LATVIAN PRISON

Saturday morning the real mission trip began.  We went to one of Latvia's maximum security prisons. It houses about 600 inmates, most of whom are serving sentences of 30 years to life and only allowed out of their tiny prison cells for one hour a day.  Yanis is the chaplain and has been serving as a spiritual shepherd in that prison for 21 years (the first ten years on a volutnary basis).  Yanis is also a pastor of a local Pentecostal Church.  He is a humble servant who is an inspiration to me and has impacted thousands of lives. 

I preached to about 50 inmates who had gathered in the makeshift worship hall.  The conditions are bleak, to say the least.  I cannot even begin to imagine the horror of living in such a place.  There is no color -- everything is a dull gray or a dingy, dirty white.  The living conditions are difficult to describe. There is little hope for most in this place ... none for some.  I felt like I had nothing to say to these men.  I couldn't possibly relate to their pain.  Words failed me (and I'm usually pretty good with words).  I stumbled through an evangelistic sermon on John 3:16.  But everywhere I turned I felt like my words rang hollow.  In the end, all I could offer them was Jesus ... but Jesus isn't going to get them out of prison (at least not this prison).

After the worship service one of the inmates grabbed the young man who had interpreted my sermon and dragged him my way to ask me a question.  He said that he was at the end of a 35 year sentence for double homicide. The man was now 61 years old (each inmate had a name tag with their name and date of birth, clearly printed).  It's hard to tell age in this place.  The man leading the music was born in 1963 (which makes him two years my junior) and he looked to be at least sixty.  Anyway, the man wanted to know if God could really forgive him as I claimed in the sermon.  "I have killed two peope," he said.  "I have done something terrible," he reiterated.  "Can God really forgive me for that?"  I assured him that God could forgive any sin, and that, in fact, he already had."  The man gave me an incredulous look as he slowly pondered my claim.  "But my sin is a big one," he held up two fingers, "I killed two people," he repeated thinking perhaps that I had not heard correctly through the translator.  I shook my head, "It doesn't matter ... if God cannot forgive you then he cannot forgive me, either.  There is no little sin or big sin in God's eyes -- God forgives you." He wanted to believe it but it's not easy to believe.  It's hard for me to believe too.  I can't imagine what he must be going through. After a long pause a broad smile came across his face.  He shook my hand vigorously, said, "thank you," several times, and then slipped away into the bleak gray of his prison walls.

As the last prison door slammed behind me and I found myself outside, once again, under a dreary Latvian sky, I was still thinking about that man.  I threw up a quick prayer for him and couldn't help wondering if at least one prison door had opened for him. I hope so.
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