I want to say up front that I am going to be as sensitive as possible and try to make sure everything I say here is respectful to the country I live and work in. There are lots of differences in this culture that I might notice or bring up, but different is just that, different. I'll also be cautious with the words I use. I'm not attempting to be irritating of hide things from you, just trying to be discreet.
Most of you are probably aware of the visit I made yesterday to the slammer. I went with 23 wonderful ladies that are involved in our local Baptist churches and 3 of my colleagues. Our women have the theme of LOVE for their national day of prayer study November 1 and they decided to do a project to demonstrate that love is more about actions than words. Our women collected food and personal items to take in to the women and children that are detained in the slammer. Somehow or another, I was asked to present a gospel message while we were there. I was able to get a grant of $1200 to provide some gifts for orphans that are also detained there. I think those are all of the background details you need to understand what we did.
The whole week was a long one. In addition to my normal duties, I needed to spend some time gathering things to take to the prison. Our vehicle has been in the shop for a couple of weeks, so hauling the load of goods was difficult. I did a lot of paperwork for the grant and did a little bit of prep work (which mostly consisted of running around in circles and wearing myself out), then I got smart and grabbed my best buddy Viviane and my trusty colleague, Jen, and we headed out to start shopping in earnest. A bad cold fogged up my thinking for the week and trying to do everything "just so" to ensure staying true to what was written up for the grant made me a little crazy. I was so glad to have Jen and Viviane there with me to keep me on the right track. I scribbled junk all over every scrap of paper I owned as we figured, refigured and revised the plan. We had young men following us all over this warehouse looking building that sells things in bulk. It was incredibly amusing to say, I would like 13 cases of this or 5 cases of that and watch them run off to make it happen. When we finally ended our shopping spree, we had a mountain of goods to load and no vehicle.
Our little entourage headed off to find us some taxis to load and made an 8 man line to throw things down to load it all up. Too bad we didn't have those 8 men a few minutes later when we had to haul all of those goods up to the second floor of the church where the goodies were being packaged to take to the slammer. WHEW! I'm glad that's over.
I really meant to drop those goods off and walk away. I'd already gone over what I was going to do. Even Viviane had given me a pep talk before we arrived, "We are going to drop this stuff off and leave," she said. Well, neither of us had walked more than a block when we both came to the conclusion that we couldn't leave. Our Baptist women's president was working all alone to make between 300 and 400 bags. We grabbed a quick lunch on the street and went right back. I called in some reinforcements and before long we were throwing around bags of rice and spaghetti, soap and toothpaste as we all packed bags. One of the highlights of the day was when we were all sitting around a table trying to pour big bags of salt into little individual bags.
When the big day finally arrived we all met out front of the slammer. We had to wear a special tshirt to show who we were with because the residents just wear street clothes. This was my very first visit to such an establishment, so the whole thing was a big learning experience. I'll have to say that I got a little nervous when we were all asked to remove our necklaces just before going in so that they wouldn't be "ripped off of us". The little frisking incidents that soon followed stole the courage of our youngest teammate. I was negotiating the loss of Jen's ID while I was being searched and was fairly oblivious to what was going on as I was trying to convince a slightly irritated guard not to throw her ID into a cardboard box. I lost the argument, but was saved a little trauma from frisking as I was totally involved in my own argument. Within moments, I saw the traumatized face of my youngest charge, as she muttered to herself, "I can't believe she did that." I suppose it is good to know they are thorough. :)
We went on to the church service where we had a fairly normal time with those that gathered. I managed to blunder through what I had prepared as schedules were changed and microphones howled each time I tried to approach my notes. After the second attempt to look at them, I decided to wing it!!! After seeing some of our slammers on TV, I was a little surprised at our freedom and everyone else's to move around. We walked through the recreation yard which must be where they come and go as they please. We went near the housing, but never inside. We passed out gifts to the leaders of the women's groups in an outdoor pavilion. They weren't exactly well behaved kinds of ladies, but that is sort of what I expected.
The time I was most worried, aside from when we were brushing shoulders with the men in their recreation yard, was when we were in the boy's section. They were slightly unruly and it seemed that order was kept by the blocks of wood and electrical cords that seemed to be used as switches in the hands of some of the men with us. I never was sure if they were guards or what. That was an area that our president was able to speak for a few minutes about why we were there and how we hoped that our gift would show them our love and the love of Christ. Shortly after we passed out their gifts, mass chaos ensued, I led the line headed for the gates. I did push my youngest charge out of the inner gate first, but then picked up my pace in my search for freedom. I figured that once we were all out of immediate danger, it was every woman for herself! ;)
All in all, it was a good learning experience. The gospel was shared a couple of times, that is certain. I don't know if we'll ever know what any of that came to.
I appreciate all of you that prayed for us. It meant a lot to know that you were standing in the gap.
With love,
Heather
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