Tuesday afternoon we headed to prison the Cristina's biweekly bible study at women's section of the prison.
It started to rain heavily and Cristina says sometimes she waits in her car until the rain stops because it is hard for everyone to hear in the prison during the rain. We are not allowed to take our cell phones into the prison so I will have to explain everything and hope my words can give a good picture. As we walked rapidly from the truck we went to the market to buy the ladies bananas. Hoping the rain would lighten and instead it became heavier. We had to cross six inches of water just to get to the side of the street so my shoes were soaked. When we entered the prison the female guard was a bit unhappy because she would have to let us in. After I surrendered my passport and they searched my bible, we went back out side and around the side. The side entrance to get to women's sections. Since the last time I was there, which has been about 3 years there is a new fence around there kitchen area. Cristina says it was to separate the inmates from the guards as the guards dormitory is there on the left as you walk in. This makes sense because many of us brought up in the brigade we had in 2014 that the guard seemed really sweet on one of the inmates which we thought it was his daughter at first until we learned she was an inmate... lightbulb.... so as they unlock the gate, there three waterfalls from the ceiling, one was planned going straight into their water storage the other two were leaks from the ceiling. Because of these great waterfalls there was about 5 inches of standing water we must cross to get to the room where an old women is greeting us with a huge smile. We cross the water and enter a cell. The cell has two bunk beds and then a slab of wood for the third row of beds. Between the bed and the wall is not enough room for me to walk in straight on, i had to turn sideways and even then my head still hit stuff. I think the most room was in the bathroom. The cell I believe is a 8x8 cell and then a 4x4 bathroom. There was a 6inch tv playing the new jungle book. There are currently 10 female inmates in this cell. The floor in the cell was completely wet from the rain/ I'm sure something leaks, there was only room for one of the immates and Cristina to stand between the beds. The old cheerful lady stood in the door way of the bathroom. We proceeded to have bible study. Most of them participated and a few were able to read the passage from their own bible.
It was very nice and they thanked us several times for coming. One woman in there started crying because she believes she will die there. She has been struggling with diabetes and high blood pressure. She missed her court date because she was in the hospital with high blood sugar. She asked me what she can do because they are not giving her insulin like they were in the hospital. She doesn't have much control of her food she gets but we did go get her some cheese for instead of her plantains. And the Honduran diet is all carbs with a wee bit of beans. So we will RBI g her some stuff on Friday when we go. I told her to drink a lot of water, she says she does but it is from the sink. I told her needs to get excelencias which she says she tries but there is not exactly a lot of space to walk. I told her to go ahead and lift things if she can't walk, she liked that.
Of course when we left the rain had stopped and a lot of the standing water gone. We had to wait a bit for them to let us out, Cristina says that sometimes she waits longer to leave than to get in.
We have not had brigade there since 2014, I hope if we can get a team together do one next year.
Currently Pastor Marvin is sick so please send prayers his way!
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