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| About 1/5th of the total print run. |
Well, it has been 2 months since I was given the reigns of the Heart4God prison ministry and it has not quite been a smooth ride so far. I managed to get one round of newsletters out to 150+ inmates within a couple of weeks and that was a good feeling. I had to manually print labels on paper and glue them to the newsletters which was not the most preferable way to do it by far however, the job got done with a bit of help from Joseph who helped me stamp and sticker them.
It was an enlightening experience, one wrought with many mixed feelings. The first task I was faced with was updating the addresses and verifying that inmates were still in the system. This meant I needed to look up every contact manually through various online search websites. It was very time-consuming but rewarding in one particular way - I essentially got to look each inmate "in the eye" so-to-speak, at least, I got to see a glimpse of who the people were I was reaching out to. There were many violent felons on the list. It was somewhat difficult for me to look at their pictures for personal reasons. You see, I have a half-brother who is a habitual and unrepentant felon. Our past is rocky and I have never had to deal with any other hardened criminals like him so looking at these faces was a lot like looking my brother in the face. Now I am reaching out to hundreds of convicted felons who are hungry for truth, at least I can say some of them are. Many may be simply curious but it is not my place to question how Yahweh will work on them. If they are seeking then I am serving.
I have to admit that at first I thought of this as a noble effort but as I looked up these prisoners one-by-one I began to notice feelings aroused in me, feelings of disgust, hatred and judgment. Although I tried to resist these impulses I did not try to deny that I felt them. In my experience, denial is the first step into the grave. So I faced the way I felt, remembering all the horrible experiences I had with my brother, and remembering just who I might have become if I had given into even one of the many equally wicked impulses I had when I was walking in rebellion against God. It was very uncomfortable.
By the time I finished all of the inmates I felt a renewed sense of purpose. It was like God lifted some of the load off my back that I had been carrying around all my life. I felt lighter, spiritually speaking. It was apparent that this was something I needed to do in order to overcome my past. Yahweh wants me to learn how to love even the despised, wretched, wicked men of the world (or so most might call them). Christ never turned anyone away who sincerely sought Him out. He might challenge them in the most demanding way but He offered them the truth and showed them the path they must walk. That's the love of God. I understood that these men may well have already been forgiven for the heinous crimes they committed, if they had already surrendered to Christ. So too must I extend myself beyond my own apprehension to exceed the limitations of my former self, the man that I have been laying down for over two years now. Perhaps this is the way He is wanting me to go in order to be reconciled to, and witness to my brother. By the Spirit of truth and love I hope and pray it to be so.
Salvation is a process. We are redeemed from glory to glory and He who began a good work in you WILL finish it. I trust in His ability to subject all things to His power and bring all enemies under His feet - to burn away all that is not of Yahweh and to reconcile all of creation back to His holy image. AMEN!
There is still much to do with this ministry. I prayed to Yahweh for help soon after I was given this charge. It is rather intimidating to be quite honest, but beyond the emotional and spiritual side there are practical things that need to be addressed. Specifically I knew that I needed to automate the printing and labeling process as Joseph had it set up previously. Unfortunately his program broke after he bought a new computer and we have never been able to fix it or get it to work on my computer. Evidently the VBScript and macros wouldn't work properly after Office was upgraded to the newest version. So if I were to have a computer program to run this process I would have to either find one that already existed, get help or develop one myself.
At this same time I also was praying that Yahweh would send me someone I could talk to about the state of the world and the truths I have come to understand. I essentially was asking for a friend who was in ministry and who I might be able to collaborate with in service to His kingdom. Not long after this a man friended me on Facebook. We began sharing thoughts about current events, biblical exposition and the Luciferian NWO agenda. After a couple of weeks we started talking on the phone and really seemed to connect on many levels. After telling him about my needs for the prison ministry he told me he is a developer. Lo and behold, Yahweh sent me two fulfilled prayers in one go! Since then I have hired Timothy to help me develop a custom Drupal website that will automate custom workflows on a user-by-user basis and keep track of the newsletters. We are about 3 weeks into that project now and it is progressing, perhaps not as quickly as I would like but again, I believe there are lessons in patience and trust that I must learn. Overall I am confident that this project is in God's hands and it will turn out exactly as He intends it to. Praise Him for blessings with persecutions! Many times persecution comes not from others but from ourselves. We can sometimes be our own worst enemy. A friend said to me a while back, "Don't be afraid of Satan. He's defeated so long as you have Christ in you. Fear what you might do to separate yourself from Christ."
Words of wisdom to keep in mind always. May the God of peace dwell in us richly as we give Him dominion over our hearts. Order our steps Father. Amen.
