My heart has repented for the past two weeks. For a sin of omission that I was unaware I had committed. Several weeks ago, the first phone call came from T. J., a woman in Ohio who was an inmate for ten months in our local Jail. The call was not pleasant. Her tone was demanding, a reminder that she had lived outside society’s norms. She named names of women who were still at the jail and she wanted action. She gave me a detailed list of their needs including hygiene kits, sweat pants and T-shirts. When I called our local jailer, he assured me that two churches were already providing hygiene kits, so I gave the list of their other needs to our WMU leader. I planned to attend the next WMU meeting and encourage the group to purchase the needed items for the women in the jail.
But T. J. kept calling me weekly. "Have you started a ministry for the women in the jail yet?" she asked. After a few of these calls, I began to feel defensive. "I have done what I can do, so why does she keep calling me?" Several weeks later, I came home from a two-day trip with my husband to find another message on my answering machine from T. J. "I just called to see if you have done anything about the women yet. Please call me back," she said quietly.
That time, I stopped to ask God what He wanted me to do. In fact, I prayed for four days before I returned T. J.’s call. The Lord told me to ask her what she really wanted, and I did. As I talked with T. J., I kept asking until I found the answer to what women in jail really need. Love and acceptance.
The next Sunday after church, instead of enjoying a leisurely lunch with my husband and friends at our favorite restaurant, I dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt and went to our church’s jail ministry service for the first time. For two years, our pastor and two lay preachers from a church nearby had taken turns going to the jail to preach on Sunday afternoons. They held one service for the women and one for the men. Inmates who accepted Christ were brought to the church once a month for baptism. I even attended one of the baptismal services and watched as the prisoners were brought in chains. The chains were removed just long enough for them to pass through the baptistery. Later, the inmates stood together at the front of the church while their families, our pastor, and a few church members embraced them.
Yet I did not understand the reality of their situation until I passed through four sets of locked doors to attend the women’s jail services. The jail was so crowded that we met outside in the exercise yard. Pam, a woman from our church who had attended the services before, sat beside me on the hard concrete surface inside a steel fence in nearly 100 degree heat. After we sang several hymns, seven of the twelve women inmates gathered together and sang "Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord."
Bro. Ray, a former drug dealer, preached a powerful message. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you," he said. "Eyes and hearts are searching for love, for answers. They are searching for God," he said. He played an invitation on a boom box. The women listened but made no moves. Before we left, I hugged each one of them and apologized that I had never attended the jail service. I promised them I would be back and told them we were working to begin a women’s ministry. They smiled.
To be continued...
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