My name is René, and it is my privilege to volunteer my time to visit inmates in prison. Jesus says very clearly in Matthew 25, ‘I was sick, and you came to see me. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ That verse has always inspired me and was one of the things that encouraged me to volunteer.
One day I was able to share what Jesus says in Matthew 25 with an inmate named Ethan*. He had tears in his eyes as I shared the verse and said to him, ‘I’m here visiting you because Jesus loves you and cares about you.’
I had met Ethan a few weeks earlier as another volunteer and I were talking with two inmates about a painting they had created. Ethan came up to us and said, ‘Do you guys have something to do with that artwork?’ We said, ‘In fact, we have come here to meet these two gentlemen because they are participating in the Prison Fellowship art exhibition. That’s why we are here, to collect their paintings and put them in the exhibition.’
Ethan’s eyes widened and he said, ‘I also paint! Can I submit one to the exhibition?’ I said, ‘Sadly, it’s too late to enter this year, but why don’t you show your paintings to us?’ He ran excitedly back to his cell and brought the painting to show us. It was so beautiful! Then he showed us another painting saying, ‘This is only half done, but I’m just making it slowly, a bit at a time.’ The next time we visited, he came running to us with that same painting, which he had done some more work on. We became friends over a few weeks, and one day he said to me, ‘There’s something so genuine about you guys. You come here with absolutely no agenda, and you leave everything and you come and see me here. I’m so glad.’
A few weeks later he said, ‘I have a court session in an hour or so. Will you still be here when I get back? Will you wait for me?’ We agreed to wait until he came back from court, but he was running late. Eventually, he made it back, and he saw us still waiting there an hour after the agreed time. He said, ‘You guys are waiting for me? I thought you would’ve left.’ I told him, ‘No, we promised you that we would wait for you and so we are waiting for you.’ He was so glad that we waited for him and we spoke for some time.
The following week, Ethan came to me and said, ‘I want to tell you something.’ He opened up to me and told me of an experience he had had, which was quite spiritual. We talked about it for a while and I told him a bit about the Gospel. He looked at me and tears started flowing from his eyes and he told me, ‘Tell me more.’ That day I shared the love of Christ with him.
The next time I saw him, he came running to us, hugged us, and he wouldn’t let us go! I gave him a small tract and he said, ‘I’ve never read a book in my life, but I promise to read this.’ I could see his face was so joyful. He said he started using polite words such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Something had changed within him, I could see that his face was so bright. I’d never seen his face so joyful before. He was a different person.
He was moved to a different prison soon after that conversation, but we were able to meet him one more time before he moved. He said excitedly, ‘I read this tract you gave me, and I don’t want anyone other than this Jesus!’ We gave him a Bible and told him to contact us through Prison Fellowship so that we could come and catch up with him. It was an amazing journey to witness. At first, he just observed us without talking to us, but then, over time he grew to trust us. When he opened up, he found Jesus and accepted Him as Lord.
This experience reminded me of Philip being taken to meet the Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of Acts. I see Prison Fellowship as an instrument in the hands of God. Just like Philip, we are being taken to those who are hungry for the Gospel. We share the Word with them and the seed is sown into their life, then we have to trust that God will continue to work in their hearts because we do not know whether we will meet these people ever again. People are always moving in and out of prison, especially remand centres, so we never know if we will see them again. But I believe God sends us to the right place at the right time so that the hearts of the men we visit are like the good soil Jesus talks about – places where the Gospel will seed and grow. If we do get the chance to see them again, we sometimes start to see the Gospel sprouting and taking root in their hearts. I know that if Prison Fellowship were not there, these people would continue to have a void in their lives. They may have had some other opportunity from another place, but Prison Fellowship is like a Philip, in the right place and time.
When I first visited a prison, I saw a place with no hope. Absolutely no hope whatsoever, without exception. Every visit, I meet people brought low, and sometimes broken, by incarceration. They come to me in tears and say, ‘There’s no hope.’ I always tell people that we at Prison Fellowship Australia are in the business of transforming people from hopelessness to hope through the love of Christ. In that hopeless place, it is easy to see the real impact of this ministry – Prison Fellowship volunteers bring so much hope and joy into a place where people don’t really trust each other. This is especially true in remand centres, where there is lots of anxiety because the inmates are not yet sentenced, and they do not know what is going to happen to them. In such an anxious place, trust is very, very low, but this ministry has a grace that you can see! We often share Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel, ‘I can give you rest, not as the world gives, but my rest, my peace.’ There are many people inside who say that they are restless, and I think that if Jesus were to speak to them, he would say, ‘Your sorrows, your tears, and your anxieties – leave them all to me. Leave all your burdens at my feet, and I will give you rest; the type of rest the world cannot give.’ We are reaching out to the most forgotten people, prisoners, who have no hope and are very close to the heart of God. That’s why I believe this is such a powerful ministry. That’s why it is important.
The inmates all know that we are volunteers. One of the questions we get asked when we meet a new person is, ‘Are you a volunteer or are you a paid employee?’ The moment we say we are volunteers, the respect level goes to a different league altogether, and they start interacting with us. They trust us. They say, ‘You volunteer to come to see us?’ We say, ‘Yes.’ That’s why Prison Fellowship is so powerful – we offer in-depth support to the most forgotten people in society.
As Christians, I believe we should embrace all people, including inmates and former inmates. As volunteers, we accept them. We don’t judge them, and we don’t ever ask them about their crimes. There’s a staggering number of people who return to prison within six months of their release, and it’s mainly because they are not accepted and embraced back into the community. That’s why they say they don’t have any hope because even when they get out of prison, they’re not accepted.
One day, another volunteer and I were talking to an atheist called Elio*, who was expecting to face a lengthy prison term but had not been sentenced. He said to us, ‘You guys come and talk with us, and then you go. You have a very genuine approach. You never forced religion on me or anything. I was always probing you guys, but you guys were very easy and very genuine.’
Elio is a chemical engineer, so he is quite scientific in his thinking, and he had a lot of questions for us. By the grace of God, the Holy Spirit gave us wisdom to answer him in a manner that he could accept. At one point, he said, ‘Okay, I accept everything you’ve said so far, but how can a person be born in original sin? What do you mean by this ‘original sin’? A child who has been born – just an hour old, a day old, a week old – surely has not committed any sin. How can you say that this child is born into sin? This baffles me, and I can’t accept it.’
The Lord gave me the words to say. I said to him, ‘Elio, can I ask you something? During the slave trade in North America, there were families of slaves. The father was a slave, the mother was a slave as well, and then they had children. When the child was born, was the child free, or was the child a slave?’ He looked into my eyes, jumped over the table, hugged me, and said, ‘Man, you gave me the answer! I know Adam and Eve fell, were sent out of the garden, and were slaves. And I now understand that everyone who was born after that was also a slave.’
Elio has given his life to the Lord very recently, and he looks forward to our visits. He said recently, ‘I want at least an hour of your time because I’m growing, and I need to know more!’ He reads a lot, so I take books with me, and he reads, and then he returns them, and I give him a new one. That’s how Elio met the Lord. We built trust with him over a period of time, and he opened up to us and eventually accepted Jesus into his life. That’s something I will always cherish.
I believe prayer is the primary weapon against the kingdom of darkness. Prayer support is something Prison Fellowship takes very seriously. Without fail, a group of faithful volunteers meets together online every Monday to pray for the ministry. And I know it’s not just Mondays either! I know that the whole team supports us in prayer all through the week, and I can see the impact of it. I can see the grace of God going with us, and we find favour in the eyes of the people we visit. As a volunteer, that is the biggest support of all!
Without fail, we pray together every time before entering the prison, and in particular, we pray for the people we will meet and talk to. I was on my knees in prayer one particular morning before going to the prison. I was praying for a few people I had met in prison, and as I prayed, something really touched me, and I started to cry. I didn’t really understand why I was weeping; then I realised that it was the love of God that was overflowing through me. When I commit myself to God as an instrument of his righteousness, I experience his love overflowing through me. On that particular day, three people who had never opened up before opened up to me. They opened up completely, and all three of them gave their life to Jesus Christ that day.
One of the men I volunteer with, Orlando, has a lovely prayer that he says every time we’re about to head into the prison. He says, ‘Lord, it is not about me and it is not about René – it’s not about us. It is about Jesus! It is about you; you go with us.’ We pray that prayer every day as we walk into the prison, as we walk around, and then we pray for every individual name by name. We pray for their needs. We pray for their salvation. Because of this, I believe volunteers can do wonders in that place. Real wonders. Not because we’re special, but because of the grace and guidance of God. There’s nothing else. It’s purely the love of God.
There’s one inmate, Rashid*, who is a Muslim, but he asks me to pray for him whenever I see him. He says, ‘Please pray for me, for a favourable sentence. I have a small child and want to spend time with them. My whole life is gone now that I’m in here.’ I pray to God for an opportunity to share the gospel with him.
Prison Fellowship, and everyone who supports this ministry, is doing something very profound! We cater to a group of people God loves, a group of people who have absolutely no hope. We are sharing hope, the hope of Jesus, with these people. After joining Prison Fellowship, I realised that I really made a great choice, because I could see the faithfulness of the people there. I could see the reputation. I could see the culture is based on respect and based on trust, based on love, and it’s so beautiful to be part of such a beautiful team there.
To everyone who gives, prays, or volunteers, you’re investing in the Kingdom of God. I have always been fascinated by the saying, ‘A man can count the apples in a tree, but God can count the apples in one seed.’ That’s what your investment is like. Your investment into Prison Fellowship could be the seed that will bring forth results to many generations. Your gift doesn’t just affect one person in prison. It’s a generational gift. One transformed person means a transformed family and a transformed society. That’s real influence.
*Names have been changed for privacy reasons
