Sermon Illustrations on Prison

Light

Luke 4:18

Charles Colson and several other Christian leaders once met with President Borja of Ecuador to discuss Prison Fellowship International's ministry in Ecuadoran penitentiaries. They had no sooner been seated in luxurious leather chairs and begun to speak when the President interrupted the conversation with a story -- the story of his own imprisonment years before being elected to the presidency.

He had been involved in the struggle for democracy in Ecuador. The military cracked down, and he was arrested. Without trial, they threw him into a cold dungeon with no light and no window. No one knew where he was, and for three days he endured the solitary fear and darkness that can drive a person mad.

Just when the situation seemed unbearable, the huge steel door opened, and someone crept into the darkness. Borja heard the person working on something in the opposite corner. Then the figure crept out, closed the door, and disappeared.

Minutes later the room suddenly blazed with light. Someone, perhaps taking his life into his hands, had connected electricity to the broken light fixture. The darkness of the dungeon was gone. "From that moment," explained President Borja, "my imprisonment had meaning because at least I could see."

Even more important than the light we see with our eyes is the light that Christ brings to our hearts, giving our lives the understanding and meaning only he can give.

#3145

*

A Hard Way To Learn Hebrew

Natan Sharansky was imprisoned by Soviets for being a dissident. His cell was cold and isolated. He learned Hebrew prayers by soaking up the water in his toilet and talking with other prisoners through the pipe. Later he was released and allowed to go to the West.

Falsely Accused of Rape

John 3

Cesar Guy was a well-off Filipino who was falsely accused of rape. The case was in the papers for weeks. He was sent to prison for 16 years. He turned to alcohol. After 7 years his accuser recanted after becoming a Christian and asked him to be pardoned, but three days previously Marcos imposed military law and the pardon got buried. One cellmate, Roger Arienda, was jailed for criticizing Marcos and droned on about politics. In 1975 he took a Bible out of the library and became saved. Then he droned on about Jesus. But his rage was replaced with compassion.

Chinese Pastor Hao preached at the prison and wouldn't take his eyes off Cesar. He visited Cesar personally and gave him a Bible, which he tried to trade for a cigarette but couldn't. He promised to read John 3 to get the pastor off his back. Nicodemus fascinated him, as did 2 Cor 5:17. He accepted Christ and looked up his old cellmate Roger. Cesar was released in 1982, complete with a press conference and a public apology from the publisher of the Manila newspaper that had defamed him. He now works with Prison Fellowship and gives jobs to prisoners.

Beyond Forgiveness

Monty Christensen led a hard life, was in prison, reform school, mental hospital. A 77-year-old uncle witnessed to him; he had gone to rip him off and ran away when he heard about Jesus, but the next night he accepted him. Things did not become perfect. He still had setbacks and committed crimes. Facing 75 years in prison, the time was miraculously reduced. He now speaks to prisoners.

“As Monty talked about the struggles he faced after accepting Christ - the spiritual warfare that raged; the setbacks that led to the old life of crime; his wife’s fight to keep their marriage alive despite Monty’s string of broken promises - prisoners around the room sat in stunned silence. ‘Sure, I read the Bible, went to church, and got a job,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t deal with the pressures of life. Sometimes choosing the right nail overwhelmed me.” Monty’s words hit home. That afternoon 23 men gave their lives to Jesus.”

“Monty Montana” has written a book called “70 x 7 and Beyond.”

In Windsor Prison

Luke 4:18

Are some people beyond help and redemption?

In 1975 at the old prison at Windsor, Vermont, a particular prisoner applied for parole. The mood of society at the time leaned toward prisoners and questioned — even challenged — authorities. To all who knew him the inmate in question seemed an intensely dangerous man. Most guards may not be formally educated in the psychology or pathology of violence, but it is their stock-in-trade to know about it. Here, they saw, was danger. One day in his cell in the oldest part of the prison, in the basement, the prisoner poured lighter fluid over himself and lit a match. A brave and determined guard rushed in and saved him. The matter came to the attention of a Windsor minister and his wife. It seemed to them that kindness might effect something here. They asked that the prisoner be paroled in their custody.

Every employee at the prison was utterly against the idea. But while to the public the parole board and the prison authorities seem two arms of a single body, they are in fact totally independent of each other. The parole board voted affirmatively. Guard Mike Coxon called the area superior of the minister and begged him to tell his subordinate not to take in the prisoner. He told the bishop that the minister and his wife had neither the knowledge nor the experience to deal with such a person. The bishop would not be moved. Let the erring sinner be freed and helped. “We’ll hear about this sooner rather than later,” Coxon said when he saw it was no use going on.

The prisoner went to live with the minister and his wife, and in a little while he entered the home of a Windsor family whose nine-year-old son was being baby-sat by his seventeen-year-old aunt. He raped the teenager. He stabbed the child to death. Coxon was home in bed when Windsor’s police chief called with the news.

An Ex-Prisoner Lays His Faith On The Line

Mark 10:45

In 1971 Mel Goebel was convicted of burglary and sentenced to five years of hard labor at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. He was bitter and cynical and turned to drugs to pass the time. Another inmate witnessed to him and he eventually accepted Christ.

Being a Christian made him a different person. He learned to be content, formed close friendships and practiced his faith. About a year later an 18-year-old inmate named Rocky came to Mel's cell. He had heard about Mel's conversion.

With tears in his eyes, the boy explained his story: When he had first come to prison he had accepted a carton of marijuana and cigarettes from a gang of older inmates. Now they wanted him to provide them with "favors."

Mel and some other Christians bought a carton of cigarettes at the commissary. Then Mel walked alone to the gym to give them to the men, who used to be his gang. "Here's the carton Rocky owes you. And you still owe me two cartons of pot that I never collected, so Rocky's debt is cancelled."

The leader, named Eric, stepped forward. "Who do you think you are, telling us what to do?" Mel's heart beat quickly, but he stood his ground. "Because of Christ, Rocky is my brother. I have to help him." Mel walked away.

Later that day the gang approached him and two of his Christian friends in the yard. They decided not to resist and prepared to be beaten up, just as their Lord Jesus had been. Eric was face to face with Mel, and growled, "I don't like what you did in there."

Mel took a deep breath and looked his old leader in the eyes. "Eric, if you were being threatened I would do the same thing for you."

Ethan Allen Thomas Jr. Left Gang For Faith, Journalism; Dead At 22

Mark 5:1

Ethan Allen Thomas Jr. desperately wanted to be a journalist. It didn't matter to him that as a black 22-year-old from south-central Los Angeles the odds were against him.

A former gang member and ex-con who had surrendered his life to God, Thomas wore a constant smile that exuded both his confidence and never-wavering pride as a copy messenger at the Los Angeles Times. Everything about the newsroom -- ringing telephones, constant deadlines, stale coffee, reporters pecking out stories on computer terminals -- seemed to energize him.

But on Nov. 17 his name was not printed in a byline atop one of the news stories he was learning to write. Instead, it was among the obituaries.

Cold, unfeeling newspaper type summed up the scant basics. Fatally shot by his estranged wife, Thomas' life was over just as it was about to take off. Still, his accomplishments since being released from prison in 1993 stand as a testament to anyone who thinks stories like his never happen. In a feature on Thomas in the Los Angeles Times following his death, reporter Patt Morrison wrote:

"We are a leery and skeptical lot, we journalists. Prove it, we say. Show me.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Gangbanging kid gets out of prison and goes straight. Gives up the street life. Teaches Sunday school. Coaches children's football. Holds down a job, goes to college. Won't have sex before marriage. Right -- tell us another fairy tale.

"But this kid did show us. This kid rounded every base, cleared every hurdle. Three years out of state prison and he just spent a day last week visiting USC, figuring out how long it would take him to get admitted.

"In 10 years' time, maybe less, you would have known about Ethan Allen Thomas Jr., because he would have been telling you himself, through his writing. But now we have to tell you about him, because he is dead."

Thomas recounted his troubled childhood and youth in a first-person article he penned for the July-August 1994 issue of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board's MissionsUSA magazine:

"I can remember the first piece of crack I ever touched, because along with it came the first dishonest dollar I ever made.

"I wanted to go to the fair, but had no money. My mother gave me $30 to buy crack for her. When I found the local supplier I copped (purchased), doubled (turned a profit) and went to the fair.

"My mother never sent me on crack-buying missions for her again, but because she was caught up in her own addiction, she had unknowingly launched and financed the beginning of my career in drugs."

Searching for the love and acceptance he didn't get at home, Thomas began "running" with the Crips gang. His life became no different than many of the roles glamorized in such Hollywood films as "Boyz 'n the Hood" and "Pulp Fiction." Drugs, carjackings and guns were part of his everyday existence.

Then, as senior in high school, he was charged with attempted murder and incarcerated in California's Soledad Prison for three years. Thomas, who had won a $150 award in the 11th grade for a composition he wrote, turned to writing to help soothe some of his feelings of helplessness while in prison.

"For the first time writing became a release for me. More than ever, I hungered to be free from what had imprisoned me mentally and physically.

"I cried out to God in search of guidance. Even though I had fallen from the narrow path of a good Christian, on this particular evening in my tiny two-man cell I asked God, 'What is it that you will have me do?'

"Later in my sleep, a single word scrolled across my mind: JOURNALISM."

After being released from prison in 1993, Thomas's life took a turn for the better when he went to visit his parole officer. The parole office had moved, but in its place was a dance studio and someone who would listen. Dance instructor Trena Johnson encouraged Thomas to chase his dream of becoming a journalist.

On a whim, Johnson called the Los Angeles Times and asked an editor to read some of her new friend's writing. The editor agreed to an informal interview over lunch.

Thomas began working as an intern in the features department at the newspaper a short time later. Michael Quintanilla, a Los Angeles Times reporter, was assigned as Thomas' reporter-mentor. Everywhere Quintanilla went, Thomas was to follow. Thomas learned the basics of proper telephone etiquette, worked on conceptualizing stories and even wrote several.

"He was my shadow, and a sponge of a shadow," Quintanilla said. "He soaked up everything and loved it."

Thomas worked hard at being a reporter. Although Thomas often struggled, Quintanilla encouraged him to remember his dream. "I told him, 'If you want the Times bad enough, then you deserve it.'"

The young intern's best work, Quintanilla said, turned out to be about his own neighborhood, and Thomas became important to the staff at the newspaper because his life was what they often wrote about.

Quintanilla felt sorry for Thomas when his 10-week internship ended. Most interns go back to journalism school, but for Thomas that wasn't possible. So, several editors got together and created a part- time position so the fledgling reporter could continue at the newspaper.

Seeing that he would need an education to advance any further at the paper, Thomas began taking classes at Los Angeles's Southwest College, where he edited the school's newspaper. He had plans to enroll in journalism school at the University of Southern California next fall.

According to those who knew Thomas best, his success in school and at the newspaper was a direct result of a dedication and love for the Lord.

Joe Freeman, pastor of Greater Good Shepherd Missionary Baptist Church, said Thomas had attended the church with his grandmother since his early youth. An attentive Sunday school student, Thomas was "seriously interested in what the Bible said," even as a 15-year-old, Freeman said.

Thomas' life changed following a type of "Damascus Road" experience in jail.

As Freeman tells it, Thomas called out of desperation one Saturday shortly after being released from prison. "He said he couldn't stand it. He was going to do something," the pastor recalled. "I said, 'What are you going to do?' Later that day I heard he had broken the law."

Recounted Thomas, "I knew if being 'legit' got too hard I could always revert to my old gang-banging ways. And in one desperate moment I did. For money.

"Arrested for robbery and thrown in the county jail, I began to realize that my life didn't have to be this way. I felt like a loaded gun was pointed at my head. I needed one last chance. I gave myself to God.

"The next morning a miracle happened: I was not recognized in a police line-up and was released from jail. I was ready in my heart and my soul to serve God."

Following his jail-cell conversion, Thomas became an integral part of the ministry at Greater Good Shepherd, located a block from the intersection where riots broke out following the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

Freeman said the church, with Thomas' help, organized a group of "parolees" who met at the church on Saturdays to share their experiences about life on the outside. Thomas became the lead discipler of these young souls.

Thomas also began sharing his testimony with the church youth and taught the older youth each Sunday morning, often exhorting them to learn from his mistakes.

"In all my years as pastor, I have never had a person as committed and devoted to God as Ethan was," Freeman said. "He had a personality that he loved God and was concerned about young lives."

Eugene Bryant, a coordinator for the HMB's black church extension work in south-central Los Angeles, met Thomas for the first time last summer when Thomas was a youth counselor at Camp Emmanuel, a summer program for African American youth Bryant helps direct.

Bryant said he was impressed with Thomas from the start and the two hit it off. In a sense, Thomas became Bryant's apprentice.

"He told his testimony during church service (at camp)," Bryant said. "He was really committed and a really disciplined Bible reader. He shared his faith with everyone."

Bryant said Thomas taught the same discipline to the youth of his church. Acting as a kind of volunteer youth minister at Greater Good Shepherd, Thomas tried to learn everything he could about youth ministry from Bryant, a former youth minister. Bryant said he saw a lot of the same thirst for spiritual knowledge and love of youth in Thomas that he had as a young minister.

"I told him he could call me at any time, and he did," Bryant said. "He'd call at 11 o'clock at night, because he worked at night, and say 'Hey, Rev., I've been reading the Bible and I have a question ... .'"

During the summer camp, Thomas was exposed to Bible drill for the first time. Under Bryant's leadership, Thomas instituted Bible drill at Greater Good Shepherd and was planning to take a team to the youth evangelism conference in 1996.

According to Bryant, Thomas and his wife, Kelly, had become estranged in recent months. Kelly, who had two small children from a previous relationship, was from the same neighborhood. The two had been married since October 1994. Their youth, financial insecurities and possibly Thomas's reluctance to cut back his responsibilities at school, the newspaper and church may have all contributed to the tragic result.

Bryant said he had counseled them in the last several weeks and according to published reports Thomas was moving out of their apartment when he was shot.

Bryant said he believes Kelly feared losing Ethan and this was her "last act of desperation."

In the end, Thomas's story sounds like something from a Shakespearean tragedy: God-fearing ex-gang member rises above impoverished, ghetto roots, only to be gunned down by the same senseless violence he was trying to escape.

When news of Thomas' death reached the bustling newsroom of the Los Angeles Times, reporters normally hardened to news of death and crime had to sit down and shake their heads in disbelief. In the same feature that looked at Thomas's career at the newspaper, reporter Morrison remembered, "Ethan was the kind of kid we all like to have around, because his doing well makes us feel so good. But Ethan was his own achievement, and his greatest struggle. And his best story was the one he never wrote -- about himself."

The final paragraphs of Thomas' own MissionsUSA story serve as a fitting epitaph for one who stood as a beacon in the midst of the desolation and decay of south-central Los Angeles:

"When I look back on my horrific past I am not angry or bereaved. I am thankful to God that my little brothers are not traveling that path. I am thankful that my mother has found the Lord and that he has given her the strength and guidance to raise my two little brothers -- handsome 8- and 10-year-olds.

"I thank God for rescuing me and for restoring my faith.

"Now I can thank Jesus for my past, because I know that God is merciful."

RNbp5C19mrjB5C19b5C20

#3902

*

He Did the Time For Us

Near the city of San Jose dos Campos, Brazil, is a remarkable facility. In 1974 the Brazilian government turned a prison over to two Christians. The institution was renamed Humaita, and the plan was to run it on Christian principles. With the exception of the two full-time staff, all work is done by inmates. Families outside the prison adopt an inmate to work with during and after his term. Chuck Colson visited the prison and made this report:

“When I visited Humaita, I found the inmates smiling - particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs ....

(later) My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block - houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key in the lock, he paused and asked, ‘Are you sure you want to go in?’

“‘Of course,’ I replied impatiently. ‘I’ve been in isolation cells all over the world.’ Slowly, he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates - the prisoner Jesus, hanging on a cross.

“‘He’s doing time for the rest of us,’ my guide said softly.”

The Great Liberal Death Wish

Acts 12:7

I was reading a long essay by a Yugoslav writer, Mihajlo Mihajlov, who spent some years in a prison in Yugoslavia. He cites case after case of people who, like Solzhenitsyn, say that enlightenment came to them in the prison.

They understood what freedom was when they had lost their freedom, they understood what the purpose of life was when they seemed to have no future. They say moreover, that when it’s a question of choosing whether to save your soul or body, the man who chooses to save his soul gathers strength thereby to go on living, whereas the man who chooses to save his body at the expense of his soul loses both body and soul. In other words, fulfilling exactly what our Lord said, that he who hates his life in this world shall keep his life for all eternity, as those who love their lives in this world will assuredly lose them.

Now, that’s where I see the light in our darkness. There’s an image I love – if the whole world were to be covered with concrete, there still would be some cracks in it, and through these cracks green shoots would come. The testimonies from the labor camps are the green shoots we can see in the world, breaking out from the monolithic power now dominating ever greater areas of it. In contradistinction, this is the liberal death wish, holding out fallacious and ultimately destructive hope that we can construct a happy, fulfilled life in terms of our physical and material needs, and in the moral and intellectual dimensions of our mortality.

Christmas In '45

Acts 12:5

CHRISTMAS IN ‘45: God reshaped Kellie Crowe’s world via burning bomber, Nazi prison. [sermon version at end]

The African sky was a deep, brilliant blue. White snow-capped peaks of Mount Kilamanjaro could be seen from the window of the tiny Royal Dutch plane. Just as the pilot called over the intercom telling the seven passengers to prepare for landing, the twin-engine plane began its decent. It was at this moment when Hiram Clay Kiser peered out his window to see exactly the same situation he had prayed for 45 years prior while a soldier in World War II.

“I was weeping. I am sure the other six men from my church wondered why I was crying,” said 71-year-old H.C. Kiser. “I shared with them later how I had already had a revival in my heart and knew God was going to bless our mission trip in Africa. It was a big day in my life.”

From behind the dark-rimmed glasses framing a face with wrinkles seeming to tell their own individual stories, Kiser’s gentle eyes gleamed with excitement. Not just the excitement of his prayer being answered, but the excitement of a man who knows Jesus Christ and is fulfilled by telling of his blessings. Carefully telling his story so as not to forget a detail, Kiser leaned forward on the kitchen table and continued.

“I saw a little settlement carved out in the wilderness and I saw men and women, boys and girls come out of the little mud, thatched-roof huts. They waved at us up in the plane,” Kiser recounted with a tender smile. “It seems like the Lord just spoke to me. I had forgotten the prayer I had prayed 45 years prior, but the Lord hadn’t. The Lord said to me, ‘Now, you will have the opportunity to go and to witness to these people.’“

It was in the early fall of 1944 when H.C. Kiser first saw the African village of Imbengo aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress. As the children waved from the village, the then-20-year-old Kiser prayed a little prayer, “Lord, if I ever get the opportunity to go back to Africa and witness for you, please give me the opportunity to do so.”

This was the first prayer of many to be uttered -- first as a soldier, then as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany.

This day marked the beginning of a greater consciousness for a farm boy from rural southwest Virginia. Ten thousand miles away from life as he knew it, Kiser experienced a swift and deeply impressionable transformation in his life. His worldview was broadened far past the barbed-wire fence of his family tobacco farm. His eyes were opened to a people of different skin colors and cultures foreign to his own. His faith was challenged much greater than any sermon he had heard from the pews of Abingdon (Va.) Baptist Church. His Lord became more real than the fading, framed print of Jesus and the Lord’s Supper -- his Lord became a God of miracles.

Clutching a German pewter table spoon inscribed with a Nazi swastika on the handle, Kiser told of countless miracles the Lord had performed during his seven months as a prisoner of war. The pewter spoon served as a primitive yet powerful reminder of the cost of freedom. It was with that very spoon Kiser suffered through the trials of Nazi prison camps. At night, while the bombs would fall, he would use the spoon to dig a hole large enough to bury his head so as to endure the tremendous concussion of the exploding bombs.

Kiser’s fierce trials began Oct. 12, 1944, aboard the B-17 bomber en route to bomb General Rommel’s army in North Africa. It was a mission not even scheduled for his crew, but assigned because of an ailing pilot of another crew.

Kiser said the Lord prepared his heart before going to bed on the eve of Oct. 11. In his Bible, he read the words of 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trials which try you as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.”

“Little did I know when I read that on Oct. 11, that Oct. 12, the next day, I would become a prisoner of war,” Kiser said.

That Oct. 12, at 29,000 feet over Bologna, Italy, the Flying Fortress took a direct hit from an anti-aircraft shell exploding under the B-17 bomber. The concussion of the huge shell sent the plane upward, pinning the airmen with tremendous centripetal [centrifugal?] force. After the plane leveled, the crew opened escape hatches, harnessed parachutes and one by one bailed out of the spiraling bomber. All jumped, except for Kiser. During the hit, Kiser’s parachute had opened and spilled out in the plane.

“I got down on my knees and was crawling down through the waist compartment to get my torn parachute back in order so I could get out the door,” Kiser said, demonstrating with his hands the way in which he gathered the parachute. “I just wadded up all of the shroud lines and compressed the big canopy of the parachute to make it small enough to get through the door.”

“I’ll never forget it. I said a little prayer. I said, ‘Lord, should I jump out knowing my parachute is inoperable or should I ride this plane down?’ It seemed like the Lord just said to me, ‘H.C., I’m a God of miracles, and if you will just, by faith, leap out of this burning bomber, I’ll show you that I am a God of miracles.’ So, with that in mind, I jumped.”

Kiser’s parachute did not open. Falling rapidly, Kiser prayed for his chute to open, promising to witness for the Lord. Nothing happened.

Again and again, Kiser prayed, “Lord, I’m probably 10,000 miles away from home and my godly parents, grandparents and my pastor. It’s just you and I here. I want to live so badly. It looks like this is the time for me to die. Lord, apparently, you can’t open this chute.”

“When I told him he couldn’t, he told me he could. The parachute opened with a terrific jerk,” Kiser said as he grinned mischievously, adding a flavor of his humor. “I bit my tongue, my boots about flew off, and I said, ‘Lord, I thank you for opening my parachute, but you’ve just about broke my neck in the process.’“

After Kiser’s floating parachute seemed miraculously guided off the German target being bombed by allied planes above, protecting him from German gunfire, Kiser landed safely in a marsh just inside the enemy lines of Bologna, Italy. He was greeted by two Nazi soldiers pressing a bayonet in one of his rib cages and the nose of a machine gun in the other.

“You know, they say you become a man when you reach the age of 21. I was only 20 years old, but the events from the time we left that morning until we bedded down that night changed my whole life,” said Kiser, recounting the sight of an Italian man loading his dead family members onto a wagon covered with blood-soaked sheets, the stench of broken sewer lines and the realization of the power of the destruction from a single bomb. “I had never seen the havoc of the bombs until that day as I rode through the streets of Bologna with the German soldiers. You see, we had done that and it broke my heart.”

In his seven months as a prisoner of war, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, six-foot-two Kiser, withered away to an 80-pound skeleton of a man. He was spit upon and cursed by German soldiers. He can recount the feel of the saliva-drenched chewing tobacco sliding down his face. Forced to march cross country for miles in the dead of winter, bedding down in barns and under trees, Kiser holds the memory of leaving behind fellow soldiers who had frozen to death during the bitter night, forbidden to even shake the ice off them in the hope they were still alive.

“It got so bad. Men would fight over the size of potatoes,” Kiser said. “One night, we were all starving. We couldn’t see what we were eating. I just bit down on this thing in my mouth and it burst. It was a little red mouse. I gagged and held it up. I said, ‘Look here fellahs, I’ve got fresh meat.’ And, this ole’ boy said, ‘Aren’t you going to eat it?’ I said, ‘No, I’ll die before I eat that.’ He told me to drop it over near him. He ate it.”

From the dark interrogation cell with only the smell of human waste and the narrow rays of sunlight shining through a three-inch metal pipe used for air, the Lord spoke to Kiser in a way he will never forget. Reflecting on the dark, cold wall were two verses of Scripture from Hebrews scribbled by previous soldiers. “I read these words,” said Kiser. “‘Jesus will never forsake you,’ was written on the wall. And, then on down, it said, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.’“

It was this promise which held Kiser up and spurred him to continue when he felt there was no hope. Alone in the dark, damp and cold cell, Kiser worshiped his Lord. “I got up, raised my hands and told the Lord I wanted to praise him, though it was difficult fearing execution. I began singing, ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,’ the Doxology. It was the only thing I could think of.”

Fifty years later, Kiser is still praising his God from whom all blessings flow. World War II -- its fiery trials and at times triumphant victories of faith -- changed him deep down within his very soul. Never again did he see the world through the innocent eyes of a young farm boy. Never will he forget the faces of the nationals who did not know Jesus as their Lord. Never will he forget the presence of his Lord as he suffered through the torment of prison camp. At a young 20 years of age, Kiser’s world had been expanded far beyond the wisdom of his years.

On April 29, 1945, at prison camp Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, Kiser watched as two American soldiers pulled down the German swastika, throwing it to the side. “Then, this big, beautiful American flag went up,” said Kiser, recounting the liberation of his camp. “We just stood there and bawled. I said, ‘Lord, how could we ever have doubted you?’“

From a distance, Kiser watched as his world yet continued to change. He looked on as freedom integrated race. “I saw a white soldier from Washington, Ga., reach down and grab the arms of a black soldier, hoisting him up on a perch,” Kiser recounted. Together, the black soldier and the white soldier watched as the American flag of freedom rose high above the prison camp. “It was beautiful. It was a great day.”

__________

========================================

Version used in sermon on Feb. 25, 1996:

The African sky was a deep, brilliant blue. White snow-capped peaks of Mount Kilamanjaro could be seen from the window of the tiny Royal Dutch plane. It was at this moment that Hiram Clay Kiser peered out his window to see exactly the same situation he had made a promise about 50 years ago in World War II.

It was in the early fall of 1944 when H.C. Kiser first saw the African village of Imbengo aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress. As the children waved from the village, the then-20-year-old Kiser made a little promise: “Lord, if I ever get the opportunity to go back to Africa and witness for you, please give me the opportunity to do so.”

Kiser had grown up in Baptist church in Virginia. He had godly parents and believed in God, but his faith had never been really tested. It was the first prayer of many he would utter as a soldier -- and then as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany.

His fierce trials began Oct. 12, 1944, aboard the B-17 bomber en route to bomb General Rommel’s army in North Africa. It was a mission not even scheduled for his crew, but assigned because of an ailing pilot of another crew. Kiser said the Lord prepared his heart before going to bed on the eve of Oct. 11. In his Bible, he read the words of 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trials which try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.”

Years later Kiser said, “Little did I know when I read that on Oct. 11, the next day I would become a prisoner of war.”

On Oct. 12, at 29,000 feet over Bologna, Italy, his B-17 Flying Fortress took a direct hit from an anti-aircraft shell. The concussion of the huge shell sent the plane upward, pinning the airmen with tremendous centrifugal force. The crew opened escape hatches, harnessed parachutes and one by one bailed out of the spiraling bomber.

All jumped, except for Kiser. During the hit, Kiser’s parachute had opened and spilled out in the plane. “I got down on my knees and was crawling down through the waist compartment to get my torn parachute back so I could get out the door,” Kiser said. “I just wadded up all of the shroud lines and compressed the big canopy of the parachute to make it small enough to get through the door.”

I said a little prayer. I said, ‘Lord, should I jump out knowing my parachute is inoperable or should I ride this plane down?’ It seemed like the Lord just said to me, ‘H.C., I’m a God of miracles, and if you will just, by faith, leap out of this burning bomber, I’ll show you that I am a God of miracles.’ So, with that in mind, I jumped.”

Kiser’s parachute did not open. Falling rapidly, Kiser prayed for his chute to open, promising to witness for the Lord. Nothing happened. Again and again, Kiser prayed, “Lord, I’m probably 10,000 miles away from home and my godly parents, grandparents and my pastor. It’s just you and I here. I want to live so badly. It looks like this is the time for me to die. Lord, apparently, you can’t open this chute.”

“When I told him he couldn’t, he told me he could. The parachute opened with a terrific jerk. “I bit my tongue, my boots about flew off, and I said, ‘Lord, I thank you for opening my parachute, but you’ve just about broken my neck in the process.’“

Kiser landed safely in a marsh just inside the enemy lines of Bologna, Italy. He was greeted by two Nazi soldiers pressing a bayonet in one of his rib cages and the nose of a machine gun in the other. For seven months he was a prisoner of war. At night, during bombing raids, he would use a pewter spoon to dig a hole large enough to bury his head so he could endure the tremendous concussion of the exploding bombs. He was six-foot-two yet after those seven months he withered away to 80-pounds. He was spit upon and cursed by German soldiers. They were forced to march cross country for miles in the dead of winter, bedding down in barns and under trees. They had to leave behind fellow soldiers who had frozen to death during the bitter night, forbidden to even shake the ice off them in the hope they were still alive.

From the dark interrogation cell with only the smell of human waste and a thin shaft of cold light, the Lord spoke to Kiser in a way he will never forget. Reflecting on the dark, cold wall were two verses of Scripture from Hebrews scribbled by previous soldiers. “I read these words,” said Kiser. ‘Jesus will never forsake you,’ was written on the wall. And, then on down, it said, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.’“

It was this promise which held Kiser up and spurred him to continue when he felt there was no hope. Alone in the dark, damp and cold cell, Kiser worshiped his Lord. “I got up, raised my hands and told the Lord I wanted to praise him, though it was difficult fearing execution. I began singing, ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,’ the Doxology. It was the only thing I could think of.”

On April 29, 1945, at prison camp Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, Kiser watched as two American soldiers pulled down the German swastika, throwing it to the side. “Then, this big, beautiful American flag went up,” said Kiser, recounting the liberation of his camp. “We just stood there and bawled. I said, ‘Lord, how could we ever have doubted you?’“

Fifty years later he kept his own promise to God, and returned to Africa with men from his church to build a mission.

In Prison, NFL Star Michael Vick Returned To Faith

Psalms 23

Michael Vick recounted the recovery of his relationship with God during his time in prison, beginning with the 23rd Psalm, in addressing students at Liberty University Jan. 29, 2018.

“My mom told me before I went in Psalm 23 will get you through,” Vick said at the Lynchburg, Virginia, campus. “When I went to Psalm 23, [God] gave me strength.”

The former pro quarterback, now an NFL analyst with FOX Sports, served 23 months in jail on a federal conviction in 2007 for his role in a dog-fighting operation.

“I found myself in prison for 23 months and it was a deep reevaluation process of my life and my perseverance moving forward,” Vick said, saying his mother’s advice had a profound impact on his faith.

“Every night that I went to sleep in prison for 544 days I read this prayer and every time that I read it, it took on a different meaning,” Vick recounted. “When I read it, it sent the same chills through my body every night.”

Vick said he was not raised in a Christian family but had tried his best to read and understand the Bible and do the right thing in faith, believing that following the Bible was important for following his dream to play in the NFL one day.

Vick even began putting the Bible under his pillow when he would go to sleep at age 12.

He went on to play for Virginia Tech, leading them to the National Championship game after the 1999 season. He was then drafted with the first overall pick in the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons, led the team to multiple playoff appearances and was the first NFL quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a single season in 2006.

All of this came crashing down when Vick was sentenced to prison during the prime of his career. During his time playing in the NFL, Vick said, he abandoned the faith in God because he thought he could do it on his own.

“When I got drafted, and I got the $100 million contract and when I went to Atlanta, this didn’t come with me [holding up a Bible],” Vick said. “From that time on, I never picked up the Bible and read it again and I may have said 10 prayers from 2001-2007.”

It was during his time in prison that Vick was harshly reminded of his need for the Lord and His presence.

“I felt as if I needed the Lord again and I needed Him right then and there,” Vick said. “The thing I learned is that God works on His own timing. I wanted to read this prayer and wake up the next morning and be released, but it wasn’t the time. In reading this prayer every day, it just made me a stronger person and it made me more of a believer, and it really helped me to become a true man of God.”

Vick was not alone in his quest for God.

Tony Dungy, an outspoken Christian, former NFL coach and current NBC football analyst, visited Vick in prison a few months before he was released to serve as a mentor in his life.

“It was a visit that I never thought I would get,” Vick said. “When I see him there I think I’m about to go home and he’s here to help me get released or free me, but he said to me, ‘I want to talk to you for a couple hours and this is not about you getting released [from prison], it’s about you getting released from the things that you had covered up and been hiding all of your life.’”

Vick said he was immediately ready to take to heart what Dungy had to tell him.

“It was like he was talking and I was digesting every word that came out of his mouth, I just wanted to soak everything he said in,” Vick said.

After his release from prison in 2009, Vick made a comeback in the NFL, playing several seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and then the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers.

In addition to being a FOX Sports analyst, Vick is actively involved with the Humane Society of the United States in advocating for the proper treatment of animals.

From W W F & Jail To Conversion, His Passion Is For New Churches

Luke 4:18

Church planting missionary Bill Breunle followed a nontraditional path to ministry, having been radically transformed by God from a life of bodybuilding and professional wrestling to one of church building and spiritual warfare. But he has brought with him a personal drive to excel that continues to bear fruit in northern California.

Since Christ changed his life in a jail cell about 12 years ago he has helped birth 38 new congregations and is currently transforming a dying traditional church into a vibrant postmodern one. He considers his most important non-family responsibility to be mentoring young ministry leaders. Meanwhile, he's renovating his family's home and studying for his second doctorate. "Doing my best is important to me. It's like worship to the Lord," said Breunle.

Adopted by a dedicated Southern Baptist family when he was an infant, Breunle took up bodybuilding at age 18. He found he had a natural ability for the sport, and with the abuse of steroids Breunle soon was able to bench press 685 pounds.

That led to a two-year stint as a WWF wrestler, before the emptiness of fame and the joy of marriage cooled his ardor for the bright lights. A year after he opened a chain of health spas, he was arrested for conspiracy to smuggle steroids. He served two years of a three-year sentence, but soon after his release was arrested again on what were later proven to be trumped-up charges.

During the seven pre-trial months he spent in the Los Angeles Detention Center, Breunle finally made his peace with God.

"I remember standing in the chow line facing 40 years," Breunle said about his potential prison sentence. "I remember God speaking to my heart: 'You can choose the Aryans, you can choose the Brotherhood [prison gangs who wanted him to join with them] or you can choose me.' I got out of that chow line -- and for me that was a miracle in itself! -- and went to my room and prayed like I had never prayed before.

"God rescued me that day," Breunle continued. "He saved me. I finally had the peace and joy I'd talked about all over the world. In the middle of the complete darkness of that jail -- and I was living in hell -- I was consumed by God's complete love."

Out of 140 inmates on his floor, Breunle led 27 to a life-changing relationship with Christ within the next two months.

"It was unreal," Breunle said. "Guys of the most horrid crimes, guys tattooed from knuckle to neck, we became this community of love."

The miracles continued. In the midst of his trial, the prosecutor stopped the proceedings and apologized to Breunle for his arrest. He was free to go.

Breunle became a youth minister while a student at California Baptist University. Thoughts of a career in law or psychology faded when three churches flourished that he started nearly simultaneously in Riverside -- Downtown Christian Fellowship, Family Bible Fellowship (a ministry to hurting families who would not be drawn to a typical church setting) and Set Free of Southern California (a ministry to hard-core bikers). All three congregations, despite their names, were solidly Southern Baptist, Breunle said.

In 1999, Breunle was appointed a missionary with the North American Mission Board and the California Southern Baptist Convention and was assigned as church starter strategist in northern California, from Modesto to the Oregon border. Modesto is about 100 miles south of Sacramento.

The Breunle family lived in the small town of Paradise for two years, then bought their first home, a fixer-upper, in the bustling nearby college town of Chico, about one and a half hours north of Sacramento.

Breunle led Annette, his wife, to the Lord when they were in the visiting room at the Los Angeles Detention Center.

"My job is to support Bill in whatever he does," she said. "I don't play the piano. I don't sing. I don't lead any groups. I don't speak in front of people. I don't even pray out loud. I am totally able to be myself because Bill has set it up that way. And people respect that. We're best friends! His strengths are my weaknesses, and vice versa. Together we're a team."

In less than a month after the family's move to Chico, Breunle accepted an additional work assignment: Breunle was called as pastor by about 40 mostly elderly members of Esplanade Baptist Church.

"I told them upfront that there would be many, many changes, but if they didn't make them their church would die," Breunle said. "They didn't want the church to die."

His hope is that the renamed Church on the Esplanade will become a Southern Baptist model for a church transitioning from a traditional to a postmodern mindset, one that emphasizes giving the good news of Jesus rather than offering a specific church culture.

In a postmodern church, Breunle said, "The pastor serves the community. He facilitates their giftedness, cultural propensities and ethnicities. He leads by supporting what God created them to be. Conformity is seen as antithetical to community."

Breunle changes from a suit and tie at the "traditional" 8:30 a.m. service to more casual attire for the 9:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. "gathering" services, which are complete with Christian rock bands. But he preaches the same message at each. The church also now has a fourth service, a rousing Saturday night celebration.

"The question we ask at this church," Breunle said, "is, 'What does love look like?' Love looks like giving them a safe authentic community to let the life of Christ emerge in their context. Celebrating the beautiful diamond of diversity God has created to reflect himself. As long as we're being biblical in keeping the core of the gospel, we're right on."

Word of mouth, rather than a major media campaign, helped the church grow rapidly to about 350 people in worship within a few months.

"[Breunle] has an incredible magnetic personality and the gift of faith," worship pastor Brian Tremain said. "People are drawn to him. He has the ability to break down heavy truths and teach them in a way people can apply to their lives."

Breunle sleeps only about three hours a night and starts each day with two hours of Bible study and prayer. Once his kids are off to school, he's off to where the people are: Starbucks is a favorite hangout. His "office" is the cell phone that clips onto his belt, but it's usually turned off so he can concentrate on the person he's with.

In addition to strategizing with local church pastors throughout northern California about where, when and how to start churches, Breunle is facing the need to reconfigure space at Church on the Esplanade, or perhaps to relocate from its landlocked, residential neighborhood. But to Breunle, "'things' aren't nearly as important as people."

"He's the front man. He's the guy who can make things happen in the community," said pastoral intern Stephen Price. "I'm here to do pastoral care and counseling. That's my calling and background."

Breunle mentors Price as he does others on the staff at Church on the Esplanade and across northern California.

"My life really is about investing in Timothys," Breunle said. "Programs aren't going to connect people with God and change the world -- the next generation of authentic, servant leaders are."

Breunle teaches "Timothys" and people who attend Church on the Esplanade to connect with people who come into their lives by being "real." The church motto -- seen on banners outside the church and inside the worship center -- is "Trying to be real with ourselves, others, and God."

"I've never met anyone who rejects the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ," Breunle said. "I see them rejecting the church culture, which is why we don't do that here. People here look and seem unconventional, but it's very Baptist. Baptist is history, and the ethos is Bible in hand, doing whatever it takes to connect people with God. Really the biggest thing for me is to hand them Jesus. That's what works."

*

Creating A World: Going Beyond Salvation

In twenty-three years of prison ministry, I've visited hundreds of prisons around the world, but I've never seen one quite as wretched as Garcia Moreno Prison in Quito, Ecuador. By the same token, I've never seen one so dramatically transformed into a place of peace -- all due to the efforts of one committed Christian.

That man is Jorge Crespo, once a celebrated lawyer, now chairman of Prison Fellowship in Ecuador. In my first visit to the prison, we climbed up steps slippery with blood. A routine beating, Crespo said grimly. The cells were dim, dungeon-like holes, thick with grime and spilled sewage.

When I went out to the courtyard, where I was scheduled to speak to the inmates, I was shocked by the Dickensian scene. Several of the inmates were limping; others had scarves covering their faces, perhaps to hide disfigurements. Right in front was a man with an empty eye socket, his face spotted with open sores. Speaking to this tattered crowd, I thought of Jesus' words to John the Baptist: Tell him "the blind see, the lame walk, ... and the Good News is being preached to the poor."

But afterward, Crespo took me down a dark corridor to a stunning contrast: a huge cellblock flooded with radiant light. At one end was an altar, with a huge cross, surrounded by two hundred inmates gathered for a worship service.

This division of the prison was run by Prison Fellowship, providing inmates with rigorous instruction in the Christian faith. Yet even this was only a training ground for another division of the prison -- a place where fully committed Christian inmates lived and ministered to the other inmates. Affectionately called "the Home," the area was spotless, with tiled floors and wooden bunks built by the inmates themselves. A small prayer closet tucked under a stairway was in use throughout the day.

As I listened to the testimonies of the inmates in "the Home," it struck me that I was seeing a metaphor for the Christian life. The contrast between the hellish chaos of the main prison and the white-washed brilliance of "the Home" was a reminder of the way our own moral and spiritual choices are realized in the world. In every action we take, we are either helping to create a hell on earth, or helping to bring down a foretaste of heaven. We are either contributing to the broken condition of the world, or participating with God in transforming the world.

Being a Christian does not end with personal salvation. After being redeemed, we are called to build a world that reflects God's righteousness. Our faith is meant to be a comprehensive WORLDview, giving us a blueprint for every area of life-principles for building an entire society embodying principles of justice and mercy.

The story of the Ecuador prison opens my latest book, "How Now Shall We Live?," coauthored by the executive editor of "BreakPoint," Nancy Pearcey. In it, we talk about the importance of crafting a Christian worldview in every area of life, every sphere of activity.

As we face a new millennium, Christians need to work together to transform our own world from a "prison" into a "Home."

__________________________

*

From Prison To Praise: the Jonathan Aitken Story

Job 11:10

When I was in England recently, the last thing I expected to see was my photograph splashed across the front page of British newspapers. But that's exactly what happened. I arrived in the country just as a close friend, former Defense Minister Jonathan Aitken, was to be sentenced to prison, and I accompanied him to Old Bailey.

But behind the headlines is a moving story about how God still uses prisons as a crucible for raising up His leaders.

Ten years ago, Aitken interviewed me for a biography he was writing about Richard Nixon. He was then a rising Member of Parliament, one of its most influential young conservatives. He had wealth, position, charisma, and enormous gifts as a writer and businessman. Many speculated that he would one day become Prime Minister.

But this charmed life began to unravel two years ago when Aitken brought a libel suit against a newspaper. On the witness stand, Aitken was caught telling a lie. The trial was dismissed, and he stood accused of perjury.

It was his downfall, however, that brought about his salvation. Up to this time a churchgoing Anglican, Aitken now began searching for deeper spiritual reality. I met and corresponded with him regularly, and he was also ministered to by a prayer group in London. In his cell on the day of his indictment a year ago, he meditated on the gospel of Mark.

"This should have been a time of deep despair, the worst day of my life," Aitken later wrote. But "not so. For I had such an overwhelming sense of God's presence in the cell with me that I was at peace."

We see the same pattern so often when people are behind bars: At the nadir of their lives, they reach out to God in earnest. The loss and disgrace drives them to their knees. As Aitken discovered, "there are times when such suffering has to be part of the repentance."

As I watched the sentencing proceedings this summer, I realized it was exactly 25 years to the week since I myself was sentenced to prison. When the judge announced Aitken's sentence -- nine months in prison -- Aitken blew his family a kiss and was "taken down," a phrase the British use for walking down a flight of stairs to the cells below the courtroom.

To those who reckon without God, this may sound like the end of the story. But it's really just the beginning. Aitken is now working for his doctorate in ministry, with plans to enter full-time Christian service. Because of his very public fall and redemption, the former cabinet minister may well become one of the most powerful Christian witnesses in England.

Stories like these remind us that throughout history, God has often used prisons to prepare people for His service -- people like St. Paul, who wrote letters from prison which later became part of the New Testament, and John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress behind bars. And just last spring, God raised up another Christian prisoner, Olusegun Obasanjo, to become president of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

It's easy for Christians to despair as the surrounding culture grows increasingly hostile to faith. But these dramatic stories remind us that God continues to work His will in the most unlikely ways, raising up people from the depths of prison to be His leaders.

In doing so, He confounds human wisdom, turning our defeats into His victories.

___________________________

The Toughest Day In Prison: Reconciling Criminals and Their Victims

Craig has spent 14 years of a life sentence behind bars for murder. But if you ask him what was the hardest thing he's faced so far, it wasn't a prison riot or an attack by a fellow inmate.

What really hurt, Craig says, was sitting down face to face with the family of the man he murdered -- and hearing first-hand how his act of rage shattered their lives.

Craig met the family through a program designed to reconcile criminals and their victims. Programs like these are catching on across the United States, and often they do more than years in prison to change a criminal's outlook.

In the American criminal justice system, most criminals never talk with the person they have wronged. At best, they might catch a glimpse of each other across a crowded court room. The crime is prosecuted as an offense against the state, not against the victim.

But in this impersonal system, the offender rarely confronts the personal pain and trauma he has inflicted. That's where Victim-Offender Reconciliation programs can make all the difference. As Craig puts it, meeting with the victim's family "brought me to grips with my own culpability and personal feelings of guilt." And an awakened sense of personal responsibility is much tougher to deal with than any punishment meted out in a prison yard.

Reconciliation programs can benefit everyone involved in a crime. For victims, it gives a chance to express their deep pain and anger over the trauma they have suffered. For offenders, it gives a chance to face the consequences of their actions -- and to set things right again as much as possible. Often the meetings end with the criminal apologizing and offering to pay restitution.

Finally, reconciliation is good criminal justice policy. A scandal of our current system is the high number of criminals who return to prison -- again and again. Clearly, we need to look for programs that go beyond simply locking criminals up -- programs that change them from the inside. Reconciliation programs can be just such a life-changing experience.

A prison inmate named Julius says he used to feel real sorry for his crime. Sorry he got caught, that is. Then he attended a Victim-Offender Reconciliation meeting -- and for the first time, he said, he saw his victims as real people. As he put it, "I realized this could have been my mother, father, brother, sister." By the end of the meeting, Julius says, he felt "genuine remorse and empathy."

That remorse often translates into real reform. A 1992 study by the Minnesota Citizens Council on Crime and Justice found that juvenile offenders who participated in reconciliation programs were less likely to commit crimes after their release from prison.

Why don't you find out whether your local court system is using reconciliation programs. Biblical teachings on justice aim not only at punishment for crime but also at restoration of the community. Crime tears a jagged hole in the fabric of our social life, but reconciliation and forgiveness mend that hole.

They can help restore the civil peace that the Bible calls 'shalom.'

___________________________

*

Justice That Is Redemptive: Rebuilding From the Ravages of Crime

This weekend scholars and activists from all over America will be in Washington for a conference, at which I will be speaking, discussing the idea of "restorative justice," a new way to understand how our justice system ought to function.

Most secular justice systems developed over the past century have dealt primarily with rehabilitation or retribution. Liberals believed that if we took people out of their sad environments, where they were victims of poverty or oppression, and put them in "reformatories," they could be reformed. This was the model we called "rehabilitation." Though noble- sounding, this system was based on a false premise, that people are basically good.

It was also an abysmal failure. We kept building more and more prisons, and the recidivism rate kept increasing. As I discovered in prison, no one is rehabilitated inside a cold, steel warehouse.

Conservatives had a different view. They thought if we got tough enough, we could scare people out of crime. That meant tougher retribution. But the result of that was a building boom in the eighties and nineties that has left this country with the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. And the repeat-offender rate remains the same.

Neither approach worked -- and neither restores the peace of the community that was shattered by crime.

Restorative justice, on the other hand, restores that peace, and it's a biblical concept. The Jews used the word "Shalom," not as a greeting as we use it, but to describe the real peace of the community -- that is, maintaining the right moral order.

Restorative justice seeks not only to punish the offender but then to re-integrate him into the community. That's what's behind programs like Transition Of Prisoners (TOP) and InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI). We insist that offenders be mentored before they can be released back into society.

And it's important to enact laws that ensure that the community is restored, like restitution, which pays back the victim, and community punishment, which keeps offenders near home. The rights of the victim have to be respected as well, and wherever possible, victims and offenders need to be reconciled.

"Fine," you may say, "but does restorative justice really work?" Just ask Mrs. Washington. Twenty years ago her daughter was murdered, and the man convicted of the crime steadfastly refused to admit his guilt. Refused, that is, until he became involved in our prison ministry in Texas. When Ron Flowers came to Christ he realized he needed to come clean, and admit his sin, and he finally confessed what he had done.

Knowing nothing of the confession, Mrs. Washington at the same time felt led to forgive Ron for the murder, and she wrote the parole board withdrawing her objections to his pending parole. Then she learned that he had come to Christ and confessed to her daughter's murder. She met him at the prison one night, and after a tearful, wrenching night, they were reconciled. Later, Mrs. Washington took Ron under her wing, and called him her adopted son. She then mentored him on his release from prison.

That's restoring shalom, the peace of the community that is fractured by crime.

Restorative justice, you see, defies the old model of corrections because it changes hearts and minds -- and it heals the wounds of communities broken by crime. That's something all Americans are yearning for.

___________________

*

Thank God He Is A Sinner

Luke 15:7

In his book GREAT THEMES OF THE BIBLE, Louis Albert Banks told of the time D. L. Moody visited a prison called “The Tombs” to preach to the inmates. After he had finished speaking, Moody talked with a number of men in their cells. He asked each prisoner this question, “What brought you here?”

Again and again he received replies like this: “I don’t deserve to be here.” “I was framed.” “I was falsely accused.” “I was given an unfair trial.” Not one inmate would admit he was guilty.

Finally, Moody found a man with his face buried in his hands, weeping. “And what’s wrong, my friend?” he inquired. The prisoner responded, “My sins are more than I can bear.”

Relieved to find at least one man who would recognize his guilt and his need of forgiveness, the evangelist exclaimed, “Thank God for that!” Moody then had the joy of pointing him to a saving knowledge of Christ -- a knowledge that released him from his shackles of sin.

Not Where but What We Are

When Rutherford was imprisoned at Aberdeen, he wrote to a friend, “The Lord is with me; I care not what man can do. No person is better provided for than I am. My chains are even gilded with gold. No pen, no words -- nothing can express the beauty of Christ.”

When in prison in Vincennes, Madame Guyon wrote, “The joy of my heart gave a brightness to the objects around me. The stones in my prison looked in my eyes like rubies.” -- C. S. UTTING.

William Moses Tidwell, “Pointed Illustrations.”

Prisoners Practiced Tithing

Soviet Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the author of TORTURED FOR CHRIST, suffered terribly for the Lord. Yet he said that even while in prison, he saw fellow Soviet believers practice generous giving. “When we were given one slice of bread a week and dirty soap every day, we decided we would faithfully ‘tithe’ even that. Every tenth week we took the slice of bread and gave it to the weaker brethren as our ‘tithe’ to the Master.”

Christ Did What Counseling Couldn't

Oscar Cervantes is a dramatic example of Christ's power to transform lives. As a child, Oscar began to get into trouble. Then as he got older, he was jailed 17 times for brutal crimes. Prison psychiatrists said he was beyond help. But they were wrong!

During a brief interval of freedom, Oscar met an elderly man who told him about Jesus. He placed his trust in the Lord and was changed into a kind, caring man. Shortly afterward he started a prison ministry. Chaplain H. C. Warwick describes it this way: “The third Saturday night of each month is 'Oscar Night' at Soledad. Inmates come to hear Oscar and they sing gospel songs with fervor; they sit intently for over 2 hours; they come freely to the chapel altar.... What professionals had failed to do for Oscar in years of counseling, Christ did in a moment of conversion.”

Richard Wurmbrand's Decision

In 1945, when the Communists seized Romania, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand had to make a decision. He could bow to the intruders or resist. Wurmbrand immediately began an effective, vigorous "underground" ministry to his enslaved people and the invading Russian soldiers. He was arrested in 1948 and spent three years in solitary confinement, seeing no one but his torturers. Following this, he was transferred to a mass cell for five years where the torture continued. Then he was set free and resumed his underground work, only to be arrested again two years later. Finally, in 1964 Christians in Norway negotiated with the Communist authorities for Wurmbrand's release and exit from Romania. It takes real courage to stand toe-to-toe with an evil government and proclaim the truth of God.

What opposition are you facing today?

He Received Power To Bear Up

In the late 1950s, 23-year-old Armando Valladares was thrown into a Cuban prison, where he remained for 22 years. Executions were staged each night during his first year in prison. Later, he endured some of the most vile and sadistic tortures imaginable. In his memoirs, Against All Hope, Valladares wrote, "I sought God.... I never asked Him to get me out of there. I didn't think that God should be used for that kind of request. I only asked that He allow me to resist, that He give me the faith and spiritual strength to bear up under those conditions.... I only prayed for Him to accompany me."

The Son of Sam's New Beginning

Psalms 34:6

David Berkowitz fatally shot six New Yorkers, wounded seven others and set more than 1,400 fires throughout New York City in 1976 and 1977. Today, as one of 266 convicted murderers in the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, N.Y., two hours from Manhattan, Berkowitz studies the Bible in his cell.

"I feel more free now in prison than I ever felt in my life because I know Christ," Berkowitz told "Charisma" in a special report released in the magazine's June issue.

Berkowitz said he felt connected to evil as a child. "I used to feel that the devil was all around me, that somehow he wanted me as a child," he told reporter Peter K. Johnson.

Berkowitz was uncontrollable in school, skipped classes, smoked marijuana, didn't fit in and was haunted by suicidal thoughts. His personality deteriorated after his mother died in 1967.

In 1974, after a three-year hitch in the U.S. Army infantry, Berkowitz returned to New York, hooked up with a group of satanists at a party and became fascinated with the occult. He participated in satanic rituals and animal sacrifices and continued to set fires throughout the city until the idea for a sacrificial shooting spree was hatched. One night in a park, Berkowitz made a final pact with evil, inviting Satan and his demons to take control.

"I surrendered myself to the powers of darkness. I became a soldier for the devil," he said. Berkowitz justified the killings and believed they were part of the battle of Armageddon. His "Son of Sam" nickname originated from the name of a druid demon, he said.

Berkowitz served hard time in Attica and Clinton prisons, once surviving a murderous attack by another inmate. He was stalked by despair and anger and considered suicide.

[...] Berkowitz in the yard at the Sullivan penitentiary and told him God loved him. The two soon began working out and walking together. Rick continued sharing his faith and gave Berkowitz a Gideon's pocket New Testament that also contained Psalms and Proverbs.

Berkowitz cried when he read his first Psalm. Several weeks later, after reading Psalm 34:6, Berkowitz broke down weeping. "Suddenly God just started to melt my heart," he recalled. Sensing God was speaking directly to him, he fell to his knees sobbing and poured out his heart in a lengthy confession. After he got up he said he felt as if something had lifted. "It was a heaviness that I had for so many years. A yoke seemed to lift," he recalled.

Rick was thrilled about Berkowitz's commitment to Christ and invited him to chapel services. Berkowitz said, "I enjoyed the fellowship and have been with the Lord ever since." Corrections officers and inmates doubted his conversion, but Berkowitz grew in faith and gradually won their respect. Today he is considered a model prisoner.

Berkowitz knows and accepts that he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. "But God has given me peace," he said. "He's reassured me that He's forgiven me, although it took time for me to understand that. I stand on Paul's words that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. I survive on that verse."

_____________________

Visit the "Charisma" Web site at www.charismamag.com for the full version of the article on David Berkowitz.

*

Melting Hearts: Crime and Accountability

As she sat in her boyfriend’s car, a young Texas woman named Dee Dee Washington was shot and killed — an innocent bystander of a drug deal gone bad. For 14 years, the man who fired the shot, Ron Flowers, never admitted to killing her — not until, that is, Ron was admitted to the InnerChange Freedom Initiative® (IFI), the prison program launched by Prison Fellowship in Texas.

IFI applies principles of restorative justice by confronting offenders with the harm they have done to their victims. During one of IFI’s Victim Awareness sessions, Ron finally admitted that he did commit the murder, and he prayed that his victim’s family would forgive him. He wrote a letter to Dee Dee’s mother, Mrs. Anna Washington, expressing his repentance and deep remorse.

For her part, Mrs. Washington had written angry letters every year to the parole board, urging them to deny Ron parole. But when Ron confessed, Mrs. Washington felt an overwhelming conviction that she should meet the man who had killed her daughter.

Prison Fellowship staff carefully prepared Mrs. Washington and Ron for the meeting. Mrs. Washington finally could ask the questions that virtually every victim wants to ask: “Why did you do it?” “How did it happen?” Ron reassured her that her daughter was not involved in the drug deal. As Ron told her about the day that he killed her daughter, Mrs. Washington took his hands in hers and said, “I forgive you.”

I was in Houston for Ron’s graduation from IFI. As Ron crossed the stage to receive his diploma, Mrs. Washington rose from her seat and walked over to embrace Ron, the man who had murdered her daughter. She then told all of us in the audience, “This young man is my adopted son.”

After Ron’s release, Mrs. Washington helped him adjust to the community, sat with him at church, had him over for dinner, and even stood by him when he was married.

Only God could bring about such reconciliation and healing.

Unlike our criminal justice system, which focuses solely on public safety and order, restorative justice is also about repairing the harm caused by crime. An important part of the reparative process is victim-offender reconciliation. These meetings allow “victims, offenders, and community members” to discuss what happened and its “aftermath” — to seek repentance and forgiveness.

This is more than an ill-defined sense of “closure.” Coming face-to-face with victims can cause offenders to think about their actions and their consequences in a way that punishment alone never can.

Anyone who has spent time around inmates knows that many view themselves as victims — something that is harder to do when you have spoken to the real victims. Research suggests that inmates who meet with their victims are more likely to pay court-ordered restitution than those who do not.

You see, as I have said countless times, crime is a moral and spiritual issue. That being the case, rehabilitation can happen only when offenders see their offenses as more than rule-breaking: They must see them as a transgression against God and other people.

While promoting order is the God-given role of government, there is more to justice than police, prosecutors, and prison. Justice also means repairing the harm caused by crime, which requires going where government cannot go — to the human heart.

________

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #8849]

The Emptiness of Life Without God

Howard Rutledge, a United States Air Force pilot, was shot down over North Vietnam during the early stages of the war. He spent several miserable years in the hands of his captors before being released at the war’s conclusion. In his book “In the Presence of Mine Enemies,” he reflects upon the resources from which he drew in those arduous days when life seemed so intolerable. During those longer periods of enforced reflection it became so much easier to separate the important from the trivial, the worthwhile from the waste.

For example, in the past, I usually worked or played hard on Sundays and had no time for church. For years Phyllis (his wife) had encouraged me to join the family at church. She never nagged or scolded - she just kept hoping. But I was too busy, too preoccupied, to spend one or two short hours a week thinking about the really important things.

Now the sights and sounds and smells of death were all around me. My hunger for spiritual food soon outdid my hunger for a steak. Now I wanted to know about that part of me that will never die. Now I wanted to talk about God and Christ and the church. But in Heartbreak (the name POWs gave their prison camp) solitary confinement, there was no pastor, no Sunday School teacher, no Bible, no hymnbook, no community of believers to guide and sustain me. I had completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my life. It took prison to show me how empty life is without God.

Prisoners of Fear

Needy miners and settlers in British Columbia, engaged in stripping abandoned Fort Alcan of lumber, electrical appliances, and plumbing, made an amazing discovery. While dismantling the jail they found that the mighty locks were attached to the heavy doors, and two-inch steel bars covered the windows, but the walls of the prison were only patented wallboard of clay and paper, painted to resemble iron. A good old heave against the walls by a man not as strong as a football tackle would have burst the wall out. Nobody ever tried it because nobody thought it possible.

Many Christians are prisoners of fears that are nothing when pushed against. Satan cannot do anything against a child of God, but he loves to put barriers of paper-mache in the path of a believer to make him think that there is no progress in the direction of the will of the Lord. When by faith we push against it we will be free.

-- Eternity magazine

A Friendship Ruptured By Drugs Finds Forgiveness

Emilio Castillo and Lonnie Vaughn put the phrase “together again” in a whole new light. The two men went to school together, worked together and were best friends. However, it was the working together that eventually separated them and then brought them together once again. And the work then and now are eons apart.

Castillo was born in Texas and moved to Oklahoma in 1966 as a migrant worker. He found success in the landscaping business, married, had a family and was a respected businessman in Bixby. “Everybody loved Emilio,” Vaughn said. “He had a heart for people, and they came to him for whatever they needed.” Vaughn, who married young and had a large family, was in the appliance business, reconditioning and reselling appliances.

Both men, however, were leading secret lives.

“I was an upstanding citizen and never caused a problem,” Castillo said. “But I had two faces.” Vaughn said his “secret” life really wasn't so secret. “When you're driving new cars and dressing to the hilt, everybody in your family knows the money isn't coming from the appliance business,” he said. Vaughn said during a period of eight years, he and Castillo put millions of dollars in their pockets. They were both involved in a successful drug ring, and Castillo was the kingpin of the operation.

“I got started in the drug business when I was about 32 years old,” Castillo said. “A farmer I worked for asked me if I could get drugs in Mexico.” Castillo said he knew how to get drugs out of Mexico, knew people on the Texas border and knew the underground. He said in Mexico, food was put around the drugs and sealed so it would never be opened at the checkpoint. Hispanic illegal aliens crossed the drugs over for Castillo. Vaughn often picked up the drugs in Dallas and brought them north.

“We told ourselves it was innocent,” Vaughn said. “We were only dealing in marijuana, and we knew if we got caught, we would just get probation.” However, it got to a point where there was a lot of anger among the 15-20 people involved in the operation because there was too much money flowing, and greed and suspicion of each other set in.

Castillo said he decided to give up the operation after a couple of their people were arrested. “When authorities start picking up people, they start snitching on others in the operation to get themselves off,” Vaughn said. “Emilio was the one they were after.” In the meantime the drug laws changed, and perpetrators were getting 10 years to life in prison.

When Vaughn was picked up, he admitted he was dealing in marijuana. “U.S. Customs, IRS, DEA and FBI all questioned me,” Vaughn said. “They asked about the Mexican man who was dealing in drugs. When I didn't tell them about Emilio, they let me go, but picked me up again.” This time, Vaughn said, authorities put up two hands and said, “This hand is your family and the other hand is Castillo. If you don't choose Castillo, you don't go home.” “I had always worked hard at getting people to have respect for me,” Vaughn said. “The authorities told me they had five people who had turned state's evidence against Emilio, but if I would admit his involvement, they had him.”

Castillo said he had a feeling he was going to get picked up because everything was going downhill and everyone was getting busted. “I knew when I was given indictment papers, that it was Lonnie who turned me in,” Castillo said. “I trusted Lonnie more than anyone in the group.”

Vaughn said it was six months between the time he fingered Castillo and authorities picked him up. “It was hard seeing him during that time,” Vaughn said. “I tried to avoid him.”

Castillo said he was tired of doing drugs, and almost felt at rest when he was taken to prison, but his first thought was that he wanted to kill Vaughn. “I wanted to kill him, put him in a refrigerator and send him down the Arkansas River,” Castillo said. “He was my best friend. I left a wife who didn't speak English, and four children. My wife started working two jobs to support the family, and sold tamales on the side.”

Because she didn't speak English, Castillo's wife had a rough time in the work force. Her children helped her learn English so she could get a better job. Castillo said she started studying an English Bible, although she didn't know it was a Bible, but she began to understand it and to explain it to her children.

Castillo, facing 10 years to life in prison, gave his life to Christ after a year of being incarcerated. “I got on my knees and said, 'God, I've always heard if I pray, you will hear,'“ Castillo recounted. “The next day, a pastor from Sallisaw came to the prison in Texarkana, Ark., and something told me to ask him about salvation.”

Soon afterwards, Castillo was transferred to the Fort Worth Medical Center, where ill prisoners are taken. Castillo said while he was in Texarkana, he was mad at Vaughn and the whole world. “I wanted to kill,” he said. “I didn't care who it was. Then I had a vision of people, all of them talking, but I could hear God above them, and He said I wouldn't serve all my time in prison.” Castillo served only four and a half years, which Vaughn said is unheard of.

Castillo said he didn't want to leave prison “because you have a better relationship with God in prison. I got to study the Bible seven days a week. If you listen to the Lord's Word while in prison, you can be trained.” He said while in prison, God taught him to forgive, and he wrote letters to everyone he had wanted to kill.

Vaughn said he thought about Castillo a lot, and even more about his family. “When they made me choose between my family and my best friend, that was the day my innocence was lost,” Vaughn said. “My best friend was separated from his family, my wife had stomach problems and I filed bankruptcy. I was paying for those eight years of success.”

When Castillo got out of prison, he went to Parkview Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla., where Victor Orta was pastor of the church's Hispanic mission. Years before, Castillo had taunted Orta as he drove his pickup to preach to migrant workers. “I would come down the road, stop my car by his pickup and pull out a case of beer and stand there drinking it,” Castillo said. “But the Lord told me to call Victor, and when he found out I had accepted Jesus, he encouraged me to start a ministry in Bixby.”

Castillo, who had received training in prison to start churches, noted, “A lot of good things can happen in prison if you grasp them.” Castillo's family, however, was skeptical of his life-altering change; he said it was like his family didn't need him anymore. “It was like they expected me to come out of prison and do the things I had done before,” he said. “I told my wife that we might have to split up, but the next woman will get a better man than she did because I've changed.”

Castillo started New Beginnings Church in Bixby, and soon his wife and four children accepted Christ. In fact, 40 of Castillo's family members gave their lives to Christ.

Southern Hills Baptist Church in Tulsa began talking to Castillo about starting a Hispanic work there, and one Sunday pastor William Hester told the congregation at the end of the service that God was working on starting a mission there and that he had a prospect for the mission's pastor. In the congregation that Sunday was Lonnie Vaughn. Although he was saved when he was 9, it is obvious his lifestyle had kept him from church activities. “The whole time I was selling drugs, my five kids were attending Christian schools,” Vaughn said. “God covered me even when I was living that kind of lifestyle.”

Vaughn had started going to church about two years earlier, but always attended a big church so he could slip in and out without being noticed. This particular Sunday, he had come to Southern Hills because his brother was playing in the church's band. “I kept having dreams about Emilio,” Vaughn said. “The shame of what I'd done would hit me and I'd wake up. God was preparing me to meet Emilio. When the pastor mentioned the prospective Hispanic pastor at the end of the service, I knew who he was talking about.”

Vaughn said when the pastor asked the congregation to pray about what the church should do, God told Vaughn He was going to bring him and his wife to Southern Hills. “I would never have guessed what was happening in Emilio's life,” Vaughn admitted. “God said, 'I'm bringing you two back together.'“

Hester said Vaughn came up to him after the service and said he knew he was talking about Castillo, and wanted to meet with him and ask his forgiveness. “I told him that Emilio and I talked about the situation with Lonnie, and while Emilio was in prison, he forgave him,” Hester said.

“I realized how important I am to God,” Vaughn said. “He cared enough and knew how much I loved the guy. He brought us together and made our relationship stronger.”

Today, Castillo is pastor of Southern Hills' Hispanic mission and Vaughn is his assistant. The mission has baptized 42 people since its beginning on Sept. 10, 2000, and on a recent Sunday baptized 10. Attendance is around 75, and 60-70 percent have been saved less than a year. “Our church is not just about coming together,” Castillo said. “We go out and share what God has done in our lives.”

And that is a lot.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #4790]

To Althea From Prison

John 8:32

[The last verse is the most familiar — the entire poem is reproduced here for completeness; this was written after Lovelace was imprisoned for his Royalist support. The theme is that love gives freedom irrespective of one's actual circumstances.]

When Love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at the grate;

When I lie tangled in her hair

And fettered to her eye,

The birds that wanton in the air

Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round

With no allaying Thames

Our careless heads with roses bound,

Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty grief in wine we steep,

When healths and draughts go free —

Fishes that tipple in the deep

Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I

With shriller throat shall sing

The sweetness, mercy, majesty,

And glories of my King;

When I shall voice aloud how good

He is, how great should be,

Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,

Know such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.

*

The Keys To Freedom: Humaita & the Power of Christ

I'll never forget the first time I visited Humaita, the Brazilian prison run by Prison Fellowship. Instead of the usual sullenness, I saw smiles on the faces of men -- men at peace with themselves, with others, and with God. It was the kind of place where a convicted murderer could be trusted with the keys to the gates.

The difference between Humaita and other prisons went beyond the prison walls. I was told that the men released from Humaita re-offended at a much lower rate than those released from other Brazilian prisons -- five percent, according to our ministry records. The reports are so good that many distrusted our claims.

Well, now the proof is in hand. Dr. Byron Johnson, an eminent social scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, studied two sets of prisoners released from Brazilian prisons. The first group were from Humaita.

The second group came from the Braganca facility. Operated by a nonprofit group, Braganca, which was once among the most violent and corrupt prisons in Brazil, now represents the best that a humane, progressive, but secular, facility can do.

After compiling the data and making sure he was comparing similar populations, Dr. Johnson published his findings in the TEXAS JOURNAL OF CORRECTIONS, a report we now have in hand.

What he found is a vindication of what nearly thirty years of prison ministry has taught me about what works.

While both prisons had recidivism rates below Brazil's national average of fifty to seventy percent, that's where the comparison ends. Humaita's rates are significantly lower than the model secular prison's.

Among low-risk offenders, for example, Humaita had a twenty-one percent recidivism rate over three years, compared to thirty-six percent for Braganca. The results are even more impressive among "high-risk offenders." Only twelve percent of those released over three years from Humaita were re-arrested, compared to thirty-eight percent for Braganca.

In short, Humaita inmates re-offended at a rate nearly eighty percent less than other prisoners in Brazil and fifty-five percent less than prisoners from the best secular prison in the country. That figure is exactly as we said it: five percent per year.

And there's no reason not to expect similar results in the United States. Studies are underway now in the prison we opened just five years ago in Texas with the support of then-Governor George Bush. We also operate prisons in Iowa and Kansas.

It's hard to imagine a better example of the evidence that faith in Christ can make, both in the lives of individuals and in culture. In both cases -- prison and culture -- we have a tendency to label problems "insurmountable" because the prevailing worldview keeps us from considering the true answers.

That's why we need to let our neighbors know about studies like this one. It proves what we know by faith, and we need to let Congress know, as well. Senators are debating today whether we should force Christian groups to hire anyone -- the unbelievers or those living an unbiblical lifestyle. But if you take away the faith aspect, you lose the good results.

Congress can't have it both ways. Let Christian groups do their job. The evidence is in. It proves that faith makes the difference.

For further reading:

Byron R. Johnson, "Assessing the Impact of Religious Programs and Prison Industry on Recidivism: An Exploratory Study," TEXAS JOURNAL OF CORRECTIONS 28, no. 1 (February 2002): 7-11.

Charles W. Colson, "God and Caesar: Does Religion Belong in Public Life?", speech delivered to members of the Detroit Economic Club, The Cobo Center, Detroit, Michigan, 13 November 2000.

Joseph Loconte, GOD, GOVERNMENT AND THE GOOD SAMARITAN: THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF THE PRESIDENT'S FAITH-BASED AGENDA (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, October 2001).

_________________________

By God's Grace: Easter At Angola

This Easter I was in the Angola Prison. The very name brings a shudder to most Americans. It's the real-life setting of the book and movie, Dead Man Walking. Angola houses about 5,000 men -- seventy percent of whom have life sentences with no parole. Looking out over the razor wire that divides the prison compounds, I was reminded of Dante's phrase, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter through these gates."

It is hope in the living Christ, however, that has brought me back to prison every Easter for twenty-five years. Walking through the cellblocks this day, I quickly discovered, however, that Angola was a much different place than it was during my last visit twenty-two years ago. The place was so bad then that Johnny Cash, who joined me in an evangelistic rally, couldn't walk through the cell blocks -- too dangerous. Defying the terrible statistics, however, many of the men this day seemed hopeful and happy. Murders have become infrequent. Unrest has been reduced, and the place seemed cleaner.

I found signs of the Church everywhere -- mature Christian inmates, lots of Bible studies. What could account for this amazing transformation? As I talked with Warden Burl Cain, I discovered the answer.

Warden Cain, a devoted Christian, came to Angola eight years ago. His entire approach to running this gigantic prison is based on a biblical worldview -- one that recognizes the intrinsic worth of every human being. One person, one program at a time, he began to restore dignity to these formerly hopeless men.

The staff echoes his commitment. I asked one corrections officer why he came to Angola. "My pastor sent me," he replied. Another guard gave the same answer. Churches in Baton Rouge, I discovered, see Angola as their mission field.

That afternoon I spoke to 2,200 inmates who packed Angola's rodeo stadium. "Jesus knows everything you've been through," I told them. "He was busted, turned in by a snitch, given the opportunity to cop a plea, beaten by the guards, and sent to death row."

And then I asked: "Are you like the soldiers who cast lots for Jesus' robe, wanting something from God, or perhaps like those in the crowd who mocked him? One thief said, 'Get me outta here,' while the other said, 'You're holy; I'm guilty. Remember me.' What is your response to Jesus the Prisoner?"

At the end of the Sinner's Prayer, I started to say, "Raise your hand if you accepted Christ." For security reasons we couldn't ask them to come forward, but as I prayed, I suddenly felt emboldened by the Spirit. "No," I said, "No hands. If Jesus could go to the cross for us, the least we can do is stand up for Him."

I was overwhelmed to see hundreds of men boldly, even proudly, getting to their feet! This was the day, not of Dead Man Walking -- but of the Risen Man Walking!

This is a time in American life when events seem overwhelming. People feel helpless, unable to change the course of life. But Christians ought never to feel helpless. We serve a risen Savior: There's nothing we cannot do with His help. Warden Cain and the Christians inside Angola prove that.

What mission field does your neighborhood offer? Find out, and then go do it. As I learned during Easter at Angola, there's no limit to what God will do through those committed to serving Him.

For more information:

"Jesus, the Prisoner," Charles Colson's speech at Angola, Easter Sunday 2002.

_________________________

Mercer & Curry Bring Lessons of Afghan Imprisonment

Acts 12:4

Morris H. Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, commended Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry for their faithfulness to God during 105 days of captivity in Afghanistan.

Mercer and Curry, missionaries with the interdenominational Shelter Now ministry, spoke during the opening session of the June 11-12 SBC annual meeting in St. Louis.

"We began to realize we just got caught in the middle of some huge plan of God because he wanted to generate prayer for [Afghanistan]," Curry said. "He heard the cries of these widows and orphans so he let a few of his kids get in prison so the whole world would pray for Afghanistan like never before, so his light would come to this nation, so freedom would come and they could have hope again."

Prayer and worship, plus God's healing and even a time of wrestling with God led the Baylor University graduates to that realization, the duo said.

"We're so thankful for your prayers," Mercer said. "That's the reason we're here. And all of you are part of the testimony. Everybody who prayed is part of the miracle God did and the way he's using this experience to make his name known all over the earth."

Curry spoke of a rebellious life in high school and how she learned during her college years to love and worship God -- to experience his presence and sense his nearness. Short-term mission trips stoked the fire that was growing in her heart to be one of those who would go to share Jesus with the 2.5 billion people who haven't yet had a chance to know him and his love.

"The verse that really got me out there [was] Isaiah 6:8," Curry said. "When he says, 'Whom shall I send?' I realized God was just looking for anyone willing to go. He's looking for any heart that will say, 'Lord here I am, I'm willing to go. Send me.'

"I realized those weren't my tears but God's tears because his heart breaks every day for those who have never had a chance to hear and those who are dying without his love," Curry added. "Our pastor shared one of the main motivations for evangelism is to heal God's broken heart. Since God had healed my broken heart, I wanted to help heal his."

During her first 18 months in Afghanistan Curry worked with mothers and children who needed medical attention. When Mercer arrived they began to work with street children.

"Literally from the time they woke up in the morning until late into the evening they would carry these little plastic sacks and they would go from house to house, trying to collect pieces of bread to take home to their family," Curry said. The two missionaries provided a warm lunch, job training and jobs so they wouldn't have to beg.

"It was so easy to share about our faith," Curry said. "It was so natural. Almost every day someone would ask us, 'Why would you come here?' It was awesome to say, 'Because God loves you. He told us to come because he loves the Afghan people.' Muslims don't know that God loves them."

It was the showing of the "Jesus" film that brought about their arrest last August.

"I was really shocked and afraid," Curry said. "That first evening we held hands as tight as we could and we sang worship songs and we tried to quote every Scripture we could remember. His presence came and it washed over us. Peace like a river just came and flooded our souls."

Ten days after they first were imprisoned, the Taliban let Curry and Mercer go to their home and get a few things, including their Bibles.

Curry recited some of the Scriptures that encouraged her. Psalm 27: "I will see his goodness in the land of the living"; Psalm 91: "No evil will befall you"; Psalm 118: "I will not die, but live and proclaim the works of the Lord."

Learning of prayers not only for them but for Afghanistan showed them their imprisonment was part of God's plan to bring the whole world to him, Curry said, her voice shaking in earnestness.

"Guys, Jesus wants to come back but he's still waiting for these last remaining nations and people groups who have never heard," Curry said. "And this generation can see it happen. We've got airplanes. It's easy to get to everybody. It can happen if we respond and go because, really, the harvest is great but the laborers are few. "I really believe God has blessed Southern Baptists, given you resources so you can touch the ends of the earth," Curry said. "My prayer is that thousands upon thousands will be sent from among you so you can be a part and see this world changed for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Mercer said people tried to dissuade her from going to Afghanistan by asking her why she would want to go someplace where they don't really want to hear what she had to say.

"That's a big fat lie. That's not true," Mercer said. "All over the world there are 2.5 billion people who are waiting to hear about the love of Jesus."

She spoke of a man named Gideon they hired as watchman. After hearing the gospel on a short-wave radio they gave him, seeing the Jesus video and being witnessed to by a male Christian coworker, he became a Christian.

"He said, 'If you knew this, how come you didn't tell me sooner?'" Mercer recounted. "There are thousands of Gideons all over the nations of the earth who have never heard about Jesus. They're hungry and desperate to hear the love of God and his healing power."

Mercer read from a book written by missiologist John Piper. "'Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church,'" she read. "'Worship is. Missions ... is a temporary necessity but worship abides forever.' I realized what God was after in Afghanistan and all over the earth were pockets of believers -- worshipers who would lift up the name of Jesus in spirit and truth and give themselves to him in a love relationship. We wanted to see the glory of God filling that nation through the establishment of a New Testament church in that country.

"The goal, the glory of God filling the earth and the establishment of his church -- that's what we wanted to see in Afghanistan," Mercer said, then recounting told more of their watchman's story.

"Gideon was arrested with us," Mercer said. "He was beaten night and day from head to toe with a steel cable that was electrically powered. Every day the Taliban would come in and they would take him out and beat him and throw him back in his cell and at night they would take him out again and beat him and throw him back in his cell.

"This one night after he'd been beaten severely he was thrown into his room and he had a dream. God met with him in a dream. In the dream this man walked into his cell, and his hair was long and he was glowing. ... He was so beautiful and his face was so kind. He said, 'Gideon get up and follow me.' So in his dream Gideon got up and followed the man through the door of his prison into the courtyard. And the man said again, 'Gideon follow me.' And Gideon followed him again through the courtyard of the prison out into the open street."

Gideon woke up and found in an exact replay of his dream that the prison interior and exterior doors were open, and there were no guards.

"He walked all the way home to freedom," Mercer said. "God is still in the business of doing miracles."

Mercer acknowledged she had a hard time in prison.

"I did not do prison the way I hoped I would do it," she said. "For the better half of the 105 days we spent in prison, I found myself wrestling with God. I wrestled with him hard. I asked all the hard questions. I asked him, 'Why, why do we have to be in prison, why do we have to go through this?' He tenderly encouraged me. He said, 'Well, Heather, what did you pray before you came here? You want to see my glory fill this nation. It might cost you everything. Heather, are you willing to lose your life so you might find it here?'

"I'm so glad I had to wrestle with God on those issues and I'm so glad I lost that fight," Mercer said. "It was the mercy of God to let me lose it and to say, 'Yes, God, I do want to see your kingdom come in Afghanistan. You are my boss. You are my leader and I choose to follow you no matter what.'

"It might cost everything to see Afghanistan come to know Jesus, to see the people of Afghanistan come to know him. And you know what? It might cost the church of Jesus Christ everything to see his church established around the earth and to see his glory fill the earth.

"This is really what I believe with all my heart," Mercer said. "Once we've decided to pay the price and to say, 'Yes, Jesus, whatever it costs, I choose to obey,' we'll find out in the end it really cost us nothing because all we wanted was Jesus anyway. So that's my encouragement, that Jesus is worthy, that he will fill the earth with his glory; he will establish his church."

Mercer reminded her listeners of the thousands of unreached people groups all over the world.

"In this room alone there are thousands of people and you represent thousands more in your local churches," she said. "So what if all of us said, 'Yes, God, we want to see your glory fill the earth, whatever it costs.'

"His kingdom would come! It would," Mercer said. "He's committed to it. And how awesome [that] he's called us and allowed us to partner with him in that mission. So my prayer is for all of us, that we would be a people of faith who take God at his word and go forth with all our hearts, with no thoughts of personal sacrifice we would have to pay."

*

From Teenage Fraudster To Evangelical Pastor

Luke 19:8

[Young teenager commits a multi-million dollar fraud, then gets saved in prison, becomes a pastor and shares his knowledge with others.]

__________________

Barry Minkow picked up the telephone one late spring morning in 1987 and knew right away that the game was up. Until that point, his life had seemed like a movie plot - the skinny 16-year-old from the LA suburbs who starts his own company in his parents' garage, hoping to impress girls, and ends up a celebrated teenage millionaire, paraded on Oprah, and lecturing in business schools. His carpet-cleaning firm, ZZZZ Best, had started with a loan of $1,600; within four years it was employing 1,400 people, and by the time Minkow took it public - crowning him the youngest chief executive on Wall Street by a stretch - the company was worth more than $280 million, and busily diversifying into lucrative restoration jobs on fire-damaged hotels and apartment blocks. He was stunning. The mayor of Los Angeles was so stunned that he declared an official Barry Minkow Day across the city.

So it was only to be expected that envious rivals would want to cause him grief. Perhaps it was even to be expected that he would have a team of fraud investigators on the phone, like he did now, demanding a guided tour of an upmarket apartment building that ZZZZ Best had renovated in Dallas. But there was something about the building in question which certainly wasn't to be expected, which was that it didn't exist.

Not existing, as it turned out, was a recurring problem with the diverse activities of the Minkow empire. In June 1987, two days before it was due to acquire a competitor twice its size for $40 million, ZZZZ Best collapsed - and Minkow, then 20, stood exposed as the perpetrator of a massive stock fraud which the court would later value at $26 million - probably an underestimate. For years he had been frenziedly negotiating slabs of investment worth millions of dollars for bogus projects he never planned to fund - he just needed the cash to pay for his staff, not to mention his Ferrari Testarossa and his mansion in the wealthy community of Woodland Hills.

Minkow ended up serving seven and a half years in prison, still something of a record for a white-collar crime. “Real prison, too,” he points out, “most of that time with a murderer for a cellmate, not 18 months in a golf-course camp.”

And so he has been watching with a certain wry detachment in recent weeks as the behemoths of the US economy - WorldCom, Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing; now Xerox; now Merck - have become mired in charges of fraud. This is partly because his mind is on higher things these days: for five and a half years he has been the senior pastor of the Community Bible Church in Mira Mesa, California, having found God in jail. (And he knows what you're thinking, by the way. “I'm not allowed to sign cheques and my name isn't on the bank accounts,” he says. “I don't want to be in that position.”)

Mainly, though, it's because he thinks he knows what was going through the minds of Kenneth Lay, Bernie Ebbers and their ilk. The FBI thinks so, too, and has hired him to give seminars to its investigators. Minkow also performs “fraudits” on behalf of the Fraud Discovery Institute, which he co-founded.

“Everyone I met in prison had one thing in common - they never planned on being there,” he says, talking loud and fast and expansively, still with a salesman's charm, using my name at every possible opportunity. “And not one of those companies went into business to defraud. Not one. Neither did I. What people don't realize is that fraud is always a means to an end, never an end in itself. There is always a rationalization: I'm going to do this now, and it's tough, but next week we're gonna get some big carpet-cleaning jobs, whatever, and we're gonna make it back, pay everyone back, nobody's gonna be hurt - and that will be the cure.”

ZZZZ Best started out real enough. Minkow wanted desperately to be popular at school, to find a girlfriend; his twin strategy involved taking steroids to boost his muscles and starting his own business. He chose the logical line of work: his mother had a job cold-calling for a carpet-cleaning firm, and he had an after-school job actually cleaning them. Once he had his own equipment - bought with a loan from a friend - he hired his mother to work the phones, basing the fledgling enterprise in the family garage. Within months, he had more employees and made it on to the local television news, slacking on his schoolwork in his quest to become the carpet-cleaning king of California.

The publicity began to snowball. People magazine caught on, and Oprah, and Newsweek, and the business magazines - and Tom Bradley, the LA mayor, with his plan for a civic celebration of youthful brilliance that caught even Minkow by surprise. “Celebrity was a tool to attract money,” he says. “It isn't like the mayor sent in a team of accountants to audit my books before he declared Barry Minkow Day - but the impression investors got was that he did. When I did Oprah, the impression was given that they'd checked me out, but, of course, they hadn't.

“That's how it works: the bank gives the loan because the numbers were done by Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen took on the job because the law firm was one of the Big Ten, and they'd surely have caught on if anything was wrong... And on it goes.”

Everything happened very fast indeed after that. Minkow retained Wall Street lawyers and reputable accountants, using credibility to attract investment and investments to buy credibility. He planned a public stock offering, and ZZZZ Best expanded into “insurance restoration” - renovating buildings damaged by smoke and fire - while Minkow spun tales of 40% profit margins, winning another $15 million investment.

The company finally went public in a blaze of media coverage in 1986, catapulted into a stockmarket as dizzy as one that would follow a decade and a half later on the back of the internet boom. Within weeks, shares in ZZZZ Best soared from an initial offering of $4 to $18. Nobody was in the mood for asking questions - which was unfortunate, because Minkow might have had difficulty answering them.

Ever since the company's earliest days, in fact, he had been stealing to boost growth and make ends meet. It began, as he explains it, with “money orders stolen from the money order place at Rick's Liquor Store in Resada”, but it quickly escalated.

“There are two days in my life I remember especially,” he says. “One is when I first started taking steroids, aged 15. I was in the bathroom, and I remember closing the door and thinking the pill was so small, how could it do the things they said? I took it and I knew I had crossed the line: I wanted to be strong now, who cares if you can't have kids when you're 30? Live for the now. Very existential. Jean-Paul Sartre. Camus.

“And then there was the day I decided: I want to be successful this year. This quarter. Not later. That's when I rationalized. I'd have some big carpet-cleaning jobs coming up, and it would all work out.”

For a long time it did: Minkow had quickly moved on from Rick's Liquor Store to obtaining bank loans on spurious grounds; by the time ZZZZ Best had moved into insurance restoration, he had been operating a massive, precarious pyramid scheme, taking in millions and paying off his early investors with money from later ones. It looked like a house of cards, but Minkow had a cure: the public offering had been part of the plan, a surge of income that would allow him to pay off his investors, and then, as a player on Wall Street, build a legitimate business.

As in the recent corporate scandals, it was not the accountants and the auditors who toppled Minkow's pyramid, although in his case they seem more criminally gullible than conspiring. There were thousands of documents to prove that ZZZZ Best's business was legitimate - they were all faked, of course - but when a team of accountants, undertaking routine due diligence, finally asked to see a restoration project in action, Minkow fooled them with an act that this time made his life truly seem like Hollywood. At the last minute, he rented a half-finished building in San Diego, stationed ZZZZ Best staff to stand around with rolls of carpet nearby, and presented it to the accountants as a typical example of the company in action.

They scared him three months later by asking to see the finished project. He pulled it off again this time by re-renting the still unfinished building and, astonishingly, renovating it from scratch in 20 days [at a cost of $2 million].

Going public had not quite proved the panacea he had hoped, but by now he was within 48 hours of another cure: the acquisition of KeyServe, a rival firm, using a $40 million outside investment masterminded by the junk-bond king Michael Milken.

But then there was the Mafia. Minkow had bumped into a Mafioso on a carpet-cleaning job months previously, and by this point one of his biggest institutional investors was the Genovese crime family of New York. It was investigators chasing the Mob who finally caught up with the chief executive of ZZZZ Best. Then a newspaper excavated an old tale of credit-card fraud - one of Minkow's earlier fundraising plans - and then he got the phone call asking him to demonstrate that he really had undertaken a renovation in Dallas. This time the investigators were on the lookout for fraud, and Minkow, exhausted, did not try to fool them.

“Things go from order to disorder,” Minkow explains today, slipping into seminar mode. “This is one of the laws of what I call fraudodynamics. Let's say Nick Leeson got the one good trading day he needed to cure the fraud. Well, he's reinforced subconsciously the idea that he can do it - faced with pressure, he'll do it again. Do you think Nick Leeson's first trade was a billion? Of course not. And if I could have survived, I would have been able to sell my restricted stock, unload a million shares, get close to $20m in cash, pay off the Ponzi scheme and go forward.”

These days he visits executives while wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, telling them: “Look. I know you think you can be one good trading day away. But if you lie, you're going to be wearing this jumpsuit for eight Super Bowls.”

There is one further lesson from the ZZZZ Best story that Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers might like to consider: you can say sorry, even pay back the people you robbed, and the sky, surprisingly enough, does not fall in. Minkow has been paying back his victims - mostly institutional investors - at a rate of around 95 cents to the dollar ever since he got out of jail, first under the terms of his probation and now, he says, because his religion requires him to. One major creditor has received $100,000 so far; Minkow says he pays between $750 and $2,000 a month into restitution funds. At a recent hearing connected to his probation, the judge who first sentenced him praised the fact that he was “on a straight and narrow path” and thanked him for his annual Christmas card.

“I do some prison visiting, and everybody there tells me: you're an idiot, you're a moron, you served the time, so why pay and get hit twice?” Minkow says. “But God would have you pay back the money even if you did the time. Unfortunately. That's what I hate about my faith. I had to get this faith where there's no way out. I'd love to tell them to take a flying leap.” He sighs. “But I can't.”

=============================

U.S. News and World Report, May 10, 2004, page EE14, by Randy Dotinga:

When former federal prosecutor James Asperger first laid eyes on Barry Minkow in a California courtroom in 1988, he saw all the traits of a financial kingpin in the musclebound “whiz kid” of Wall Street. “He was cocky; he was charismatic; he was arrogant,” Asperger recalls. “His talents and charisma were so strong that he could have succeeded in a legitimate enterprise.”

But he didn't. Minkow was a white-collar crook extraordinaire, a greedy college-age swindler with an eye for the ladies and the loot. Now, 16 years and one prison term after his conviction on fraud charges, Minkow spends his days telling businesses how to watch out for the likes of him -- the old, lawbreaking him, that is. In presentations before everyone from FBI agents to corporate CEOs, Minkow confides the secrets of hiding debt and faking revenue. Follow the money, he says, and, perhaps even more important, follow the postman. “When we go on a job, the first question I ask is who gets the mail. They think I'm crazy,” Minkow says. “I know that to hide debt we had hidden bank accounts nobody knew about.

His company also provides consulting and has exposed an estimated $1 billion in fraud. “I had to do eight Super Bowls in prison,” says Minkow, 38, who lectures in an orange prison jumpsuit. “When you've done that kind of time, you get credibility.”

Minkow began his career with a carpet-cleaning business in his family's Los Angeles garage, which he expanded into a home restoration empire. “Barry represented the perfect Republican dream - a 16-year-old kid starts his own business in the valley while he's still in high school and builds it up into a multimillion-dollar organization,” says journalist Joe Domanick, who wrote a book about Minkow. But Minkow had built his ZZZZBest by defrauding investors. By 1988 he went on trial, at the age of 21. A judge ordered him to pay restitution and handed down a 25-year sentence.

Minkow served nearly eight years and, armed with two master's degrees in religion, now serves as pastor of Community Bible Church, a nondenominational evangelical Christian congregation in San Diego. “Everybody thought I'd he one of those born-again-until-you're-out-again people,” he says, but his faith persisted.

Married to a former makeup artist, he lives modestly in a beach town and just traveled to Guatemala to adopt 1-year-old identical twin boys. His conviction, however, will always follow him. While he's been released from parole, Minkow is still making payments to a bank. And he discloses his past on his church's Web site and from the pulpit. “When I getup there, I'm worse than anybody in my congregation,” he says. “I always let them know that.”

============================

From Barry's church website at http://www.cbcsandiego.com/Pastors/barry.html:

At the age of 16, Barry Minkow started a carpet cleaning company in the family garage. By age 20, he had a 240 million-dollar company and was referred to as the “whiz-kid” of Wall Street. After milking highly educated investors out of millions of dollars, Barry's scam came to a sudden halt when he was arrested in 1987 at the age of 23 and sentenced to 25 years in the federal prison. Against all odds, and with a 26 million-dollar court awarded restitution nailed over his head, Barry decided it was time to make a change.

After accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and receiving God's unmeasurable forgiveness, Barry headed down a new path. It was a path of restitution and comeback. While in prison, Barry accepted the role of heading up the prison's religious services. He spoke to his fellow inmates every Sunday and shared the gospel of grace and mercy that God offers to anyone who will receive it.

During his time in prison, Barry felt the calling of God in his life. With a call to the ministry and an unquenchable fire burning in his heart, he headed his life full speed ahead in that direction. After serving 8 years of his sentence with an unblemished record and with the recommendation of the sentencing judge, Barry was released into society. In the judge's own words, “Barry can do more for his victims out of prison than he can in prison.”

While in prison Barry earned a B.A. and a Masters of Arts degree in Church Ministries (with an emphasis on Theology and Apologetics) from Liberty University. In 1996, he earned yet another degree, a Masters of Divinity, also from Liberty. After his early release from prison, he was called to work as Director of the Bible Institute and Pastor of Evangelism at the Church at Rocky Peak. In March 1997, Barry was called to become the Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in San Diego, California. Since that time the church has more than doubled its attendance and a tremendous outreach has begun.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #19677]

Miracle At Rikers Island: Operation Starting Line

As Christians, we know that no one is beyond the reach of Christ. But if we're honest, most of us have to admit that every now and then we come across someone that we just know will never become a Christian.

And that's exactly what a Prison Fellowship volunteer named Sherry thought when she saw Shelby -- a bizarre-looking prisoner at New York's Rikers Island Prison. Sherry was working with Operation Starting Line, a multi-ministry effort to bring the gospel to every prisoner in America. Musicians, athletes, comedians, and volunteers go behind bars to perform and witness God's love to the most hardened hearts imaginable. Prison Fellowship has been joined in this by Navigators, Walk Thru the Bible, Campus Crusade, Billy Graham, and others.

Well last month, Sherry was part of the team that went to Rikers Island. The atmosphere was tough. The day was suffocatingly hot and the men showed little interest in the program. Many were playing basketball, lifting weights, or talking. But "as usual," Sherry recalls, "When the Lord does something great, it's always in an unlikely place."

As the men filed into the yard, Shelby caught Sherry's eye. He flaunted his homosexuality as he walked past her. He was wearing makeup and a jumpsuit open to the waist. He had done everything possible to make himself look like a woman. Sherry recalls that as he sashayed past her it was "as though he were saying, 'I'm happy the way I am, and nothing you can say will change that.'"

The team sang their hearts out and slowly the crowd began to thicken. Sherry spotted Shelby swaying to the music and thought to herself, "He'll be the last one to listen to the message today."

After the music, team members gave their testimony and explained the plan of salvation. Shelby listened intently -- even moved closer to the speakers. When the inmates were invited to pray the sinner's prayer, Sherry was shocked that among the repentant sinners accepting Christ, there stood Shelby. Afterward, she had a chance to speak with him. He told Sherry that for many years he had lived as a woman, but standing there in the yard praying, he felt a physical change come over him.

"Sherry, please pray for me," he begged as she turned to leave.

You can bet she will. And Shelby won't be left on his own. Through Operation Starting Line, he'll receive spiritual mentoring and career counseling. OSL also works with local churches to match inmates with volunteers once they leave prison. These volunteers help inmates find jobs and continue in their spiritual growth.

It's a lot to ask for volunteers to come into the prisons to do these things; but we know it's worth it. One study showed that inmates who took part in ten or more Prison Fellowship Bible studies were sixty-six percent less likely to return to prison.

Pray for the volunteers of Operation Starting Line as they spread this ministry across the country. And pray for the prisoners as well. Some of these inmates are so cold and tough on the outside, but just like Shelby -- desperately yearning and tender on the inside.

We know that God can convert anyone. And we know that he does his best work in these kinds of places. Conversions like Shelby's are a witness to the power of the cross to soften even the hardest and most defiant sinner.

_________________________

*

Witness To A Watching World: Prison Fellowship's 25th Anniversary

Luke 4:18

Twenty-seven years ago, I went from one of the most powerful jobs in the world, as special counsel to the president of the United States, to prison, where I worked in the laundry. I couldn't have imagined the path that God was opening to me, as a new Christian, or that he would lead me to found a ministry to prisoners.

Well, today, that ministry -- Prison Fellowship -- is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. It's now in eighty-eight countries. Imagine! I was a pretty good political organizer in my day, but never could I have orchestrated the miracle that God raised up from the ashes of Watergate.

It all began one morning after my release from prison in 1975. I'd just gotten up, and I was still a bit groggy. But suddenly pictures began to flash in my mind -- images of prisoners, their faces alive with hope, reading the Bible and praying together behind prison walls.

I knew then that God wanted to turn my prison experience into a ministry to other prisoners. The idea was to take inmates out of prison, disciple them, and then take them back to lead Christian fellowships. Great idea! The problem was that it was utterly impossible, humanly speaking.

I went to see Norm Carlson, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He was cordial enough at the beginning. But, as I talked about what I wanted to do and then asked permission to take inmates out of prison, he was scowling. I knew there was no way that he was going to say yes.

But then God moved in the most surprising way. Carlson told me about his visit to a federal prison the previous weekend. On Sunday he'd gone to chapel. And he was surprised, during the service, to hear an inmate praying for him.

Jabbing his finger at me, he asked, "Why'd he do that? I'm the guy keeping him in prison!"

"Well, Mr. Carlson," I said, "he did that because he's a Christian. Christians are taught to pray for those in authority over them."

Carlson looked at me. And then slowly he smiled. Then he nodded and said, "All right, Mr. Colson. I'll sign that order. We'll open the prisons for your program."

I could hardly believe it. But since that day twenty- five years ago, I've seen the same pattern over and over. God takes the powerless things of this world to work his powerful, eternal plan.

Think about it. The prayer of an unknown inmate God used to touch the heart of the very man with the power to open the prisons and launch this ministry. And it's been that same thing over the past twenty- five years.

From the beginning, God has led us in surprising, seemingly impossible ways. He has used the most unlikely people to touch the lives of millions, and to extend his kingdom. Today, Prison Fellowship has some 50,000 volunteers taking the gospel to those behind bars. Another 100,000 at Christmas time reach 600,000 children of prisoners.

*

Why Do You Bother?: the Mother of Angel Tree

Mary Kay Beard was one of the most colorful criminals in the South -- a shotgun-toting bank robber with flaming red hair. The press nicknamed Mary Kay and her husband "the Bonnie and Clyde of Alabama."

But then Mary Kay was arrested. She faced 180 years in prison if convicted of all the charges against her. But God had other plans for Mary Kay -- plans that would ultimately affect millions of kids.

While Mary Kay awaited sentencing, she began attending the jail church services. Not because she was interested in God, but because it was the only way to get out of solitary confinement.

But Mary Kay was struck by the volunteers at these early morning services. Why, she wondered, would any sane person get up at 5 a.m. on the weekend just to visit prisoners?

"Why do you bother?" she finally asked the elderly volunteer sitting beside her. The answer blew her away. "Jesus loved you enough to go all the way to Calvary," the woman replied. "So we love you enough to come in here and tell you about Him."

Over the next few weeks, the Holy Spirit began to work on Mary Kay's heart. Alone in her cell one night, Mary Kay opened her Bible. A verse from Ezekiel caught her eye: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you ... I will move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

Instantly, Mary Kay knew she had found the answer. "God," she prayed, "If you can really change my heart, I'll give my life back to you." And God did change Mary Kay's heart. She began to study God's Word and grew in her relationship with Christ. And by God's grace, she received a sentence of just eight years.

But when she left prison, Mary Kay was haunted by images of the women she'd left behind. She remembered how, at Christmas, these women saved the things volunteers brought them -- soap, shampoo, toothpaste -- and then gave these to their kids for Christmas. The children cherished the gifts because they had come from their mothers.

That memory fueled the first Prison Fellowship Angel Tree. Mary Kay, who came to work for Prison Fellowship in Alabama, went back to the jail she'd once occupied and asked women for the names and addresses of their children. She wrote them on paper angels, and hung them on a Christmas tree. She then prayed she would find enough volunteers to buy gifts for all of them. Amazingly, every child's name was gone in just a few days! On Christmas day 1982, 556 kids received Christmas gifts on behalf of their moms in jail.

Well, that was nearly twenty years ago. Last year, more than half a million children received Angel Tree gifts in the United States -- and countless thousands more in the fifty other countries of the world where Angel Tree has spread.

_________________________

I'll Give You Everything: A Story of Healing

Mark and Michelle were the ideal Christian couple -- or so it seemed to their church. But in private, their lives were falling apart. Both Mark and Michelle ended up in prison -- and how God healed their broken family a wonderful story about my favorite program, Angel Tree.

On the outside, Mark, who was a pastor, and Michelle, seemed to have it all together. But on the inside, they were in total rebellion. They began drinking heavily and became addicted to prescription drugs. They even started abusing one another -- all the while passing themselves off as good Christians.

In 1994, Michelle divorced Mark, and he landed in jail -- a turn of events that drove him to finally turn his eyes back to God. Dropping to his knees in his cell, Mark began to pray. "God, I have really messed up my life," he said. "You gave me so many gifts, and I threw them all away." Mark then offered God a solemn promise. "If you can do anything with my life -- anything -- I'll give you everything."

Mark began serving a three-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, Michelle continued abusing drugs and alcohol. She lost custody of their kids, and ended up in prison herself.

But God had not abandoned Mark and Michelle. After stripping them of everything, he began rebuilding their lives.

Michelle rededicated her life to Christ and got involved with Prison Fellowship, attending parenting seminars and Bible studies. She also got involved in Angel Tree, helping other women sign up their children for gifts. As Michelle later told me, "Angel Tree gave us back our dignity. It allowed us to let our kids know that we still loved them, that we had not forgotten about them."

God used those gifts and Michelle's letters to her children to renew her son's faith in God and bring her daughter to the point of accepting Christ herself.

Meanwhile, across the state in a men's prison, Mark still worried about his kids. "I had betrayed, abused, and neglected them," he said. "I had given up hope that I would ever be able to demonstrate healthy love to my children. But I prayed for them every day -- and God sent Angel Tree [a ministry to prisoners' children by Prison Fellowship]."

Mark faithfully sent his kids gifts and letters -- and God again worked the impossible. When Mark was released, his oldest son was there to pick him up.

But God was not finished yet. Mark and Michelle began to write to one another. In time, this relationship was healed as well. Last year, Mark and Michelle were reunited in marriage. They are now Prison Fellowship volunteers helping others in need.

_________________________

Ex-Convicts, Victims Find Healing Relationship of Forgiveness

Luke 19:8

Joe Avila took a drive up a California highway -- drunk -- and killed a 17-year-old cheerleader.

He went to prison for manslaughter.

His experience with the law turned out to be religious -- like many other inmates, Avila found Jesus in jail, asked God for forgiveness and came to terms with the horrific consequences of his actions.

But now that he is out, Avila is pushing a program that aspires to do more than encourage prisoners to find God. He wants criminal offenders to make amends to their victims -- a concept, he says, that is both deeply religious and missing in the criminal justice system.

The idea is part of a growing focus nationwide on the role of forgiveness in communities -- in the justice system as well as in physical and mental health.

Avila, regional director of the national Prison Fellowship ministry group, was in Las Vegas from California last week to support an effort to establish a faith-based Victim Offenders Reconciliation Program.

The program is sponsored by the national Southern Baptist Convention as part of a yearlong evangelical focus on Las Vegas. The denomination has funneled more than $1 million into Southern Nevada this year, $35,000 of which will be spent on establishing this program.

The program seeks to unite offenders and victims for a meeting in which victims express their feelings and, ideally, offenders arrange to make amends in some way that is meaningful to the victims. The result, local organizer the Rev. Tommy Starkes of Tropicana Christian Fellowship says, is "the healing relationship of forgiveness."

A similar, but secular, reconciliation program already exists in the Juvenile Court system. Administered by the Neighbhorhood Justice Center, that program focuses on first-time, misdemeanor crimes: vandalism, fistfights, shoplifting -- and is supported by the courts as an alternative to sentencing. Kids clean offices or mow yards to pay for their misbehavior.

But the evangelical group, which met with prison activists Thursday night at Starkes' church, wants to expand the program to adults after they serve time -- and draw attention to the link between the traditional religious concept of forgiveness and the administration of justice.

"Most religions emphasize a balance between forgiveness and punishment," Starkes, a Southern Baptist, said. "Certainly Christianity emphasizes forgiveness. And yet a long time ago, America adopted a justice system that is more punitive than redemptive. The part about forgiveness -- the most healing part -- is missing.

"And our system leaves the victim out of the resolution. They punish the offender, but the victim often feels there is no closure. For example, with the (Timothy) McVeigh execution, you saw lots of victims' families saying they still didn't feel closure.

"Our program -- which is voluntary -- is designed to connect the offender who is about to be released from prison with the victim to say, 'I'm sorry' and 'What can I do to make up for my actions?'"

For many faiths, making amends directly to the victim is a key part of recovering from wrongdoing. In Judaism, for example, the principle of "teshuva" requires a wrongdoer to acknowledge his transgression, make a public confession and express remorse, resolve never to do it again, compensate the victim with acts of charity and ask the victim for forgiveness.

RESEARCH

If forgiveness is a matter of faith, it is also becoming a matter of science.

Research on the effects of forgiveness -- psychologically, physically, sociologically and economically -- is on the rise.

To wit, the international Campaign for Forgiveness Research started in Washington in 1997 and has committed $5 million to research projects on "the power of forgiveness and reconciliation."

About 30 different projects at universities around the world are being funded, and 30 others have been tagged for future funding. Among them: "Does Forgiveness Benefit Physical and Mental Health?" at Purdue University, and "Does Forgiveness Enhance Brain Activation Associated With Empathy in Victims of Assault?" at the University of Manchester, England.

The campaign is a nonprofit organization endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and former President Jimmy Carter.

"The new wave of research we've begun has the potential to reveal the profound value of forgiveness in our lives -- information that could reduce human misery and enhance the quality of life worldwide," campaign Director Everett Washington said.

Yolanda Morales has seen the seeds of forgiveness planted in Las Vegas.

As a volunteer mediator for the Clark County Neighborhood Justice Center, Morales has met with juvenile offenders and their victims, and seen emotional changes take root from some of the pettiest of crimes.

"I had one case where these two seventh-grade girls went to a mall and shoplifted some hair accessories," she said. Rather than prosecute, the owners opted to use the victim-offender program.

"What was really very positive is the mall security people were involved in the mediation, and the girls were able to see the impact on those people. The security people were also very empathetic with the girls, and it enhanced the idea that young people are accountable to the community," Morales said.

"Another time, I had two 11-year-old boys involved in an incident. One had been bullying and teasing and humiliating the other in the park, and finally, the other one beat him up," Morales said.

"It was kind of scary to see that kind of violence from such little boys. But what was so positive about our mediation was that the parent of the bully realized she needed to get help for her son because he was so violent. And the boys were able to see their similarities.

"This can work on a broader scale."

Mike Hull, another volunteer mediator in the juvenile victim-offender program, said the court system discourages offenders from taking responsibility for their actions.

"The first thing the lawyer tells them is, 'Don't admit guilt,' " Hull, a Henderson police officer, said. "Through this program, the offenders and the victims learn that the other one is a person, too. If they just go to prison, they may never learn how much harm they have done."

EFFECTS

Face-to-face reconciliation also can affect recidivism rates, according to Steve Goldsmith, director of the Los Angeles County Victim Offender Restitution Program, a similar program.

"We've been able to show a 50 percent reduction in recidivism among those offenders who participated in a meeting with their victim," Goldsmith said. "The idea is to create empathy in the offender."

The Los Angeles program began in 1992 and was instigated by a juvenile judge. Today, it works in collaboration with religious groups, but is administered by a panel of civic officials -- including the sheriff and public defender.

Barbara Strahl, senior mediation specialist at the Clark County Neighborhood Justice Center, said the most difficult part of administering the juvenile reconciliation program has been getting the necessary stakeholders on board and organized. Her program mediates about 60 cases per year -- with both staff and volunteer mediators that bring the victim and offender together.

"Vegas is a little behind, there are communities that use it much more extensively," Strahl said. "But we're getting there."

Starkes, Hull and Avila received training from the Fresno Pacific University Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies -- a Christian university that helped establish more than 50 such programs worldwide.

The center's website explains about the religious roots of the justice program:

"Humanistic motivations do not have the driving force or staying power of religious convictions. Neither do humanistic motivations demand strict adherence to principles, which are seen as right from an absolute perspective. A humanist does not necessarily see eternal principles at work in restorative justice ... A person working out of religious motivation ... understand God's call to shalom, to wholeness, as a timeless call."

Starkes and the coalition of religious leaders from churches valleywide plan to begin their program this summer.

In Avila's case, the victim's parents have not agreed to meet with him. But in a coincidence he attributes to God's will, his wife happened to meet and become friends with a woman years after the accident who, it turns out, is a friend of the victim's family.

Avila met with her and asked for her forgiveness. The woman, long angry at Avila, cried. She told him about the girl he killed -- a bright, happy teenager.

And then she forgave him.

"It is a journey," Avila says. "Right now, the restitution I am making is in making a life transformation. I have changed my ways, and I am trying to help others. But I do have hope that I will someday meet with her (the victim's) parents.

"These are never easy matters."

*

An Exodus In Search of A Moses: 630,000 Released Prisoners

A year ago, Jean Sanders was released from the Gowanda Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He had lots of company. This year, 630,000 offenders will be released from American prisons. That's more than 1,700 a day!

The January 28 issue of TIME magazine profiled Sanders and his struggle to adjust to life outside of prison. Sanders is part of the largest "prison exodus" in history. Four times as many prisoners will be released this year as were released only twenty years ago.

And I can tell you from experience that the men and women being released are no more ready for life outside of prison than they were in 1980.

The statistics bear that out. The Department of Justice estimates that two-thirds of all men who are released from prison will be re-arrested within three years. And more than forty percent of all those released will return to prison within that same time period.

If anything, the odds are even worse for offenders with drug and alcohol problems like Sanders, who, so far, happily is still outside of prison.

Numbers like these testify to the failure of the utopian idea of rehabilitation. The problem isn't a lack of money or better government organization. It's that no government program can give offenders like Sanders what they need most: Motivation to change and a support network to help them.

In other words, they need what groups like Prison Fellowship are offering. This isn't only my opinion. A study released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that religion "has a proven track record on rehabilitating drug users." The center, headed by former Health and Human Services Secretary Joseph Califano, also found that religious conversion is the key factor in successfully breaking drug and alcohol addictions.

The impact of groups like Prison Fellowship isn't limited to offenders with drug problems. Our InnerChange Freedom Initiative, or IFI, does what government programs failed to do for people like Jean Sanders: prepare them for life outside of prison.

IFI is a prison within a prison -- actually, a Christian prison we run. The programming, which begins eighteen to twenty-four months before release, fosters respect for God's law and the rights of others. It progressively encourages the spiritual and moral development of prisoners. So far, the results have been dramatic: Recidivism rates below ten percent.

And what's true inside prison walls is also true outside of them. So-called "hard cases," people who government and secular social-service agencies had given up on, have turned their lives around thanks to the efforts of faith-based groups and the power of Christ in their lives.

And even more could be helped if Americans appreciated the role of faith-based programs. That's what makes the president's Faith-Based Initiative, which highlights the work of groups like Prison Fellowship, so important. It's not a matter of money. It's a matter of helping Americans understand what government can and cannot do.

It's a matter of creating an environment where people can get the help they really need without being impeded by ideas and bureaucracies that have failed us time and time again -- a failure we couldn't afford twenty years ago, and can afford even less today.

For more information:

Stephanie Casler, "Anti-drug role by U.S. clergy urged," WASHINGTON TIMES, 15 November 2001.

Amanda Ripley, "Living on the Outside," TIME, 28 January 2002.

Charles W. Colson, "America's Way is to Help Thy Neighbor," LOS ANGELES TIMES.

Justice Fellowship, "Beyond Crime and Punishment: A Biblical View of Justice."

To learn more about the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, visit .

Information on the President's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives can be found at .

_________________________

*

God's Power In Louisiana Prison [2 versions]

Luke 23:39

It was just after midnight when Warden Burl Cain of Angola (Louisiana) State Penitentiary found himself alone in the death chamber with Thomas Ward. Without a word, he lifted his hand and gave a "thumbs down" signal to the executioner.

A lethal drug dose was administered and six minutes later Ward was dead. It was Cain's first execution.

Immediately, Cain began to regret the signal he used to initiate the execution. His uneasiness grew much deeper. He felt guilty because he never found out Ward's spiritual condition that night or before.

That was eight years ago, only three months after he became the warden of Louisiana's only maximum-security prison. It started a renewal in the life of Cain, a Southern Baptist layman, and a transformation in one of the nation's toughest prisons.

After Ward's death, the advice Cain's Christian mother had given him 14 years earlier when he first became the warden of another prison echoed in his heart.

"She said, 'God's going to hold you accountable for those people's souls,'" Cain recounted. "She said, 'You're going to be responsible for what they do, how they live, how they are treated, what they eat and what they wear, but don't forget God's going to hold you accountable for their souls.'"

The day after the execution, the troubled Cain visited his pastor. With his pastor's help and God's forgiveness, he was able to move past the guilt of his first execution.

"I prayed and asked God to forgive me," the warden said. "I said it will never be that way again. I will never lead a man in there that I don't try to be sure his soul is saved."

All too soon that opportunity arose. Long before the night of his second execution to oversee, Cain witnessed to Antonio James. To Cain's surprise, James had become a Christian before he committed his crime. The convicted man had strayed away from God and ran with the wrong crowd. Ultimately, he had robbed and killed a tourist in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

During his time in prison, James renewed his relationship with God. Still, he was worried about what would happen the night of his death. How could he know that he would go to heaven? he asked Cain.

The warden took time to share the story of the "thief on the cross" who called out to Jesus. He helped James get a sense of assurance about his salvation and what would happen after he died. Cain agreed to honor the inmate's request to hold his hand while he died.

When execution night rolled around, Cain prayed with the inmate, members of his staff, and the Secretary of the Department of Corrections. They led James into the room, strapped him to the table and began setting up the system.

They ran into a problem and during the 20 minutes it took to get James ready, the inmate willingly helped in the process. James was calm as he faced his punishment.

"I gave the signal with the nod of my head, and I held his hand," Cain recalled. "He looked me in the eyes and said, 'Bless you.' I told him to get ready to see Jesus' face. And he died."

This execution was totally different than the first, Cain recounted. Cain knew James' spiritual condition. He even ministered to him as he died. The two contrasting execution experiences became what Cain calls his "spiritual awakening" at Angola.

Nearly a year after Cain became warden at Angola, education at the prison had become a problem. Angola had lost its government grants, and Cain could not see a solution. A missionary from Louisiana's Judson Baptist Association suggested that he approach New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary about offering training opportunities for the Christian inmates. Though Cain doubted NOBTS would be interested in coming to Angola, he asked anyway. To his surprise, the seminary was eager to get involved. NOBTS began by offering an associate degree in ministry. Now in its seventh year, a bachelor's degree is offered at the Angola extension center. NOBTS conferred 59 degrees at the third Angola graduation ceremony, held in the dining hall at the prison on May 28.

It is an unconventional way to train ministers, because few of these inmates will ever leave the state prison system, said Chuck Kelley, president of NOBTS, explaining how the inmates in this program minister for Christ.

"[Angola] prison is divided into several different camps and as our graduates finish the program they are sent to different camps," he said. "They literally have a 'cell church movement.' They are starting churches at Angola." There are now 44 inmate ministers averaging 18,000-20,000 ministry contacts per month, the Judson Baptist Association reports. "It is the most phenomenal ministry that has ever happened, to my knowledge, in any theological institution," Kelley said. "It all happened because of the courage and compassion of a Baptist layman with a vision."

Cain can hardly believe the change it has made in his prison. Eighty-five men accepted Christ through the work of the NOBTS students during the past year. Currently, he estimates that there are nearly 2,000 Christians in the prison. Without a doubt, Angola has become a different place.

"Angola is more peaceful than New Orleans ... no one can believe that, but it really is true," Cain stated. "God reigns at Angola."

Recently, graduates of the NOBTS Angola extension have been sent to other prisons in Louisiana as missionaries. Christian inmates at Angola work hard to support these missionary inmates as they spread the gospel to other prisons.

Though some might think Cain is soft, that is not the case. Inmates under his care are held responsible for their actions. Eighty-five percent of the men who walk through the gates of Angola will never leave.

Like Jesus who ate with "sinners and tax collectors," Cain said he knows that the inmates are not out of the reach of God's grace, that even the hardest criminal can be saved and changed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

"We can't look at what they did, we have to look at what they are now and what their future is," the warden said.

He also remembers the victims. "The greatest problem the inmates have when they become Christians is how to tell their victims they are sorry. That's our next challenge."

Cain said that in his 22 years as a prison warden, he has seen only one way for rehabilitation -- a change of heart. He regrets the fact that it takes the deaths of so many innocent victims for some to turn to God, but he is happy the men are turning to God.

"I want to express my appreciation to this seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Louisiana Baptist Convention for what you have do to change people's lives," Cain said. "Remember, if we can change one life ... if we save one, it's worth it all."

In a few weeks, the warden will travel to Chicago to meet with religious leaders and corrections officials from other states to tell what has happened at Angola. It is his hope and prayer that this vision will catch on at other prisons and many will be changed by the gospel.

=================================

Another version from Brett Blair:

There are many churches today that are “out to lunch” when it comes to reaching out to change the world. But fortunately, there are many other churches -- and many church members -- who are seeking the best they are able, to make a difference in the world. Let me give you one example of a follower of Christ who gives us a reason to believe in the future.

His name is Burl Cain and he is the warden at The Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola. This institution used to be one of the nation’s bloodiest and most brutal prisons. Then, in the early ‘80s, Burl Cain became the new warden at Angola. Cain is a devout Christian; he put his beliefs into action in reforming the prison. He established literacy classes throughout the prison, even on Death Row. He increased the number of prison chaplains. He also allowed a local seminary to teach Bible studies at Angola. He also insisted that the guards treat inmates with respect. Consequently, incidents of violence have plummeted, and more prisoners are enrolling in education courses.

Warden Cain was particularly instrumental in the life of one inmate, Antonio James. James was a convicted killer who spent about sixteen years on Death Row. The night before his execution, Antonio James asked Cain to eat his last meal with him. Cain had counseled James in the past and introduced him to Christ. Now James wanted to know what it would be like to die. Cain assured him that angels would come to take him to heaven. As Antonio James prepared for his lethal injection, Burl Cain held his hand and spoke to him about God. James’ last words to Cain were, “Bless you.”

As long as there are disciples of Christ like Burl Cain, there is hope for the world. The question you and I need to ask ourselves is, are we doing our part? This is a crazy world, but it is also a God-invaded world. “The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us . . .” Christ has redeemed us that we might work in his behalf to redeem the world.

________

Martin Fletcher, ALMOST HEAVEN (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1998), pp. 133-142. Adapted by King Duncan

The Conversion of General Manuel Antonio Noriega

Mark 2:15

GENERAL MANUEL ANTONIO NORIEGA

Baptized into Christ 10/24/92

"I’ve seen seriousness and I’ve seen the lack of it," said one of the guards who monitor the fallen leader daily. "I haven’t seen any dedication or seriousness greater than his."

"God can forgive the worst sinner on earth." How many times have you heard a preacher say something like that? Or, "God loves everyone. He doesn’t want anyone to perish. There is no sinner too sinful for God to forgive, if that person will repent and come to Christ in faith." And do we believe it? Of course we do. We believe that Jesus Christ would have forgiven Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him, if he would have truly repented.

Question: Would Jesus have forgiven Adolf Hitler? Perhaps survivors of the holocaust couldn’t... and we could understand their difficulty in forgiving. But Jesus could have forgiven Hitler... if he would have changed his life instead of ending his life by blowing his brains out in a Berlin bunker.

Let’s bring it on down to today.

Would God be willing to forgive a repentant Jeffrey Dahmer, the mass murderer of Milwaukee?

How about Sadaam Hussein, the bloody butcher of Baghdad?

What about General Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian drug Lord?

It’s not a moot question anymore. For on October 24, 1992, in a baptistry provided by American Rehabilitation Ministries, General Manuel Noriega was immersed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the chambers of the Honorable William M. Hoeveler, United States District Judge, Federal Court House, Miami Florida.

Noriega was "Public Enemy No. 1" during the time leading up to the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989. How did it come to pass that the former general of Panama was buried in baptism in a Florida prison?

The story begins in a maximum security cell in the federal prison in Miami where General Manuel Noriega was awaiting trial on charges of international drug trafficking.

Early in January 1990 a copy of a Spanish New Testament came into the notorious prisoner’s hands. On January 10, 1990, the editor of the Soul Winner’s New Testament (Evangelismo Personal), Clift Brannon, a former attorney turned preacher, received a letter from Noriega. In the letter, Noriega expressed his appreciation for the copy of the Scriptures. Brannon immediately applied for a visitation permit for the purpose of religious instruction under the rights granted Noriega under the Geneva Accords.

Accordingly, on May 15 and 16, 1990, Brannon and a Spanish interpreter, Rudy Hernandez, were allowed to visit Noriega for a total of 6 hours in the Metropolitan Correctional Center of Dade County, Florida. Following their visit, Noriega wrote Brannon as follows:

On completing the spiritual sessions that you as a messenger of

the Word of God brought to my heart, even to my area of

confinement as Prisoner of War of the United States, I feel the

necessity of adding something more to what I was able to say to

you as we parted. The evening sessions of May 15 and 16 with you

and Rudy Hernandez along with the Christian explanation and

guidance were for me the first day of a dream, a revelation. I

can tell you with great strength and inspiration that receiving

our Lord Jesus Christ as Savior guided by you, was an emotional

event. The hours flew by without my being aware. I could have

desired that they continue forever, but there was no time nor

space. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your human

warmth, for your constant and permanent spiritual strength

brought to bear on my mind and soul.

With great affection,

Manuel A. Noriega

Following another visit in July, 1990, Noriega enrolled in a 16-week Bible correspondence course. At the conclusion of his personal study the former drug lord requested permission of the prison authorities to be baptized in accordance to what he had learned from Matthew 28:19-20.

His request, however, was denied upon the advice of his attorneys.

On September 25, 1992, Brannon wrote to the Honorable William M. Hoeveler, United States District Judge in Miami, pleading the court’s permission to immerse Noriega. "Only in this way can he (Noriega) genuinely show his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-5)."

The former attorney went on to write:

On October 24th, we ask your authority to have a fiberglass

baptistry taken into the court room and for General Manuel A.

Noriega to be immersed in accord with the Holy Scriptures and in

obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sincerely submitted for Your Honor’s favorable consideration.

Clifton W. Brannon

In the meantime, it was necessary to secure a portable baptistry. To whom would they turn? To the same ministry that has for the past 19 years placed more than 530 baptistries in American prisons nationwide. American Rehabilitation Ministries (ARM) not only responded with a communion table baptistry, but also provided two in-depth Spanish Bible correspondence courses for General Noriega’s study. A variety of Spanish DaySpring greeting cards was sent from A.R.M. along with several New Testament Gospel tracts in Spanish.

On October 24, 1992 (United Nations Day!), A.R.M’s baptistry arrived at the back door of the Federal Court House in Miami. A Deputy Marshall helped Brannon and his associates take the baptistry into the courtroom and fill it with water.

Noriega’s bapitsm almost didn’t happen because of his high security status, opposition from the Catholic chaplain and daunting logistical problems.

The baptism was arranged to take place in the courthouse, in an atrium outside the door of one of the courtrooms, using A.R.M.’s Communion Table Baptistry. "That was a first", Brannon said. "We were told this had never taken place in a federal courthouse before."

When the baptistry was filled, the Deputy Marshall brought General Manuel Antonio Noriega into the courtroom to be baptized. Surrounded by 12 guards, Noriega, wearing civilian clothes, took off his jacket and shoes, and got into the baptistry. Brannon preached on the meaning of baptism as Hernandes interpreted, followed by prayer and Scripture reading. Brannon then baptized Noriega in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Brannon says that when Noriega "came up out of the water" you could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room. "Rudy had an accordion, and we all sang Amazing Grace, which reverberated off the marble floor", Brannon said.

"It’s one of those sacred moments," Brannon said. "I could feel God speaking that He was well pleased."

Noriega was allowed to give a brief testimony and be served the Lord’s Supper before being escorted back to his maximum security cell. Here, in part, is the testimony of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the notorious international drug lord and ruthless dictator of Panama:

"Before, Jesus to me was only an image of that which was learned

from Catholicism, an historic being who worked miracles. All was

transformed when on Tuesday, January the 16th, 1990, Dr. Clift

asked me in a telephone conversation, he in Texas and I in a

preventive prison of the court, "Do you know that Jesus loves

you?"

Today, this is what He means to me:

He is the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who

arose from the grave and is at the right hand of God the Father

and who above all things He is my Savior, and has mercy on me, a

sinner."

General Manuel Antonio Noriega has been found guilty of international drug trafficking and sentenced to 40 years in the federal penitentiary.

General Noriega is only one of more than a quarter-million prisoners who have obeyed their Lord in Christian baptism in A.R.M.-donated prison baptistries.

Since the baptism of General Noriega, prison authorities across America have phoned and written A.R.M. headquarters requesting a baptistry for their prisoners too. One chaplain in Alabama said, "We have 65 men now waiting to be baptized." Another chaplain in Louisiana wrote, "We have been on your waiting list for over 9 months, please, we need a baptistry as soon as possible." The chaplain in Attica, New York, phoned to say, "You gave us a baptistry in 1975, but we have used it so much that it is cracked and broken. Please send us a new one."

Tony Ponceti, who led the former dictator in weekly discipleship studies for more than two years said, "Gaining permission to transport A.R.M.’s baptistry into the courthouse was nothing short of a miracle. After Noriega rose out of the water, he had no words to express the joy he sensed."

*

The Right To Bear Arms - In Prison?

Canada's Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether prison inmates should be allowed to carry weapons. Inmate Jason Kerr, 26, argued that he had a right to carry a knife in prison because all the other inmates carried weapons. His knife came to light when another inmate attacked him and Kerr stabbed him to death. Court of Queen's Bench Justice Terry Clackson allowed Kerr's argument, ruling “it would seem that Mr. Kerr had his weapons, much like the world superpowers have their weapons, to deter first strike and defend against it should it become necessary.”

The Alberta Court of Appeal overturned, with Justice Ron Berger ruling such reasoning “is a recipe for anarchy within a prison setting.”

____________

Edmonton Sun

*

The Man In Black

Acts 9:3

The Man in Black has met the Man in White. All the tributes offered to the now-deceased singer/songwriter Johnny Cash have one thing in common: He was just different from other celebrities. And yet, the Hollywood/Nashville axis just can't quite seem to put the finger on what it was that made him stand out in the bright lights of American show business.

Johnny Cash once joked of all the times a fan would say to him, “My father was in prison with you.” Of course, the Man in Black never really served any serious time in jail, but he never could shake the legend of a hardened criminal on the mend. People really seemed to think that he had “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

That's probably because of just how authentic and evocative his songs of prison life were. “Folsom Prison Blues,” for instance, just seems to have been penned by someone really lying on a jailhouse cot listening to a train whistle in the night. “There's probably rich folks eating in a fancy dining car/They're probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars/Well, I know I had it coming/I know I can't be free/But those people keep a'movin, and that's what tortures me.”

The reason the prison imagery seemed real is because, for Cash, it was real. He knew what it was like to be enslaved -- to celebrity, to power, to drugs, to alcohol, to the breaking of marriage vows, and to all the temptations the recording industry can parade before a man. He was a prisoner indeed, but to a penitentiary of his own soul. There was no corpse in Reno but, for Cash, there was the very real guilt of a lifetime of the self-destructive idolatry of the ego.

It was through the quiet friendships with men like Billy Graham that Cash found an alternative to the vanity of shifting celebrity. He found freedom from guilt and the authenticity of truth in a crucified and resurrected Christ. And he immediately identified with another self-obsessed celebrity of another era -- Saul of Tarsus. He even authored a surprisingly good biography of the apostle, with the insight of one who knows what it is like to see the grace of Jesus through the grid of one's own guilt as a “chief of sinners.”

And yet even here Cash was different. He sang at Billy Graham crusades and wrote for evangelical audiences, but he never quite fit in with the saccharine mood of pop evangelicalism. Cash never seemed “perky” enough for Christian television. Nor did he fit with the trivialization of cultural Christianity so persistent in the country music industry, as stars effortlessly moved back and forth between songs about the glories of honky-tonk women and the Old Rugged Cross.

Perhaps this is why Cash, to the day of his death, remained an object of fascination for a youth culture that knows nothing of “I Walk the Line.” Twenty-two-year-old pop sensation Justin Timberlake, beating Cash for a prize at the MTV Music Awards, claimed that there should be a recount.

Cash's Christian life was, to be sure, a mixed bag. And yet, there is something in Cash's authenticity that evangelical Christians would do well to emulate.

While other Christian celebrities tried -- and failed -- to reach youth culture by dressing in heavy-metal get-up or feigning teenage street language, Cash always seemed to connect. He recorded Nine Inch Nails songs lamenting the ultimate futility of pursuing an “empire of dirt” that will come to nothing at death. When other Christian celebrities sought to down-pedal sin in favor of upbeat messages about how much better life is with Jesus, Cash sang about the haunting tyranny of guilt and the certainty of coming judgment. An angst-filled youth culture may not have understood guilt, but they understood pain. And, somehow, they sensed Cash was for real. He didn't sugarcoat or “market” the Gospel like a game show host. Instead, he resonated honestly with human pain and pointed to the climax of history coming in the triumph of Jesus of Nazareth.

One of Cash's final songs was an eerie tune based on the Book of Revelation. His haunting voice sang the question: “The hair on your arms will all stand up/At the terror of each sip and each sup/Will you partake of that last offered cup?/Or disappear into the potter's ground/When the Man comes around.” Cash's young fans -- and his old ones too -- may not have known what he was talking about, but they sensed that he did. They recognized Cash as a sinner like them, but a sinner who mourned the tragedy of his past and found peace in One who bore terrors that make Folsom Prison pale in comparison.

The death of a sinner like that is a rich opportunity for teaching about sin, death and the mercies of an all-forgiving Messiah. As for Cash, he is no longer a celebrity. But he is still singing about sin and redemption, and he has different lyrics. He is singing, with the redeemed of all ages, “you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10, ESV).

And maybe, just maybe, one small segment of the chorus to the Lamb began this morning with one last introduction: “Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.”

_____________

Russell D. Moore is assistant professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

*

Keep Your Chin Up

Acts 4:36

Ernest Gordon recounts an experience from his years as prisoner of the Japanese during World War II. In the Changi Prison for civilian internees at Singapore there was a man whose friend was sentenced to solitary confinement. He asked himself, “What can you do to help him?” The obvious answer was “Nothing.” His friend was locked in a tiny cell in a section of the prison which was so heavily guarded that none could get in.

One day the Methodist Bishop of Singapore saw him trying to cut another prisoner's hair. “Hello, John. I never knew you could cut hair.”

“I can't. It's something I've never done. I'm just learning.”

“Why?”

“My friend is in solitary. He is allowed to have his hair cut once a month. So I thought I'd apply for the job.”

Some time later the Bishop heard that John had been appointed as the barber of those in solitary. He asked him how things were working out now that he could see John once a month.

“Oh, I'd say fair.”

“You can't bring him anything, I know that. But can you speak to him?”

“No.”

“Well, what can you do?”

“This is what I do. While I'm snipping away at his hair, I keep saying to him, 'Please keep your chin up, keep your chin up.’ The guards think this has something to do with the barbering trade, so I'm allowed to say it - and I do, over and over.”

Every church needs encouragers. There may be times when we can't say much more than “keep your chin up,” but we could say that. Will you pledge today to become an encourager? We can never tell when someone is contemplating quitting or giving up when only an encouraging word is needed to motivate him to press on to victory.

__________

By Wilbur Irwin, from the newsletter of the Forest Hill Baptist Church, Jackson, Mississippi, February 16, 1983.

*

Religious Study May Cut Prison Violence

Officials are crediting religious studies with cutting inmate violence at a prison routinely torn by race-based gang attacks.

To date, 440 medium-security inmates at Sierra Conservation Center have participated in the program based on the best-selling book, “The Purpose Driven Life,” by the Rev. Rick Warren.

The participants represent about a third of the unit's 1,200 inmates, about 125 of them serving life sentences.

The book has 40 chapters; participants read one each day, reflecting on and discussing the relevance to their lives. Warren's church in Orange County has donated the books, Bibles, study materials and videos.

“We couldn't go more than two weeks without a lockdown or without one gang attacking another,” said Hector Lozano, who coordinates the prison's substance abuse treatment programs. “This got people talking together, as opposed to having one group charge another group.”

The first 200 inmates completed the program in April 2003.

During the previous year, there were five riots, 103 violent incidents, four staff assaults, 1,226 inmate disciplinary reports and five lockdowns.

In the year since, there was one riot, 67 violent incidents, four staff assaults, 1,067 inmate disciplinary reports and one lockdown.

The religious program “has definitely played a role,” said prison spokesman Lt. Kenny Calhoun. He also credited the prison's staff.

The inmates formed a non-denominational church, Sierra Christian Center, and give sermons in English and Spanish. They set up a table in the exercise yard on what they've designated “holy ground,” where Christians and non-Christians gather to worship.

“It took off like wildfire,” Calhoun said.

Four months ago, the prison spun off a Bible-based 12-step program, also sponsored by Warren's church, to help inmates deal with alcohol and substance abuse; emotional, physical and sexual abuse; and other problems. One hundred inmates are participating. Prison officials are proposing to expand the program.

Sierra Conservation Center's main role is preparing minimum-security inmates for 20 firefighting camps. But the prison, in Jamestown, also houses the medium-security unit, which had been plagued by race-based gang violence.

“The Bible tells us we're supposed to minister in prisons,” Lozano said. “From a strictly prison-management perspective, it's a win-win situation. The inmate feels better, we feel better, and nobody gets hurt.”

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

Confronting Evil: North Korea Freedom Day

In 1992, a North Korean television station aired a show that had a character singing a popular South Korean song. Ji Hae Nam, who was part of the propaganda arm of North Korea's Workers Party, learned the catchy tune. Months later she was overheard singing the song and was arrested. Detained in a prison awaiting trial, she was beaten and sexually abused by the guards. Then she was sentenced to three years of “rehabilitation-through-labor” at a brutal prison camp — all this for singing a South Korean song, or as the charge read, “disrupting the socialist order.”

There are more than 200,000 prisoners in just five of the twelve North Korean Auschwitz-like camps. Conditions at those camps include systematic torture, arbitrary and cruel treatment of prisoners, extreme deprivation and starvation, and back-breaking forced labor that is so dangerous that accidents leading to disfigurement and death are commonplace.

One former prisoner reports, “At the camp, I witnessed public executions, forced labor, and other inhumane atrocities. A new prisoner in the North Korean political prison camps is taught not to consider themselves as human beings. The prisoners cannot complain of beatings or even murders. Even the children are subject to forced labor, and about one-third of them die of malnutrition and heavy labor.”

Meanwhile, the Stalinist regime led by Kim Jong Il keeps itself in power through illegal arms sales, counterfeiting, and narcotics production and trafficking.

In addition, while North Korea receives more food aid than any other nation, more than 4 million North Koreans have starved to death since 1995, including those who have died in the camps. Why? Because food aid is diverted into military stockpiles and into gourmet delicacies, fine wines and liquor, and other luxury items for Kim and members of his elite.

In short, North Korea has what is probably the worst human rights record in the world. Because of the extreme isolation of North Korea, we only guessed at the atrocities until about two years ago. Now as a result of North Korea's economic relationships beyond the Soviet bloc and a large enough group of refugees and escapees, the ugly truth is out.

In response, the Wilberforce Forum became a founding member of the North Korea Freedom Coalition in order “to bring freedom to the North Korean people and to ensure that the human rights component of U.S. and world policy toward North Korea receives priority attention.”

On April 28, 2004, the Coalition will sponsor “North Korea Freedom Day” here in Washington, D.C. This is another example of how Christians need to take the lead in human rights, connecting a biblical understanding of humanity with practical and political efforts to confront intolerable evil.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Visit the website of the North Korea Freedom Coalition for more information on North Korea Freedom Day and other ways you can help. Also see its fact sheet on North Korea.

• Jeff Jacoby, “The ordeal of a North Korean in Canada,” International Herald Tribune (from the Boston Globe), 8 March 2004.

• “Christians under dark reign of Kim Jong Il,” Asia News, 28 February 2004.

• Rich Lowry, “Out of the Dark Age,” National Review Online, 10 September 2003.

• Read the Statement of Principles for U.S.-North Korean Relations signed by Charles Colson, William Bennett, Nicholas Eberstadt, Robert George, Michael Horowitz, and many others.

• Kate Fowler, “Rescue the Perishing, Care for the Dying,” BreakPoint WorldView, January/February 2004.

• Visit BreakPoint's resource and fact page on North Korea for more information.

• Stand Today also provides other ideas for helping persecuted Christians abroad, including North Koreans.

• Nina Shea, In the Lion's Den: Persecuted Christians and What the Western Church Can Do About It (Broadman and Holman, 1997).

• Gary Haugen, The Good News about Injustice (InterVarsity, 1999).

• John Stott, Human Rights and Human Wrongs (Baker Book House, 1999).

__________

*

The Innocent Have To Pay

When suspects are convicted of a crime and, after years in prison, are proven to be innocent, how does society repay them for their incarceration? The United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has an idea of what to do: charge the former prisoners for food and board -- at least 3,000 pounds (US$5,430) per year for the prisoners' “saved living expenses” during their time in prison. A spokesman for the Home Office said the concept “takes into account the range of costs the prisoner might have incurred had they not been imprisoned,” adding, “Morally, this is reasonable and appropriate.” It's not a proposal: the government has already sent bills to some freed prisoners.

A spokesman for the Scottish Miscarriage of Justice Organisation called the program a way to “punish people for having the audacity to be innocent.”

__________

Glasgow Sunday Herald

One Thing Sustained Him In the Hanoi Hilton

November 28, 1965. Captain Howard Rutledge guided his jet toward the Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam. At six hundred miles an hour he broke through the clouds and dropped a pair of 2000 lb. bombs on the target. In over 200 missions in Korea and Vietnam he had never been hit – Until today.

An anti-aircraft shell exploded in the rear of his jet and it dived out of control. Captain Rutledge ejected just in time to see his plane explode beneath him. His troubles were just beginning because his parachute was taking him straight for the middle of a large Vietnamese village. Rutledge managed to steer his chute toward a nearby rice field, but he was still surrounded in only two minutes.

For seven long years this American pilot became a prisoner of war. Five of these years were spent in the "Hanoi Hilton" in complete isolation. Even his family back home didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

In his imprisonment, through torture and starvation, Captain Rutledge clung to the one thing that sustained him – his faith in God. He had never been a strong Christian, and for many years he had drifted away from his Southern Baptist upbringing, but in his time of need, God was there for him. It is this kind of experience that makes a person realize what holds you together and what doesn’t.

Paul wrote 2 Timothy under the same circumstances. For some time he had been held in the Mamertine prison in Rome. The prison itself wasn’t the worst part. He sums up his biggest concerns in three areas – and each of them concern people:

1) Paul was separated from his friends.

2) He was opposed by an enemy.

3) He was unsupported at a critical time when he really needed it.

A Little Bit Longer

In 1996, convicted rapists Allan Wayne McLaurin and Darron Bennalford Anderson were re-sentenced by a jury in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after an appeals court said their original sentences totaling 6,475 years were based on faulty jury instructions. Armed with the proper instructions, the jury then tacked an additional 260 centuries onto the sentences: a total of 21,250 years for McLaurin and 11,250 for Anderson.

________

Daily Oklahoman-AP, April 3, 1996

*

Fallen Politician Becomes Born Again

Job 36:18

James Treffinger was touted as one of the brightest politicians in New Jersey. In college he won a Fulbright scholarship. He began as a councilman and mayor of Verona, then advanced to the executive of large Essex County. He was in line to become the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. “I had a holier-than-thou belief that people really did need someone like me to fight for them,” said Treffinger, who ran as a Republican bent on reform.

His real motivation was fame, which he called his addiction. “I became a workaholic enthralled with politics,” he said. He said he ignored his family's pleas to bow out of politics. “I had a delusional belief that my growing fame would somehow make my family and friends proud.”

Then federal authorities raided his office. In May 2003, Treffinger pleaded guilty to obstructing an FBI investigation into his dealings with a sewer-repair firm that had been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in no-bid county contracts. He admitted arranging for his aides to help conceal $10,000 in campaign contributions from the company.

Although he was raised a Roman Catholic and even taught Sunday School in the church, under his wife’s influence he began attending Brookdale Baptist Church. He became close friends with the pastor and became born again on October 17, 2002. Eleven days later, however, Treffinger was arrested outside his house and handcuffed by federal authorities.

“Prison is an awful experience, it's supposed to be” said the 54-year-old Treffinger. He was released from the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institute in Minersville, Pennsylvania, just before the Christmas holidays after completing a 10 1/2-month sentence.

Though he never feared for his physical safety, Treffinger said he “feared for my stability, my strength and, at times, my sanity.” One of the worst parts, he said, was never being called by name. In prison, he was known simply as inmate 2509005. “To have a number replace your name was unnerving,” he said.

Since his religious conversion, he realized “my jail cell was my ego.” In prison he taught high school classes and organized Bible classes and evangelized the prison population. Treffinger said sixteen of his students received their diplomas and four other men became Christians.

The church has become a lifeline for Treffinger, who lost his license to practice law due to his crime. After his release from prison, he was hired by the church as administrator of its elementary school. One year to the day after he began his prison sentence, in his first public appearance after his release, he stood in the pulpit of the church and asked for the congregation’s forgiveness. He compared himself to the Prodigal Son who is welcomed back by his father despite his wanton behavior. He told them he is at peace with himself because of his new relationship with God.

Wrenching Good Out of Evil: the Story of Nien Cheng

On the evening of August 30, 1966, Nien Cheng sat alone in her Shanghai home, reading. Toward midnight, she heard a truck stop in front of her house. Moments later a gang of Red Guards burst through her front door. The leader stepped up. “We are the Red Guards. We have come to take revolutionary action against you!” he said.

The gang proceeded to ransack Cheng's home. Cheng — a wealthy woman with ties to England — was thrown in prison; her daughter was also taken from her. She was accused by the Communist government of spying for the British. The charge was false — but powerful people were about to make her a sacrificial lamb, somebody who would discredit Chairman Mao's opponents.

At a kangaroo court, the prosecutor demanded that Cheng confess. She was outraged. “I have never done anything against the Chinese people and governments,” she declared.

Cheng was taken back to prison. It was the beginning of seven years of torture, illness, and endless efforts to make her confess. But Cheng resolved never to make a false confession. Although raised Buddhist, she had become a Christian as a teenager. During her years behind bars, she later wrote, “I was not afraid. I believed in a just and merciful God, and I thought he would lead me out of the abyss.”

As I note in my new book, The Good Life, Cheng's captors were astounded at her ability to resist. Here she was, the poster child of the decadent capitalists; they were certain that someone who enjoyed her privileges would crumble once the material props of her old life were removed.

But the measure of Cheng's life was not found in what she owned. During her suffering, one thing kept her sane: her belief in the truth. Through committing herself to the truth, she never lost her humanity — and she remained unaffected by the appalling changes in her circumstances.

Cheng's embrace of the truth also allowed her to envision that justice would eventually prevail, and that good could come out of this evil. In this, Cheng was fortified, of course, by her Christian faith. Alone among the world's great religions, Christianity gives value and meaning to evil and suffering. British novelist Dorothy Sayers captured the essence of this. Christianity, she wrote “affirms ... that perfection is attained through the active and positive effort to wrench a real good out of a real evil.” This is the essence of what Christians call redemption, and it underscores another truth: We have to understand the evil in ourselves before we can truly embrace the good in life.

In 1973, Cheng was finally released and later immigrated to America. I had the privilege of hosting a dinner that Prison Fellowship gave in her honor in 1987.

Cheng's life perfectly illustrates the fact that the good life is not conferred by wealth or possessions. Just as important, it cannot be denied even in the midst of horrific adversity. In fact, as I discovered in my life, we often find true meaning and purpose in deprivation, when all the distractions of modern life are stripped away.

The good life, you see, is realized in our ability to hold fast to the truth — and the human dignity that rests upon it.

________

*

100 Sermon Illustrations on Prison