Testify

I had not witnessed anything like it in nine years of imprisonment, ten different camps and chapel programs.

Thursday night, the "Jesus Freaks X 3" ministry held their monthly service in the Polk C.I. chapel. Heidi, a slight and attractive young woman with yards of long, curly, blond hair and tattoos, began this ministry after she became a Born Again Christian several years ago. She told us her story, a long history of drug and alcohol abuse culminating in a spur of the moment trip to Japan. Once overseas and broke, she was forced into the degradation of prostitution. Visiting U.S. Marines, thankfully, found her there and, after learning her story, rescued her and brought her back to Seattle. However, her substance abuse didn't end then.

Heidi met Mike, a man caught up in the same destructive lifestyle. They somehow stayed together fifteen years and were blessed with a little girl. Heidi began to attend a local church, once they moved to Florida, and gave her life to Jesus. She convinced Mike to attend also, and he became a Christian after his daughter told him one day, "Jesus doesn't want you to live like this, Daddy!"

Heidi explained that she received a calling to minister to the imprisoned--that the terrors she had experienced and was delivered from opened her eyes to how many people could end up in prison. She now brings the love and joy of the Lord's salvation to the incarcerated, trusting the Holy Spirit to make a way and to prepare a worship service.

Thursday night, once again, she was trusting the Lord to make things happen. After the prison choir sang several wonderful songs they had written, one inmate stood up and proceded to the podium. He had volunteered to give his testimony.

You could tell that something had profoundly moved and humbled him. He bowed his head and spoke slowly while unfolding several sheets of notebook paper, the microphone concealing much of his face. He began by stating that the Lord told him to give his testimony "the first chance he got" several days ago, and kept him up through the night to write it down, a testimony which he now read in his own words.

He told a terrible story of physical and sexual abuse that had begun when he was three years old. After his alcoholic and abusive father abandoned his family in Chicago when the boy was young, various people abused him for many years. He began to drink and use drugs to escape the pain he felt, pain from activities he did not enjoy but was forced into and later pursued as a substitute for love. He had never been shown love; these twisted attentions were all that he knew. Still, something was terribly wrong and the thought filled him with rage.

He ran away and prostituted himself as a teenager for money to buy drugs and alcohol to suppress the rejection and self-hatred he felt, his fear and fury and anger at God for allowing his life. This reservoir of dammed-up wrath broke when he was told to leave one place where he was staying. He tied up the person he had been staying with and proceded to torture and strangle him to death.

Prison did not change his behavior. "The lock" was just a convenient place to continue his self-abuse: drugging, inflicting and receiving pain. He learned he was HIV positive, a wasted life and hopeless case.

All the while, his mother had been praying for him. She told him that his brothers both had had AIDS, but before they died, they had become Christians and had also prayed for his salvation.

No one in that chapel of hardened men made a sound.

The inmate began to cry. Others cried, also. Some voiced words of encouragement to him and praised the Lord.

This was a very unusual occurrance in prison. No one purposely exhibits any sign of weakness or vulnerbility for any reason. No one is supposed to know too much about you personally in case it could be used against you. This inmate had bared his soul, his all, before all of us for the sake of our souls, and he gave the Lord complete credit for his courage and purpose. He committed the rest of his days to service to the Lord for what He had done for him and his family. He explained:

Love Personified had met him and shown him the love he had never known. Jesus had taken the filth of his life to His cross and washed it all away with the Holy Blood of His sacrifice, coming into his heart to live. And now, no matter what happens, he knows that one day he will join his mother and brothers to live in a place of love and joy without pain or regret forever. Amen.

The entire congregation of inmates spontaneously sprang to their feet and gave this courageous man a thunderous, standing ovation that went on for five minutes, shouting praises to the Worker of Miracles.


J. Wallace