Prison Ministry 4

Last chapter of prison ministry for a while...
Christian is working for the government and worked on getting our Apostolic Christian Church the resolution to work at Emboscada in a spiritual/rehabilitation-type way. The guards were not happy about that, but we somehow got through the iron gates to the Christian’s pavilion several times a week. There was still a lot of tension, but we were praying for a miracle. Crazy things were still happening and one of the worst was when our Christian friend, “Juan”, died. (I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago.) He knew and told “too much” and was a threat to the General Director and guards.
About three months after he died, in September of 2006, 16 prisoners escaped from Emboscada. The general director was fired and the jail was closed down to be rebuilt and refurbished. Everyone was relocated to other prisons. I think that was our miracle!
Since then, Oscar started going to Tacumbu, a prison in Asuncion. The ministry activities in Tacumbu are organized by a pastor named Abel. Oscar and Pastor Dario go several times a month. Since Lugo became president, Oscar says that things have been “cleaned up” and it is so much safer. Praise God! (If you haven’t been there, I could not even begin to explain to you about all the unhealthy, primitive conditions they live in and the lack of safety for inmates and visitors. Once, for example, at an alter call, Oscar brought home 2 bags full of very sharp, homemade knives and weapons. The inmates went forward in repentance and left them at the pulpit! WOW!)
At Tacumbu, some days they have prayer meetings, some days they will show a movie, and some days just a sermon and worship. If the weather is nice they have “church” outside and 500 prisoners show up. If they have church inside the chapel, about 250 fit. Not all of them are Christians. There are also other organizations, denominations and people working towards rehabilitation in Tacumbu.
Thanks, once again for your prayers!

Brandon's Baptism

Today was Brandon's baptism day. In Paraguay it was also a SPRING celebration.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Cor 5.17

Thanks for your prayers! It was a beautiful day!

Slideshow

I got my slideshow to work...I don't know how! These are pictures that have been posted on my blog already. Check it out on the side.

Prison Ministry - 3

After lots of prayer to be covered by the blood of Christ, we decided to go as a family. When we would all go, I would bake cakes or other goodies and our kids would go cell to cell passing out the homemade "treasures". They were used to eating watered-down, bean soup with little or no flavor and other stuff that does not resemble or taste like food. There were no chairs to sit on during the meeting. Usually they found one, a broken-up and tied-up plastic one for me to sit on or a log with a blanket on top. Everyone else stood, squatted down or sat on the (very dirty, wet, urine-smelling) floor. Trying to find a decent bathroom was another dilemma.
But, putting all the ugliness of the place aside, the days we spent visiting these brothers in Christ were filled with love, friendship, freedom in Christ, testimonies, and praises. God was changing their hearts, their history, and their future...and our's, too. They became soul-buddies and best friends. Each week we were able to practice the gift of giving. Our boys loved it.
We took the speakers, musical instruments, and a group from church once a month to have a “real” service. Even though they were saved, they were always moved to repentance and just simply grateful for their new lives in Christ. With tears running down their faces they would tell their stories… “It all started when I was six years old…”, or, “nobody wanted me and I was being passed around from family to family until finally, I left to live on the streets…” or, “I rummaged through the trash bins behind the mall to find something to eat....” “I started sniffing shoe glue so I wouldn’t feel cold at night, then, got in the habit of doing stronger drugs. I started stealing so I could use stronger stuff…”
Now I understood why Oscar had such strong convictions to continue working here. They weren’t even given a chance at life! We were blessed to be able to share the Word with them.

The Prison Ministry 2

Luis, now free and a member of our local church.

Oscar, trying to get past the guards.

Our country is corrupt! It turns out that the guards were supplying drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, and “free” escapes for the prisoners. (One guy paid the guards $1000 to go to his "daughter's 15th birthday party". He was there for a while and then when the policemen came...he was gone...free!) The new Christians were confessing horror stories of the jail’s guards and directors. There stared to be tension between the Christians and the guards as these true stories started being uncovered.
We got donations from several Christian organizations for a Christmas dinner and half of the meat “disappeared”. We were taking a collection in church for blankets and mattresses and one of the ladies at church who works for the government said that new blankets and mattresses were just sent. Oscar said that the inmates are sleeping on cement benches. There are no mattresses. Oops! Once again, we stumbled on something strange and started investigating.
Oscar would come home disgusted with “The System” and every day there was more and more tension. I was pregnant (with Edson) and wondered some days if my husband would even return. Not killed by the prisoners, but by the corrupt officials. For a while, I was living in fear and distress and told Oscar that the prison ministry has to go! He and Christian were messing around with the Mafia, for all I knew. One of these days, they would not come back to their families. (Christian's wife was also expecting a baby one month before mine.) I begged him not to go back! Oscar broke down and cried…something I rarely see…and said, “No, don’t take this ministry away from me. I LOVE those guys, Karen, they need Jesus!”
Okay, so I stopped the nagging. I had to give up my husband to the Lord. Movie scenes of those set-up accidents or crazy shootings played in my head. I was grieved, but I gave up my rights. He was the Lord's, not mine. I let him go, and I went with him many times before Edson was born, and never again said a word about him leaving this ministry he loved so much.

More about the Prison Ministry

I am going to write this for a couple of days to get it all in in short chapters. I don't like LONG blogs, so I will write a little bit each day. This is a picture of Emboscada. Going back a couple of years...

In 2005 Oscar started going to the prison in Emboscada, a place about an hour away from Asuncion. In August (2005), a group of Christians from several different denominations went there to preach to the inmates. Before this time, only the Catholic Priests had visited this prison, full of some of the worst convicts in Paraguay.
Some of the guys in this first group had kids at Colegio Privado Adonai and they invited Oscar to go with them, just to see it and preach there. He went once and ever since then, has loved working with these men and would go, sometimes, one or twice a week.
By the end of that year there were about 50 prisoners who received Christ as their personal Savior and Oscar, Christian and Carlos were visiting the prison almost every other day. Christian started organizing the group, the meetings, the discipling, etc. Carlos started working with the Buen Pastor (a women’s prison) and Oscar offered to serve once a week during the week and once a month on Sundays, taking a whole group from our church for praise and worship, a sermon and a movie.

For some reason, they had nine lady prisoners there, also, (which soon turned into a promiscuous situation), but while the ladies were there, I got involved. I met with them and prayed with them. Most of them had had a very hard life and couldn't break out of their addictive cycles. They knew most of the prisons around the country AND everyone in them. Being in jail (in and out and back in again) was the only life they new.

I went almost every other week mostly because of worry or curiosity of what Oscar was getting into. Deep down in...I was scared for him...or for me. All the while, I also knew that these people were only crying for attention, love, hugs, words of encouragement, gifts and most of all, freedom...and we had/have the answer...freedom in Christ!

Bible verses are written all over the walls of their cells.

The Potter

1st place poem in Wayne County Schools Literary Contest 1986
written by Karen Schley from Chippewa High School,

Sculptor of vessels,
Creator of my soul,
Mold me, suberb Potter,
into the very image that
only Your omnipotent hands
can cast.
Reconstruct the weakness
in the walls
of my thoughts and attitudes.
Place me back into the center
of Your wheel of life.
Fire the numerous impurities
out of my delicate structure
so that I may be
a pure element of
Your esteemed design.

I found this...after 22 years! I thought it was kind of cute. I still have the trophy.