Just looked back at the former blog postings and saw that John had just been here for a visit and when he left it made me sad to have you all so far away. I try not to be jealous when I see retired missionaries from our church whose children live near them here. It is such a grace for them. But all of our children are doing what God had planned for them and we relax in that thought and cherish each communication we have with all of you. We are blessed beyond measure to have such wonderful children, grands and great grands!
It was our fifty ninth anniversary yesterday and John arrived in the afternoon in time to take us out for a special meal together. Lavonia now has a fairly new high standard restaurant and John drove us there for the meal together. It was fun. It was a wonderful change to have our positive son here with us - after a fairly difficult jail ministry in the morning. We heard so many sad tales in the jail yesterday - both Dad and me.
Jail is so degrading for people. You are stripped of all you own and made to wear a loose fitting striped orange suit which is totally without shape on the girls. They know that they are supervised day and night from a perch up at the top of the building - no privacy of any kind. Some do develop close friendships with others while incarcerated. And our visits on Wednesday mornings is like a breath of fresh air to them. But it always leaves me limp as a dishrag and feeling like crying inside. The poor people.
One of our women from our church is a real evangelists and she makes sure everyone in there each week has made a professions of salvation. She also provides written Bible studies for any who will work on them. One girl who just received the Lord last week is the wife of a man Dad has worked with for years. He is at home with their little girl (Dad says she is the prettiest child he has ever seen. I need to go and visit this beautiful little girl.) The dad lives in the family home (we have been connected with this extended family for years) and he told Dad last week that his wife is not a believer. So he was happy when Dad phoned him and told him she had prayed to receive Christ! Almost every member of this family has done jail time.
The lady who cleans our house - thanks to all of our kids - is part of that same family. The father was the leading drug lord of all this area of Toccoa. Dad had worked with him and when he went to prison (from jail) he had a wonderful experience with the Lord and writes beautiful letters to Dad about his life - now still in prison. The grandma of the family is a saint. I worked with the wife of the former drug lord for years when she was incarcerated. Anyhow, our cleaning lady was talking to me one day and she said that their entire extended family was into drugs. Their evening recreation was for everyone to sit around in a big circle in their living room and smoke joints. The one house that this family lived in was so affected with evil spirits that some of the jail team men went down there and spiritually cleansed the place of demons. There is a lot of demon activity associated with drugs and Dad came upon a bad case of it yesterday in the men's pods.
Happily, jail is not the only reality in our lives - we have plenty of good events in our lives as well. And we are most blessed with family, church, friends from many different venues of life. I always think that our Wednesdays are well balanced - we have all of this sadness in the morning and in the evening we have the fun of working with the AWANA kids.
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