up for rape without proof and then it is very difficult for them to clear their name. Women know this and so this is used against men sometimes.
Victor knows what he did was wrong that in one sense he is not innocent. He has served just 10 months of his 13 year sentence. Early release is very unusual in Nicaragua unless you pay off the judge. But he has hope, he believes that God will use him and his story and that he is in jail for a reason.
God has really put it on my heart to love of those who are so easily judged for what they have done.
I wanted to show them that they can have hope and joy and peace and freedom in Jesus.
Pray for Victor, for his health in the jail, for his family – he has four children between the ages of seven and 17. Pray that God will use him in the jail to evangelise to those he is with every day and that God will give him peace and comfort and hope for his future.
A lot of the prisoners support their families by making bracelets out of rolled up plastic bags and selling them.
