“Here we go! Time for ministry placements! Listen up for your team.” (Me in my head: “Pleasepleaseplease orphanage.”) “Prison Ministry: Kingdom Unleashed!”
Oh well, maybe next month.
First thought: I wish my sister was here. She’d love this. I’ll do this as my way of sharing where her heart is.
Second thought: What the crap?! How can I do this?? I‘m freaking out here!
I was feeling a bit leery of going to an all men’s prison for obvious reasons. There are over a hundred men, who barely see women, and here come some American women coming to share Jesus with them. (Don’t worry, we had guys too.) My main thought was: Would they look at us as women of God or as their American eye candy for the month?? I started feeling self-conscious as I walked in and saw them in an upper level looking down at us. Some were winking, whistling, and saying God-knows-what to each other in Spanish about us, while we just smiled and waved…
Here’s a little background with this particular place. The prison is located in town and serves like a jail would in America. They commit a crime and have to wait there until their trial. The sad thing is, the justice system is very corrupted here and they can throw people in jail for anything. For example, if a cop pulls them over and demands money, and the driver doesn’t have it, he can get thrown in jail. Over 60% of inmates in that jail are innocent. One guy has been in jail over six years for a triple murder conviction that he didn’t do…breaks my heart.
When we get there, they have our team paint a room for the women guards who work there. While we were checking out the area, we notice that their room adjoins with a coed bathroom. There is a random mattress over the stalls, and we think it’s so the men don’t try and peek over while the women are in there. We also went through the men’s quarters where we saw how overcrowded the place was. Their “beds” are concrete slabs where they basically have to sleep on top of each other. Up to twenty men have to sleep on the bathroom floor. And remember—their bathrooms are not like ours. Dirty floor with maybe a toilet/hole in the ground.
After we painted for a while, our guide who regularly volunteers and preaches there got snacks for us to pass out to the inmates. We would say ‘God Bless You’ in Spanish as we gave food out with a smile. Before we left our guide, Ricardo, told us something to leave with that day: “ Take all the visuals with you, but don’t take the emotions. When you saw their eyes, you saw sadness. Don’t let the sadness for these people make you feel sorry for them. Remember that God has them here for a reason.”
That really helped me because I have such compassion for people that I sometimes let my emotions take over my purpose. I can still pray for them because God has a plan.
Today we finished our painting project and bought Domino’s Pizza for the guards as a treat for them. It was a treat for us too! =) We also played soccer and sang songs with each other during our free time as the men watched from the upper level. My first day jitters are gone, and now I can look forward to ministering to them.
Please pray for me and my team that God uses our team to do His will at the prison. I am so out of my comfort zone too, so pray that God helps me get over myself, and think about the ones in need, and not think about myself. Also, I will probably not post pictures of this ministry because I think it’s inappropriate and I don’t want to look touristy or anything. But I promise I’ll take other pics of other experiences this month! Love you guys!!
