Dec. 23

Ministry Partners,

Thank you everyone for praying for me concerning me not being able to sleep. Your prayers were answered in a big way last night as I slept from 11:30 until 6 AM this morning with only getting up one time. I remembered during the night hearing the rain start and it was still raining when I awoke. I sent up a prayer right away and ask God to hold the rain for the rest of the day, as I knew I would be speaking outside to a large men’s prison and then the companion women’s prison that is on the same grounds but in their own facility.

We had an early breakfast and I, for my first time ever, had chicken wings, pork and beans (no pork) toast, juice and African tea. The chicken wings were fixed almost like a stir-fry with tiny onions and green bell peppers and they were actually very delicious, just a very unusual breakfast. Of course, I had the pineapple, it’s ever so delicious here.

We were on the road just a few minutes after 8 AM and it was still sprinkling as we left the hotel. When we faster thought they arrived at the men’s prison an hour and a half later it had stopped raining. But of course the grounds were still muddy. I have to tell you the Deputy OC was only 31 years old, a very very handsome young man and he told us that he had only worked for Prison Services for four years, which told me that he was quite educated and his portfolio must have been exceptional to be in that position after only working there for years. He was ever so gracious and kind to us, I liked him instantly. He did not come across as rough or tough in a bad way.

But I will have to tell you that after entering 197 other facilities and some maximum-security like this one it has never ever taken us so long to actually enter the prison. It would have been nice if the OC would have been able to be with us but he turned us over to one of the guards so I am not sure if that is why it took so long. It was clear they had never seen a microphone headset as they pulled ours out, from my headset past her to the batteries and looked at everything as if they were looking for a bomb. The whole process with them took two hours and I was concerned as it was going to make us late for her second prison today, which was at the adjoining women’s prison. 

There were about 1,500 of the1,750 there who came to hear me speak and the responses in salvation, the forgiveness prayer, and apologizing were many and a wonderful thing to see. One prison pastor told us that he had actually heard me speak before a number of years ago but today the whole message on forgiveness had impacted his heart. All I can say is all praise Jesus.

Before leaving, the Deputy OC allowed me to have my photo taken with him. It has been disappointing to not be able to take photos in the prisons where we have been so far but we have not received that letter from Deputy Commissioner Apollo to take them like we did last year. Please pray that we would receive that letter within the next couple of days.

Then we went to the women’s area and again I found a gracious OC, she was far gentler looking in person than the photo of her in her uniform that hung on the wall behind her desk. She said not all of the women were available, as some of them had left to go cut grass for their cows. Since there are children here with their mothers it’s a great thing that they have cows for fresh milk for the older children. Thank you to the Canby Foursquare crochet group as I was able to distribute some of their donated caps to the children today along with some very small boys and girls socks that I had purchased from Walmart. I can’t tell you how very pleased the mothers were to get these new gift for their children.

We were told we had to be finished by 4 o’clock as they would be counting the prisoners at that time and we would need to leave. Not quite sure how we cut our program back to fit one hour and 15 minutes but it generally takes from 2 ½ to 3 hours but the Lord help me do that and we still took them through every portion of our Crusade. It was great to be with them today.

When we do drive the dusty dry roads here we see many like the elderly man just trying to make a living but where there was dust today there was mud. We knew the drive home with take some time with the traffic but didn’t think it would take as long as it did, two hours.

Aaron decided he wanted to try and hamburger tonight for dinner so although I was gonna have something else I said that I just make it easy and I’d have a hamburger to, again. I asked him if I could talk to the cook who came to the kitchen door, he was a young very nice man. I explain how to put the cheese on the hamburger just as the meat finished cooking so it would just barely melt but not melt so much you would run off and then that the bacon need to be cooked until it was crisp, not soft and lymph like it had been boiled. We told them that we would be back at seven if they could please have it ready. While everyone was doing paperwork in their rooms the time clicked away before we knew it was almost 7:30. I thought our hamburgers would be very cold by the time we got there but when we arrived hamburgers were not ready and we waited for about 15 minutes until they brought only one burger.   Tomorrow we will all order something different.

Well, it's time to get ministry information off to Alfred who is already working on IRM's daily ministry report for the Commissioners and then for me to shower and off to bed. It is 9PM but the music is still going strong outside. I'm praying I will have another 6 hours of sleep tonight, two nights of good sleep in a row would be wonderful.

I realize I keep asking you to pray for us but we fell and see the answers here. THANK YOU!

I am sorry I am not posting more fun photos but my compute is having issues and the internet here is sparse to nil and tonight's photo took over 30min to load. I will keep trying to do all I can to keep you informed.

That none would be lost,

Arlene