"Aren't you afraid?"

Hello family and friends - Gary here.

People often ask us, "Aren't you afraid?"  I am apt to reply, not without thinking, but genuinely comforted by the fact that we are only in the prisons because that is where God has almost irresistibly directed us. I answer, "No" and I feel that way while doing prison ministry both here in Ohio when we are home and while we are in Latin America. 

That said, we are not unaware of the possibility of dangers in the Latin American prisons.  You might have seen a recent post here about the Women Prison in Tamara, Honduras that we visited during our February/March trip.  Just up the street from that prison is the National Penitentiary for Men in Tamara. There was a report of trouble  reported by Catherine Shoichet at CNN in August of 2013. 

"After 15 people were injured and three people were killed after clashes at a National Penitentiary prison in Tamara, Honduras, on Saturday.  Honduras' president said he was sending in troops to take over.  In a written statement, his office said that the government has taken steps to disarm prisoners and instituted other security measures at prisons nationwide.  But they haven't been able to stop the "criminal reign" within prisons," the statement said.

At another prison in San Pedro Sula, it is reported, "Internal control of the prisons has been ceded into the hands of the prisoners themselves" per the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They claim that the situation has spread through all 24 of the nation's prisons to one degree or another and is one of the most serious problems the country faces.

So..... there are dangers, but our local volunteers are aware of the problems, and had been able to resolve the issue by selecting those prisons where the harvest is ripe and those incarcerated are seeking.  We have not been in either of the two prison mentioned, but we have been at the National  Women's Prison in Tamara.

One of our second tier volunteer leaders and his wife  have experienced a problem in one of the prisons about an hour and a half from Tegucigalpa  where he and his wife were threatened with harm by an inmate if they didn't start bringing him in money for admission to the prison.  Operations at that prison have temporarily been suspended until the issue is resolved.  God will prevail and we must wait upon his timing. 

At the recent KAIROS event at Trumbull Correctional in Warren, OH, I spoke on Christian Action. One of my main points was that no matter what you do, the safest and best place to be is "smack dab in the middle of God's will for your life."  Diane and I think maybe we have identified that place and that is why we do what we do.  I acknowledge that four years ago, I would have thought that anyone that did this was insane, but that transformation is yet another sign of who is in control.

Blessings,

Gary