prision ministry

As February comes to an end I realize that I am halfway through my time here and things just now seem to be getting busy. I am teaching English 3 hours a week at the Colegio Menno Americano school to the primary level. I teach levels Pre first grade to second grade. It is quite challenging as I have very energetic students. I also am continuing to work with the rest of my team to organize the school library which has become a bigger project then we anticipated. I am also contimue to go twice a week to another town called Anapoima to work with the poorer communities there.

I got involved in the prison ministry after my host dad (who is the pastor at the La Mesa Mennonite Church) came home after one of his weekly visits to the jail and mentioned that there is a North American inmate there. He then told me that this person does not speak much Spanish and would be interested in someone who spoke English to come and talk to him. So after much thought about who he was going to ask, my host dad decided to ask me. Of course I responded with a yes. So once every week ( on Thursdays) I am accompanying a group of men and women to an all mens jail. We have a time of worship and then a lesson and some time to talk individually with the inmates. During this time another women accompanies me as I share the gospel with the North American inmate in English. After some time of sharing I then pray for him. I am there for an hour and a half each Thursday. The group of people that go include a pastor from Bogota as well as some members from his church, my host dad, some people from my church and myself.

Being a female in an all mens prison is a challenge in itself. When I first entered the jail I was nervous because I had never done anything like that before. However I soon relaxed and was able to interact with the inmates. As I listened to the story of the North American inmate I realized that he knew quite alot about Christianity as he had grown up in a Catholic School. The more we talked the more he told me his story, he admitted that he needed to change his life but did not know where, when or how he was going to accomplish that change. A highlight was getting to meet him and sharing the truth in English. One of the biggest things I have learned through this is that prison inmates are not bad people but rather people who have made bad choices in life and are recieving the consequences of their actions.