Prison

This past Thursday I was invited to minister at Francistown Prison for Illegal Immigrants. A small group of us went and checked into a heavily guarded, barbed wired facility at the edge of town.
Deb, Dearly, and I went to the women's side and entered a hall. I was a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect this first time. The women filed in, smiling broadly and greeting us. The shock for me was the amount of children who also entered, shyly smiling but happy nonetheless to see us there for them.
Dearly, a good good friend, is Kenyan and many of the women there are from Middle Africa so they all speak Swahili. She was able to translate for us and so our job was a bit easier. We began with prayer and one of the women sang out to begin our worship. We read Scripture and then Deb told a story. I sat and watched the faces of these women. Mostly all were refugees from countries that had political troubles. They came with very little possessions. One woman talked in stilted English/French about leaving the Congo without her shoes. These women talked to us about not knowing where their husbands, daughters, sons, or parents were and even if they were still alive. At the end of our lesson, we each walked around the room and prayed with the women individually. We prayed for sick babies, lost loved ones, depression. how hard it was to see children here! Hard enough these women but the little ones! We spoke about salvation and joy in The Lord. We know the Lord will bless them at some point but it is important that they have support walking with them on this path. After two hours we silently walked back to the car.