One year plus one street equals one HAPPY camper

I moved! Into a real house with 4 interior walls in almost every room and only a very small indoor patio. I traded the non-stop passing of busses during the day for barking dogs at night and a lot less dust. It was a good exchange. It takes almost a week to accumulate the quantity of dust that I previously amassed in less than a half an hour. I only moved around the corner so I no longer live on the main thoroughfare. Yippee! I no longer do the dishes in my living room pila; I have a real kitchen with a real sink and cabinets. Still no stove, but I’ve turned into almost a gourmet chef with my hotplate (not!) I have real bathrooms as well, two of them, with actual showers, sinks and toilets. Of course I still don’t have running water available during the day but it is obtainable from 3:30 a.m. until almost 6:00 a.m. and the water pressure rivals anything in the United States. Needless to say hot water remains a dream. No tarantula sightings as yet -- but it has only been one month. I have years ahead.

February 15^th marks one year for San Lucas. I dabbled in a lot in the first year: teaching in the public school, tooth care classes for almost the whole world, visits to the orphanage and old folks home, a prison ministry was born, I’ve had prisoners’ families stay with me and hosted international election observers. I am not sure how God does it, but I am convinced that through you and me He is furthering His Kingdom in El Salvador.

Currently I am in concert with another organization, Center for Solidarity and Exchange, as a coordinator for the international election observers that will be coming in March. The duties involve meeting a lot of long winded politicians, working out logistical details for a team of 12 that will be stationed in San Miguel and learning the ins and outs of the election process. I’ve added to my daily prayers, “Oh Dear Lord, don’t let them talk too long and please, please help me to sit still. Thank you, Amen”. The election project is in addition to, and not in place of, the ongoing English classes and the prison work.

Most people when they find out I have a prison ministry don’t ask me what it is that I do, but rather what it is that they have done to land themselves in jail. So here goes. Barby 1 from last letter was in for robbery. She has killed but was not caught. She gets out shortly and plans to sell blue jeans in the central market. She is returning to Milagro de la Paz but with God’s help, not to the gang. Barbies 2 and 3 are both over 50 and are serving long sentences for killing their husbands. Neither can read nor write. Barby 2 refuses to go to school and Barby 3 attends classes but is not learning anything because she is hard of hearing; you must speak directly into her ear to have any kind of conversation. They rarely ask for anything and are appreciative when I bring them soap, shampoo or fruit. Barby 4 killed her three children when she came home and found her husband with another woman. She lost her head and stabbed them to death. I am not sure that any sentence imposed by man can rival her interior turmoil. Barby 5 is 20. She had her first child at 14 and another one 2 years later. She was convicted for stealing babies in a trafficking ring. She would enter a place where many mothers gathered and ask if she could hold the baby; then she and the child would disappear. Barby 6 is also 20 and was a gang member. She was part of group that killed three people. As she didn’t pull the trigger she thought she was going to go free when she had her trial. The judge sentenced her to 35 years. Barby 7 committed a white-collar crime. She signed company checks when there no funds to back them. She received 16 years. Her mother swears she is innocent; I don’t ask -- her or anyone else. Guilt, innocence, or even the crimes they have committed are subjects not broached by me. Ever! I listen but don’t ask questions or press for details and the truth is that I would rather not know. It is so much easier to give of myself not knowing what they have done. For when I know I sometimes struggle: to keep loving them as daughters of God, to continue to encourage them, to be generous and not resent bringing them simple necessities, to not judge them and to keep from being sick to my stomach at the desperation of it all. Someone asked me recently if I had doubts about what I do. “All the time” I answered. I am so out of my league here that this ministry in the prison is surely from above. And when I rail at God, He answers me with the words of Jesus in Luke 5 verse 32, “It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to invite good people but sinners to change their hearts and lives”.

I hold that verse close and it made it easier for me when I stood in as family for two prisoners who were in the hospital whose kin lived too far away to come take of them. Hospital duty is a bit different here; it involves more laundry than prayer. If the patients have no family close, the hospital may give them some things but they will lie in dirty shirts, use soiled towels and generally be in a state of neglect for the duration of their stay. It is the families who provide their own with clean sheets and towels, water, toilet paper etc. Food is given but delivered cold with not even an attempt to make it appetizing. If the patient does not have utensils, they eat with their fingers, if they do not have a cup to drink out of, they do without. Both women are out now and recovering in the jail. I was honored that they trusted me enough to ask me to step in.

22 December 2003 Newsletter

"I was in prison and you came to visit me . . ." Matthew 25:36

I only went to the prison to accompany my art aficionado friend Helen. We stayed out in the lobby part and the prisoners brought their wares for sale and showed them to her through the bars. I sat patiently on a bench while she shopped and tarried. It was while waiting that I met a woman named Aricely who had also come to show her goods.
An immediate attraction between us followed and we began an intense conversation. Before we parted I asked her, "do you live near here?" "Oh yes, quite near, in fact", she said with a smile. She was incarcerated in the women’s section of the prison. I had no idea that San Miguel even possessed a place to hold women prisoners.
After our initial chance encounter I began to visit Aricely regularly. Then I commenced to recount my experiences at the jail to others; and inside of 3 weeks a visiting ministry was launched. There are 4 of us who stop by regularly. We give material things when we can but mostly we give of ourselves. It is a magical kind of love that is manifested inside of me. I don’t see the women in light of the crimes they have committed, but rather I see them as children of God and sisters in humanity and we are much more alike than different.
It is sad that many of the prisoners’ families live too far away to visit them very often and sadder still is when the family is embarrassed to have one of their own in jail and so they don’t come at all. The conditions in the jail are harsh; nothing is given for free there. The prisoners themselves provide everything except a metal bunk on which to sleep and for some, even that is not available. There are 78 women imprisoned, but the jail has beds for only 65; the others sleep in a hammock, which they themselves have brought in.
Food is supplied 3 times a day but in general is inedible. These conditions are luxurious when compared to the men’s side. The men are stacked up in bunks in the cells. Two bunks vertically and one on the floor. Some have mattresses, most do not. The cells, originally designed to hold 4 persons, house between 13 and 18.
Both men and women’s family members and visitors are routinely mistreated in subtle and demeaning ways – and yet few complain. There are set hours for entering and departing the visiting areas, yet we are made to wait for up to an hour extra because the guard is "eating lunch." They must "eat lunch" a lot since this happens both coming and going into the prison during family visiting days, Thursdays and Sundays. Saturdays are easier for me since I visit in a different capacity; I have a security pass and I come as a representative of the Anglican-Episcopal Church.
The women have no priest that regularly visits and they are hungry to partake in the Lord’s Supper. Just before Christmas Bishop Barahona celebrated Holy Communion in the jail replete with his Bishop’s mitre and staff. And what was not said in words but communicated clearly to the women is "you matter!" His homily was simple and thank God short. There was no exhorting or rebuking in the sermon, only compassionate words of encouragement. In a nutshell the message was that God loves you right where you are, and despite your physical incarceration, by Christ’s transforming power and love, you can be free in your heart – thus not only will you survive in the prison environment, you will thrive. The message brought tears to many. There were two announcements at the end of the service both starting in January and both dealing with the role of the Episcopal Church and the jail.
First, I will be bringing Holy Communion to the prisoners every week using consecrated bread and wine. This will be an ecumenical effort as well because my Catholic church friend Ada will be assisting in the service and the 2^nd thing is that San Lucas in San Miguel is opening it’s doors to visiting family members that live far away to stay over the night in the house; a sort of Ronald McDonald house for prison families. San Lucas will offer worship services at the house/church probably within 6 months. These are immediate plans for the ministry of San Lucas.
I never, EVER imagined a prison ministry in my cards, but I believe that this is from God and so I continue, at times reluctantly, on this path. I further admit that I feel very led towards and am exploring the possibility of opening San Lucas as a half way house. I worry for my new-found friends and their reinsertion into the community. If the best solution to crime begins with a change in the person’s heart, then some are well on their way. However, in a country where job opportunities are limited at best, for an ex-inmate, they are non-existent. I am not sure that I can help them on the outside but I am looking for ways to try.
Case in point. Barby is only 20 and has lived more in her short life than most of us would care to imagine even in our worst nightmares. She grew up in Milagro de la Paz with parents who were not able to or simply did not nurture her. She joined a street gang when she was 11 and had a baby at 15. She has been in jail since she was 17. Her tattoos tell the world that she has killed yet she is trying to turn her life around. She has found Jesus in jail and it serves her well. She gets out in January with no place to go except to a family that does not want her.
Harsh realities like this make me feel deficient and ill prepared for mission work—enter here, the faith factor. In truth, God has brought me to where I am and will also give the increase and constant perseverance to the end. And so I ask for your prayers, now more fervently than ever! This jail stuff is all new to me and a little funny considering that I stop at stop signs in parking lots even when no one else is looking.
May God grant you the desires of your heart and a blessed 2004.