How
do you offer hope to people who have no freedom? How do you help someone
prepare for a life of faith in the world when they haven’t even stepped foot
out of their cell for 4 weeks and have no gauge for when and if they will be
set free? As an American accustomed to a “relatively” fair and efficient justice
system, the injustice lingering in the air of Malaybalay City Jail was almost
thick enough to make [[[me choke.
For
our first 10 days here in Malaybalay, we had the privilege of doing ministry
with the prisoners of the local jail here almost every afternoon. Some guys
connected with the ministry we are partnered with here, Kids International
Ministries (KIM), started this prison outreach just under a year ago and have
been the vessels of an immeasurable transformation that God is doing in these
prisoners’ lives. As we sat with them day after day, getting to know them and
sharing God’s love in any way we knew how, we were flabbergasted as we learned
the horrifying stories of some of the inmates and the realities of their lives
in this jail. With numbers as high as 225-235 people, we couldn’t comprehend
how this wasn’t even a true jail as we would define it, “technically” speaking;
all of these prisoners are awaiting their trial, going through an appeal, or
are awaiting a sentencing. Most of them have been for 2-5 years, some as long
as 8! So, for those who are innocent, which we have reason to believe a
substantial portion of them are, they essentially have been and continue to be
imprisoned unjustly, having their lives radically obstructed by the
inefficiency and corruption of their government system. Seeing as we had no
political power or authority to intercede for their freedom to the Pilipino
legal system, what could we do that would be of any significant help to these
(at least partially) oppressed people?
Every
day I stood before my friends in cell 5, I was frustrated by the steel bars
that separated us and prevented me from fully “being” with them. I could shake
their hands through the gaps and could obviously still see and communicate with
them, but there was always something that “stood between” us and a completely
free friendship. Nevertheless, it was those physical pieces of restriction that
enabled me to see the possibility of spiritual liberation and freedom for these
men. I soon realized that the way the bars prevented me from feeling like I
could fully engage in a “real” friendship with these men (at least physically
speaking) could be directly parallel to the mental obstacle those bars formed
between them and their relationships with God. How could they truly experience
a life with God while trapped in a steel cage? “Surely,” I imagined them
thinking, “we won’t know who God really is and if we can live a life of faith
until we are back in the real world, if we ever make it out of here…”
How
wrong they would be if they were (or are) really thinking this! You might
remember a blog I wrote in Moldova about a change in perspective as the remedy
for a boy plagued with an unidentifiable illness. Well that lesson has followed
me this whole Race, playing a part in my ministry and in what God teaches me
more often than I can remember. Even last month in Capetown we heard a powerful
sermon on how every trial is the key ingredient to a work of God in your life…
its just all a matter of how you choose to look at your circumstances. In
feeling the suffocating restrictiveness of those bars in the prison, I remembered
that sermon; I remembered that we are never bound by our own circumstances
because the hope we have in faith can never be limited. All things are possible
for he/she who believes and does not doubt (cf. Matthew 21:21).
While
preaching to them one Sunday, I shared this matter of perspective with them. I
said that naturally we see these bars as an inhibition to our freedom. Instead,
I offered an alternative perspective that sees their cell as God’s gift of a
training ground for a communal life of faith. They live in a cell with about 35
people, and they are learning how to share things as a community since they
don’t have enough money to buy personal toiletries etc. They spend countless
hours reading the Bible, praying, and learning worship songs. With almost no
privacy available, they have endless opportunities to practice having healthy
relationships with their cellmates and to love them as they love them selves,
as we are all called to do. Rather than seeing their living restrictions as a
block to their experience of a real life of faith, they can choose to see it as
a perfect environment to learn how to really love others and embody the
character of Jesus. Instead of being limited by the bars, they can choose to
live beyond the bars, in a way of life that knows no boundaries. The kingdom is
a realm open to all by the entry of faith, and available to us no matter what
our earthly circumstances may be. I hope that this reality opened their eyes to
the infinite hope they have in Christ, to the kingdom that lies not just beyond,
but even within the bars of their cell. They are free in faith, no matter how
long the flawed law of this country may prevent them from being “free” in
physical form.
So
don’t let your own circumstances hold you back either. You are not bound by
them! God has so much to offer you wherever you are. Just look inside and see
the beautiful world that’s waiting for you through the door of faith and its perspective
on your life. If 35 men in one cell can live in absolute joy and hope (at least
some of them), then so can you, no matter what bars stand before you. Live beyond
the bars, there’s too much to miss if you don’t.
