TO CONTINUE ABOUT THE JAIL VISITS EACH WEEK...... We meet for prayer together in the entrance room when we arrive - after getting our official badges to wear for our visit. Men and women form a circle together and we give requests and someone prays. We also get frisked at that point. At first they went over us with a very careful search, but now that we are known, they just do a cursory search. You cannot have a pen which clicks in and out because the prisoners get hold of those and make weapons, so you have to have a straight pen. We can take in our Bibles and a note pad and can get permission to take in songsheets, helpful literature, etc.
A man officer leads the men down the long halls and a women officer leads the women and those guards stay with us in the pods while we are visiting. We are not supposed to make any noise in the halls, no talking, etc. We have a few guards who know us well and they seem to enjoy being with us for our services and visiting with the girls. First Alliance has more workers than any other church. We have a couple very nice Assemblies women also. The Jehovah Witnesses used to come each week and were very disturbing. They kept themselves apart and taught their doctine loudly to a couple of girls. But lately - especially after one girl left their class and joined us - those women do not come. A couple men also go in and they confuse the prisoners with their teaching. So we are always glad when none of their people come.
The guard opens the door of the pod where we visit and calls out "church!" and the girls put up what they are doing and appear out of their cells. There are two rows of cells in one pod, upstairs and down. The girls are very affectionate and all hug and kiss us and then start talking indiviually. They give us any in-prison news they have. And we give them a bit of news of the outside - the cells are totally sealed from the outisde, so they have no idea of what the weather is like or anything going on out in the community. They spend their days sleeping or playing cards or other games or fixing each other's hair or just chatting. Sometimes arguments break out and that causes problems for them with the guards. They can be put in solitary if they cause a serious problem.
After everyone spends a little time chatting, someone gathers us together in a circle around the pod, and we start to sing. The girls also have prayer needs. We have prayed for salvation with a number of women. Some give testimonies, some want to talk personally with one of us or present a serious personal need to the group and we gather around and pray. Last week one girl who had been let out - and had even attended church with us at our church - was contacted after a couple of days and told they had made a mistake and she was brought back in after being free two days. She was so angry, and asked us to pray for her to be delivered of her terrible anger. Last week just as we were about to begin our little service, a guard came in and called out for three girls to return to prison - after they thought they were going to be released. They had to run and pack up quickly - they own almost nothing, but have to strip their beds and bundle up their mattress and follow the guard. Everyone was hugging and crying and it started off our time together on a bad note. All the girls were crying! One was a girl very close to me.
During our meeting, we do not have a speaker per se - although one week they had asked Valerie and me to dress in our national dress and speak about missions. But we all give Scriptural advice and whatever we feel led to give to the girls. We stop and pray with individuals for special needs. It is a very informal situation. We sing quite a bit also. Then we go into groups usually one visitor per table and spend time answering spiritual questions and listeing to them. The backgrounds some of these people have is unbelievable. Just yesterday Dad had a seventeen year old boy who came from a terrible home situaion - his thirteen year old sister is several months pg with HIS child. He has just so many problems and the only bright spot is when he sees Dad to talk with him. The men also go on Thursday evening and have a more formal meeting when they have preaching.
Just want to copy here something someone just wrote to Dad:
"Well, I just need to write to someone. I'm really depressed, the jail has charged me with some damage I did not do plus my girlfriend with whom I have two baby girls told me she was moving on. She wasn't waiting on me. With all this I'm depressed. I've been praying and reading my Bible. I hope things get better. I am going to prison and all (as opposed to jail) but I'm afraid I will never get out....I'm hurting deep inside. You know how physical pain is, well spiritual pain is much worse. It never goes away. I'd trade a broken arm right now for a little peace in my heart. I'm not a bad person, I just had a drug problem and that made me bad. My heart is so broke I pray it gets better soon. You help a lot. You really have made my faith stronger. I thought no one cares, but Jesus cares whether anyone else does or not and I hope he makes me feel better about life. Right now I don't like it!
Somewhere it says life is full of troubles but to put your trust in God. I believe that. I need some prayers though. I'm losing it, I'm about to snap but that will be more trouible for me. The thing is now that my girls are gone I'm starting to not care. I'm ready to give up, my spirit is so weak right now. Pray for me please, I need it. Well, with love I'm going to try and go to sleep."
As I have said before, this is a heavy ministry as well as being an opportunity to help some people who would never get help elsewhere.
The men stay longer in their Wednesday morning time than we women do, and often we women will go downtown and have coffee together and share prayer needs and have fun and plan for a future when there might be a halfway house within reach here to help some of these poor souls when they get out. One girl I have worked with a lot is totally homeless. She has a drinking problem and so her two older children were taken from her and no relative wants to take her in. When she gets out of jail, she walks around town and looks for an empty house where she can crawl in an unlocked window or just sleep on an open back porch, trying to keep warm all night.
The Bobos were easier to work with I think! They at least have an orgnized society and they take care of their own. But in Toccoa we find many people - men and women - who have no one who cares for them. It is very sad.
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