In my downtime I’ve been reading a book on Gladys Aylward. This biography is so good and I’d definitely recommend looking her up and reading about her. She’s a woman who travels to China to be a missionary in the 1930’s. She lived in Yang-Chen, a village in the mountains of China. She and Mrs. Lawrence turned a house into an inn to make a place for muleteers to stay as they traveled from village to village. They would give them a place to stay as they shared bible stories with them. Then the muleteers would share the stories with the people they visited, and soon enough village after village would hear about Christianity for the first time.
Over the years the mandarin, a Chinese official heard of Gladys Aylward. He came to the village, this leader who is high in command, to ask her a favor. Back then big feet for women were seen as ugly and unattractive, so mothers and fathers would bind their baby daughters feet, folding their toes under their feet, essentially folding their feet in half with bandages. But now this practice was banned as the Chinese government found that it was unhealthy. So since Gladys Aylward was the only person in China with unbound feet, she was asked to travel from village to village unbounding the little girl’s feet and in the process telling them about God’s love.
The girls could walk freely with their healed feet, they no longer had to hobble around.
The girls could walk freely knowing about God’s perfect love for them, they no longer had to live in fear, thinking they weren’t beautiful and not knowing their true worth.
Soon small bands of Christians began to form in the villages she visited.
One day a messenger came to tell Gladys that the mandarin had summoned her to the prison, as a riot had broken out and the men were killing each other. She had been summoned, so she had no option but to go. When she got to the prison, she said to the governor “I’m only a woman. I don’t know anything about fighting. If I go in there they will kill me.” The governor simply smiled in triumph. “No they won’t. You are always telling people you have the living God in you, so how could they kill you?”, he reasoned. She was scared of entering the prison, but with faith, she entered. When she entered, she yelled with authority to stop. And for some reason, the men listened. They put down their knives and machetes. She promised to help, and help she did. She helped establish gardens for the starving men, gave them loom so they could weave themselves clothes, teach the lice infested prisoners about hygiene, and tell them bible stories. She got the title Ai-weh-deh, which means “virtuous one” for all her help. She made a big impact on this prison.
I read this on Tuesday feeling so inspired by her faith and fell in love with the idea of ministering to prisoners. I went to bed with this on my heart. The next day I found out that we were doing prison ministry! Don’t get me wrong, her ministry and our ministry couldn’t be more different, but the fact that we both found ourselves at prisons is pretty cool. As she shared testimonies from her experiences, I’m going to share mine.
I’m sure there were nerves among our group, unaware of what to expect. We walked to the local prison and prayed and worshipped with them. Cole, Sam, and Bella shared their testimonies to them, encouraging them to walk in the light of God, reminding them that we worship a God who forgives, a God who loves unconditionally, and a God who meets us where we are at. Tsepo, our local partner in our mission asked if anyone would like to accept Christ into their hearts and step forward so we could pray for them. A man confidently emerged from the crowd, and Cole and Sam got to pray the prayer of salvation over him. Praise! We have a new brother who will be joining us in heaven. After Cole and Sam prayed over him, the biggest smile remained on his face until we left. I’m so thankful for this. I’m so thankful that we get to go back to the prison and encourage these amazing men. I’m so thankful that even young American adults can relate to prisoners in Lesotho. God is so good! He’s so good to give me this passion, to bring us to prisons, and to show us the Holy Spirit moving in somebody.
