17 national lay ministers + 8 "gringos" waiting on the 29 inmates to come in!
What an experience! For three days, four of us “gringos” worked serving tables for 29 inmates and 17 national lay ministers in the Costa Rica San Sebastian prison while another two of us worked the prayer-room support for this spiritual life conference. It was a delight to see these Costa Rican brothers minister to the spiritual needs of these men who have their lives “on hold” in prison. There were two counselors at each table with 6 inmates. What a great ratio.
It was really fun to serve the men (inmates and national team); you could sense that it meant a lot to these men— by their smiles, eye contact, and hugs all throughout the 3 days. I made some good friendships with both “outsiders” and “insiders”.
Prayer room guys |
Serving the inmates |
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The prayer-room guys had the most grueling job, but probably the most rewarding. Before and after each of the speakers gave their 20-minute talk on topics like grace, forgiveness, the prodigal son, etc., they would go to the prayer-room to have the group pray for him. Not only were the inmates being affirmed throughout the week, but the national ministry workers were being affirmed as well. I never saw a dry eye come out of that corner of the kitchen where the prayer-room guys “did their thing”.
Seven of the table counselors had previously been inmates themselves. Two of them had only gotten out of this same prison weeks before— but were now back serving in this outreach to those they had just left on the inside.
The inmates who were invited were, for the most part, non-Believers. By the end of the conference, it was difficult to surmise who was not yet a believer. All of them were touched to the spiritual core of their being.
Once, Raphael (a table counselor) asked me if I would take Damien out to be
prayed over; Damien had a shot-up arm. After being prayed over, Damien shared
with me how he had become preacher in his prison-cell church. To put this into
perspective: men can only come to a Kairos event like this one time. There
were two cell-church group leaders amidst the 29 attendees, because the inside
church has been growing so fast since the first Kairos two years ago, that
some inmates like Damian are becoming believers before they have opportunity
to attend a Kairos week! There are now 7 active churches
in this prison of 800 men. These churches meet everyday!
The first day, I met a guy who spoke fluent English and had an MBA from a US Ivy League university. His job as an inmate, he said, was teaching English to the men in his prison. As my heart grew close to his situation, I learned that he was a new Believer (4 months) but was struggling with the issue that another country was trying to extradite him. It they are successful, he will face a lifetime within prison walls. If not extradited he may go free. I will call him Tom* for the purposes of this note.
This is what he shared about his conversion experience…
The local cell church met right outside my cell in a commons area so I could not help but hear everything that was said. Once a visiting former inmate shared that he thanked God for his time in prison. I recoiled at the thought that I could ever be thankful for being here. I have lost my family, my career, my money and my freedom. Over the course of time I kept hearing guys share from the Word through those bars. Soon, I found myself joining them, and I accepted the Lord as my Savior. That was 4 months ago.
I grew closer to this guy as I found out that having the His Hands Reader would help him as he teaches the inmates English. Never would I have imagined that God would have a native Spanish-speaking Ivy school MBA grad inputting the Spanish lexicon while in a Costa Rican prison. :o)
The eve before our closing day in the prison, I asked Gustavo,
one of the “outsiders” I
had warmed up to, if he would like to learn how to have a Quiet Time. My next
passage to read was Psalms 43, which God obviously knew was exactly the right
passage for this chance to share with Gustavo. I chose verse 4 to share,
Psalms 43
V4 “Then I will go to the alter of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God.”
I wrote in my journal…
How this impressed me: God’s light and truth (v.3) will always lead me back to realize that my true joy in life is when I meet and worship God. That only satisfies my purpose in life. When I focus on Him, to praise Him, I receive joy. It is all about You Lord… all about You. David started this psalm being very perplexed saying… v1 “Vindicate me , O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.” Tom* is at a low time and he is asking God to vindicate him from be extradited by XYZ country.
My response to God: Bring encouragement to Tom to worship and praise the Lord.
My response back to God in my QT mentioned Tom because I was struck by the similarity between both David's and Tom's worry asking God for vindication from a nation.
When I was sharing the QT with Gustavo he got excited about the concept of
worshipping the Lord, and added his favorite verse which was along the subject
of praising God even when all else is collapsing:
Habakkuk 3: 16-8.
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls—
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Gustavo was released from prison just 2 months ago but came back to work as a lay minister on this Kairos event.
The next morning I got a surprise. I asked the chaplain if I could meet with the cell-church inmate leaders to share how to use the QT process in their fellowships. I thought, well, the leaders should be available (i.e. not in the conference) because only new or unbelievers were tied up in the Kairos conference.
The chaplain came back to me later, saying that he had a man who was personally asking for help in how to lead his cell church group. This man was a new Believer (4 months) but already found himself leading his cell fellowship of 15 inmates; he wanted some help in how to lead them.
I was surprised when the cell group leader needing training help turned out to be Tom*!
Up to this point, Tom and I had no idea that we would be talking to each other about how to hold a church cell meeting. With this new facet of our relationship now opened, Tom, described to me how the guys in his cell group already had church experience of some type or another; he wanted some way to unite them on common ground.
In response, I suggested that he use the process we use in our family for sharing Quiet Times. The process goes like this... have the men journal one page and each share what they “hear” from God as they write their thoughts relative to the verse they independently choose in the Word. Tom agreed with the idea of limiting them to only being able to read one page of journal. He said some are preacher types and you can't stop them and others are shy and you can't start them. This way all will get involved. Then I told him to have the guys look for a common thread in what Jesus had spoken to them individually but now is speaking to them as a small group.
Once it seemed that Tom had digested all that I described about the QT sharing process it came time to share with him a real Quiet Time. By now you can see where this was going. Naturally I chose the Quiet Time I had done with Gustavo the night before… it was only 12 hours old! As I read the QT to Tom* I felt like I was in a play, and the script was put in my hands to read; I did not even have to have memorized my lines…
As I continued to read…
“That ONLY (being at God’s altar) satisfies my purpose in life. When I focus on Him, to praise Him, I receive joy. It is all about You, Lord. David started this psalm being very perplexed saying… v1 “Vindicate me , O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.”
As I read I looked up at Tom and saw by the expression on his face that he caught this in his spirit and he knew it to be true. The perplexing but comforting truth that – ‘all else in life pales in comparison to being, worshipping at the altar of God.’ I knew he had been worrying so much about his possible extradition and feared prison term.
It was so strange because I knew the next sentence I was to read in my QT journal was where God had impressed on me to tell Tom about this truth in relation to Tom’s worry over extradition … and now here I was the very next morning by God’s creativity having to read this message to him. Not merely by shear coincidence, God worked it that I did not have to go to Tom to tell him this encouragement but he brought Tom to me. And it was not me telling Tom but it was Tom asking me. It was as if God tucked this personal note to Tom in the lesson material just to personalize how indeed He does speak
I concluded that since Tom’s name was in the next sentence and this was something God was saying just between He and Tom…
I then turned the journal around and let him read the rest (parentheses
added to show personalization of the moment)
“Tom (you are at) is at a low time and he (you are) is asking God (Me) to vindicate him (you) from being extradited by XYZ country. Bring (Tom, be encouraged) encouragement to him to (by worshipping and praising Me) worship and praise the Lord.”
As I look back on how God worked this encounter with Tom I praise Him for how He intricately inter wove the combination of coincidences:
I always get charged when God punctuates and personalizes His speaking through His Word to me. I reflect on how statistically improbable it is that such situations occur like the one with Tom and my coincidentally reading the passage from the life of David. I ask myself, what are the odds of that occurring in normal everyday life at a prison in Costa Rica? Answer: 1 in billions!
Hebrews 4:12
For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
On the second day, we were supposed to have written 29 personal notes in Spanish to go in the gift bags one for each inmate. Well, I was waayyy behind in my writing these notes. In fact, I still had not even started, and the notes were due in right after breakfast. The Lord impressed on me to draw a picture instead. Hence, this little guy quickly appeared on my 29 little pieces of paper and in they went into the envelopes. Yes, I did manage to personalize it by writing the name of each inmate on both picture and envelop. But no breakfast that morning.
I was bemoaning to the Lord how I did not get to explain to the men how much empowerment for them is wrapped up in that little power-packed verse, symbolized by a little Costa Rican village character sporting a crown and priestly staff. I wanted to say to them that God says we (all believers) are priests and kings—what a compelling truth for an inmate lost in a Costa Rican prison. God wants to speak to us through His Word, to help us to grow to have the character of a prince and so that we can pass on what He desires to speak to the world around us. This was the only moment I regretted not having any speaking role at the conference.
Later that afternoon, the chaplain Carlos said, "Hey Bob, there’s a 10-minute talk on small-group sharing… can you give that talk?" It’s amazing how, with a little bit of liberty, how close the topic of small group sharing can come to the theme “You are all Kings and Priests” :o) So I got to give my Priest and King illustration to the men. I used my hip pocket true story of a little British girl who went on a Christmas vacation to remember last Christmas. Ask me to tell you the story sometime if you haven't heard it. :o)
On the way back to the airport I was thinking that Saul, pronounced “Sa-uuul” (our driver and a leader in the Costa Rican Kairos leadership), did not know English, and so this was probably the last of opportunity for ministry in what had been an incredibly memorable week of involvement in peoples’ lives. Saul said something, though not necessarily to any one in particular; it was still “all Spanish to me” so I didn't grab what he is saying. I just kept vegging while watching the now-familiar, typical Costa Rican scenes buzz by. It was warm… and like I said before, I don’t often find myself being warm on the mission field so I was soaking it in.
Happy Sa-uuul! |
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Then I tuned in as Tony, fellow team member in the back seat started translating
what Saul had been buzzing on about.
Saul said…
Some one was talking with my best friend earlier this week and asked him if he read the Bible.
My best friend told me about this question and I could tell it made him ponder.
Then someone told him that God would speak to him through the Bible.
That really stuck with my brother and he has been thinking about that all week.Saul went on to say that he, himself, had become a Christian several years ago. And he has been really careful to live only by example and not preach to his best friend, Jim-Bob*.
Editorial note: Saul’s best friend is a paid van driver
that had driven us earlier in the week and taken us shopping for tourist
gifts.
Tony asked me…
“ Bob was that you who said those things to Jim-Bob?”I replied…
For the life of me I can not recall the conversationTony then said,
“ Bob that sounds like something you would have said that, God speaks to you through the Bible.”
Now I was tracking with Saul.
Mike (in the back seat) piped in…
Remember how Jim-Bob shared at lunch when asked if he took communion at church, “no I feel too dirty… I only took it once to please my mother.”Saul went on to say that…
in his pre Christian days they (he and Jim-Bob) worked together as drivers. They would get call girls for their tourist clients they drove. So there is a big contrast in our lives now. We still both drive clients but Jim-Bob never talks with me about his underworld dealings.
I now recall the conversation with Jim-Bob in the front seat that day. I had asked him … do you read your Bible and I followed it with “you should because God will speak to you.” I did not take any notice because I didn't remember him giving any comment other than his saying "no" to the question about reading the Bible and just his million dollar smile and a distant stare at the traffic ahead in response to the statement that God speaks.
But now I remember that I told the “microphone getting clicked off” story to the guy sitting on the other side of me. That story is enough to make me an eternal believer that God speaks via His Word. Ask me and I will tell it to you sometime if I haven’t already.
What a blessing it was to hear Saul’s joy as he shared about his best friend's flicker of God consciousness.
I told Tony how taken aback I am that I so often get a surprised response from Believers, when I say that God speaks to Believers personally when we read His Word. Tony replied, “What you are saying is very revelational to these people here…in fact, they don’t even have a practice of reading the Bible. They think that reading the Bible is only for Priests.”
Yes it is! All believers are priests.
Revelations 1:5b,6
“ v5b…Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
v6 and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
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