Prison Ministry

Michael Wakefield, our General Manager, had been considering for some time how our CRMF staff could bless some other people at Christmas time. One morning after devotion (Lotu) he suggested we might like to visit the local prison, so it was arranged. We waited patiently for the day to arrive, for me personally, I was very excited about the visit, because I had never visited a prison camp in my own country before. The visit was coordinated with the Evangelical Brotherhood Church prisons ministry. Pastor Paul Dinigiso, the pastor in charge of the ministry informed us of the rules of the prison camp and what we could take with us, and what we could not. CRMF had bought three cartons of bar soap, to be given to the prisoners as Christmas presents and had also contributed to buying food and meat which would be cooked up as an early Christmas meal. By 12:30pm, we left the workshop and headed out of town for the Bihute prison camp, which is close to the Asaro River.

When we arrived there, we started to divide up the food and soap for the male and female prisoners. Our female staff took the share for the female prisoners to the ladies prison camp up on the hill and we prepared what we needed for the men. As we started to go through the main gate, the inmates rushed out of their cubicles to greet us as we brought the food stuff and presents to their mess. Pastor Peter introduced us to the prisoners and the meal was opened in prayer and a couple of songs lead by one of the prison leaders. The inmates lined up with their cups and plates and our staff and some of the ladies from EBC distributed the meat, kau kau (sweet potato), kumu (greens) with a gift of soap to them. Half way through, Pastor Peter and I had to rush back to town to get more food, because we had underestimated how much we would need.

After the meal was finished, they thanked us for what we had done for them – it meant a lot to them to have people from the community come and bless them at Christmas time. During this time, one of the prison leaders shared something with us that broke everyone’s hearts. With tears in his eyes, he told us how this was the first time in many years that they had women there to help serve a meal – usually it was the male guards that would bring the food. This is very significant in our country, because it is always our mothers who love us and care for us, so to have the EBC ladies there was like an extra Christmas present to a lot of the men. After all of the thank you speeches were made, one of our staff members, brother Linus, finished the afternoon off with prayer. Please uphold the inmates of Bihute prison in your prayers. Some of them are waiting for their hearings, while others have been convicted for months or even years. Pray that they will come to know Christ and be saved and through following Him become good citizens of their country.