Jail visitation occupies a great deal of our lives - not just the visits we make there every week - Wednesday mornings for both of us - and Thursday night as well for Dad. I will share with you a little bit about the process of being in jail ministry. First of all, these are very needy people. Many of them will never hear the true gospel from anyone else. Others have been in church most of their lives but have never had a real experience with the Lord. Still others have been scorned or disappointed by the organized church and are totaly turned off to Christianity.
There are about three times as many men as women in our county jail and so our visitation is different. There are three "pods" of men and only one pod of women. So each Wednesday morning when we visit the women, we have time to talk personally with prisoners, and in the women's pod we also have a little service - singing, testimonies, words of counsel - it is different each week. Dad changes pods every twenty minutes and talks and listens to the men on Wednesdays. Then on Thursday nights he goes to preach or back up someone else who goes along to preach. The TFC students love to go with him for this.
We have to remember the rules of the jail when we go in each week. You have to have personal ID (I use my driver's license) and a simple pen, none of these which click in and out. The prisoners can use those to make weapons! You have to have a patdown, usually in the large bathroom - female guards for the women and men guards for the men. Then the first door to the cells is clicked open by the lead guard and we follow behind, being quiet in the halls. We go through four locked doors before we get to the women's pod. As we enter, the guard calls out "church" and everyone who wants to join us comes down out of their cells. One thing we have been able to do is to require that all prisoners are free to come to talk with us. It used to be that the upper tier of cells was on lockdown one day and the lower tier on lockdown the next and so on...even on our visitation days. But we asked that that be changed and they complied so now everyone is free to come to church, unless they are on lockdown for misbehviour.
Just about everyone in there comes and hugs us as they greet us and then follows a time of chatting with the girls (women). There are about twelve steel tables in a pod, with little steel stools around the tables, all stationery and VERY uncomfortable! And that is where we sit and talk. For many, it is a high point in their week. These prisoners have no contact with the outside world - they have no light from outside in their cells, there is no newspaper or TV. They do have visitation rights one day in the week when they are called out to visit through a glass with their family. There is also a row of phones where they can talk with their family, if they have the money to do so. They have no idea what the weather is like outside. They live in complete isolation. We have found that the majority of the guards are kind to the girls and many of them are even Christians. When there are no visitors, the girls either stay in their rooms or else put together puzzles on the steel tables, play cards, etc.
There is a certain camraderie that builds up among the girls, and if one girl is sick, the other girls will take care of her needs. Each cell has a toilet, one girl to a cell. They are not allowed to cover up, so wear sweaters or whatever they have which is warm when sleeping. Each one does have a pillow. The uniforms are for the most part, faded (sometimes even ragged) and very unbecoming! The girls do each other's hair to pass the time and they are required to be hygienically clean. Often girls come into jail pregnant and usually the other girls take care of these prenant girls. Several times we have been there when a girl had just lost a baby and the others all try to comfort her and take care of her in her physical pain and mental anguish. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of lesbian activity tht goes on in the cells and homoseuxality in the men's side.
Several women volunteer to be on kitchen duty and so they are dismissed early from our meeting with them. If they have personl money from their families, they are allowed to order available snacks, plus special prison Bibles for a reduced price. Many of us who are involved in jail ministry put money on the prisoners' acounts so they can buy a Bible. For a long time, we had some Jehovah's Witness women who also came in and had couple of prisoners whom they were indoctrinating. They went in with us, but stayed apart from us. One of the girls saw the light and left the JW's and after tht the JW women did not come back again, so now we are all one big group.
Our Alliance church has also been instrumental in starting a good library for these in the prison. We have given money for bookshelves and a cart to take books around to the pods. The women spend hours now reading good books of all kinds. And people in our church continue to donate good books to this cause.
Being in jail work is a whole new culture for us! Our church has more people who come for visitation than any other church in town and so there is a ccertain camraderie among those of us who go each week. Our pastor's wife is one of them. There are also some AG ladies with whom we have gotten close, and after jail time we often all go out for coffee or lunch together. More later on jail... but suffice it to say this is a whole new culture that we have entered! It is certainly a very needy world. The housekeeping lady whom you kids have provided for us came yesterday as we were on our way to the court. She hugged me and said how happy she is for people like us who care enough about those incarcerated to spend time with them. She herself was in jail because of drugs when she was younger, and she shared about how she looked forward each week to the church people coming to meet with them. She is now living a drug free life and very involved in an evangelical church. It is good to know we are making a difference in the lives of these unfortunate people! (to be continued)
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