Prison Ministry

You know you're deep enough into the forest when your friends on the other side of the van say they just saw a monkey out the window.

 

Just where were we going, driving out here in the bush, navigating rutty red roads through the monkey-inhabited rural hills of Southern Uganda all day? To prisons. That's where.

 

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It was 4:00 in the morning when Alyssa and I hiked the winding path to the church here by flashlight--torch I mean--and climbed into the back of a white van.

A team of Bible School students filed in after us, and we pulled out into the night. Thus we drove along under the stars for 2 1/2 hours, watching the buildings of Uganda's urban scene slowly giving way to the dark forms of banana trees and unlit hills in the rural scene.

We weren't allowed to take photos of the actual prison,
but this is the landscape going into the compound.

Some of the Ugandan students began to lead the van in worship songs, which was wonderful when the singing could actually be heard over the rattling of the van on the bumpy roads!

We pulled into the first prison farm at dawn. "We're going down there?" Alyssa asked when we popped our heads through a concrete doorway in a field and beheld the goings-on below. About 40 men dressed in bright yellow shorts and tunics sat on the dirt ground at the bottom of a stairway, grinning up at us and clapping in unison.

A village scene

Making our way down the stairs, we stood facing them to sing a couple of worship songs. (In Lugandan, of course, accompanied by a goat skin drum. Fur and all.) Then three of us gave five-minute addresses, including a testimony or scripture. A designated preacher then spoke a longer message, after which another person gave an altar call.





Usually a nurse would administer medical treatment to inmates in need at this time, but no nurses had come with us. Someone spoke a prayer of healing instead. Finally, the men lined up to receive soap the team had brought. And that was that!


While the main program had been going on, another team member had been training two inmates to serve as pastors to their fellow prisoners. By the looks of things, about 22 men stepped forward to join the new church in the prison today!

 







The next time the van stopped, we pulled into a village to buy “rolexes”—breakfast wraps. A group of children rushed up to the van as soon as we got out, so I pulled out my coloured string. Soon a whole crowd of kids had accumulated! The next twenty to thirty minutes were a blast. It seemed that every time you turned around you ran into a pile of little hands thrust into the air to high-five, shake hands, play clapping games, or get tangled up in the string. We had so much fun!



As we left, one of the Ugandan students said that the kids would run home and tell their parents, “We have seen Muzungus!”(Muh-ZOON-goos—white people!)

 


Many novel scenes passed by outside the van windows as we drove through these different villages. At one point we looked out and saw a man walking past us, dragging a fresh cow head behind him. Imagine the stir such a sight would cause if it were transported to a street in urban Canada! Yet in this dusty village context, it seemed natural enough.

 

Sometime later the van pulled into the next prison area. This time the inmates came to us, leaving their work in the fields to sit on the ground and listen to the teaching in the shade of a large tree. The program followed much the same as the last one. In the foreground, a few chickens wandered about among the ankles of the speakers and listeners. In the background, armed guards stood and listened. Behind them stood a couple of bizarre looking ducks (yes, ducks), and beyond them stretched a great hill flanked with a thatch hut.

By the time we had navigated back through the hills and into home base, we had been gone for twelve hours! Nothing went awry, and we were protected all day to bring news of freedom to the captives in the jungle. Thank you for your prayers!