Dear Ministry Friends,
This is a request for prayer. Seven of us will be leaving in the morning on a mission trip to Guyana to join with six Guyanese to work in LUSIGNAN PRISON for a week. We missed our yearly trip last summer because of Covid and are very thankful that God has worked it out for us to go now even though we will have limitations. We will not be allowed to gather groups of children so all our work will be in the prison where we know the Officer in Charge and he has given us special permission.
SATURDAY—Please pray for ease of travel and no problems with all our documentation concerning our Covid tests and our luggage allowance. Megan found us humanitarian tickets that allow us to each check two free 50 pound bags so that means 700 pounds of clothes for the villages that I won’t have to pay to ship. Our plane arrives at 10:36 pm and then there is immigration and customs and being retested with rapid Covid tests. Then an hour drive to the hotel.
SUNDAY—We will spend some time getting to know those on the team who are new and then have our own worship service. We will rest and make bracelets. Everyday we give each prisoner a bracelet that has five beads on it that represent the plan of salvation so we can refer to it when we talk to them.
Black Bead- Represents the sin in our lives which we can’t get rid of on our own no matter how good we are.
Red Bead-Represents Jesus’ blood that He shed on the cross to pay the price for the sins of the world. Those who accept Him as Savior and receive the free gift of forgiveness are born into God’s family.
White Bead-Represents being clean in God’s sight. If we accept Jesus’ free gift and are forgiven, our sins are gone and God sees us as clean.
Yellow Bead—Represents the streets of gold in Heaven. That is where we will spend eternity if we have had our sins forgiven and are deemed clean by God.
Green Bead—Represents growth as a new believer. Just as grass and leaves are green and grow, we must grow as Christians so we can serve and tell others. We do that by studying the Bible, praying, hearing the Scriptures taught, encouraging other believers and sharing what happened to you with others who need to ask Jesus to be their Savior.
MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY—We will have the same schedule each day. We will have team devotionals and work at the prison from 8:30-11:30. I want to give you a word picture of what it is like and what we will be doing. Several years ago, the large prison in Georgetown burned to the ground and the large population of prisoners were spread around to the other prisons but most of the overflow were taken to Lusignan which usually housed about 200 men. Now there are 800. Six hundred of them are in what they call the holding bay which was built out in a field. There is a roof, back wall and side walls built in a horseshoe. Across the front and dividing the cells is wire fencing, so one side is open to the elements. We will rent plastic chairs and set them up in the middle of the horseshoe where each day, a group of the men will be brought out to sit for the service. All the others will hear it from their cells and have their turn another day.
We will have worship songs, special music and a sermon. We love to teach these men that even though they are incarcerated, they can be spiritually free if they accept Jesus as their Savior and ask for his forgiveness and repent of their sins to have a new life as a part of God’s family. After the service, each person on our team will sit across from a chair with a basin filled with water in front of us. They will bring the prisoners one at a time to sit with us and have his feet washed. We will have one on one conversations with them, answering questions they have about what they heard in the sermon and just listening to their hearts and encouraging them. This is where we use the bracelets to make the plan of salvation very simple for them. Some will have prayed the prayer asking for forgiveness during the service and others will want to do it with us if they make that decision after more discussion. Some aren’t interested and we respect that and just pray for them and show them that we care. We will then give each one new flip flops, toothbrushes and toothpaste and a Bible that holds a tract that again explains the plan of salvation.
For those who accept Jesus and want to be baptized, we use a baby pool and have a time of baptism each day. We carefully explain that baptism doesn’t save anyone but is an outward symbol of what has already happened in their heart; when they prayed the prayer to accept Jesus and were forgiven, their sins were buried and they were raised to walk in their new life.
Each afternoon, after lunch, we will have some rest time, make more bracelets and place the tracts in the Bibles. We will have team time where we share testimonies, pray and share the events of the day. We will have dinner and play games or just visit.
SATURDAY—Our flight out is very early and we will look forward to getting back and sharing with you how God blessed the trip and changed lives. Thank you for praying for us.
