Finally my team got to do ministry in the city! This has been an overall incredible week. Last Saturday Ryan and I were invited to join tony in visiting his friend Hector Antonio in prison. So of course we were more than excited to go. Tony explained to us that the prison we were going to was only one of 2 in all of honduras. It had somewhere around 2000 inmates. Besides that, he told us to drop our expectations and just experience the rest for ourselves.
The drive was beautiful in and of itself. It was about 45 minutes outside the city so we finally got to get out and away from the Walmarts, Wendy's, and McDonald's for once. He explained to us that we were experiencing the "true Honduras". Open, mountainous, pine trees, fields. So we got to the first gates of the prison and after tony did some good debating with the stubborn guard, he allowed us to drive in. Inside there were a lot more guards holding tight security. They were so strict that they wouldn't let our Honduran friend, Henry, in because he was wearing shorts and they also almost wouldn't let Ryan in for wearing flip flops. When we finally got through the line, we were given stamps and written numbers on our arms and dogtag-like pieces of metal with corresponding numbers on them. This was actually really scary. The guards made it really clear and tony reaffirmed that if, while we were in the prison, we lost these metal pieces we would not be allowed out under any circumstances. So I stuck it in my pocket and we walked on in.
The inside of the prison was nothing like I expected. We walked straight into an outside community with no cells and very few guards. These inmates were left to their own business. They had set up something like their own economy. They were selling food and drugs openly. What was noticeable almost immediately was that what was illegal outside the walls became completely legal inside. Upon walking in Hector met us near the entrance. He's a pretty young guy somewhere in his twenties. He's pretty skinny with sort of Asian looking facial features and dark Honduran skin. He looked pretty drained and was pretty quiet at first. Tony engaged him in small talk and Hector led us to a sit down area behind the living quarters. We hung out at a small stone table for about an hour or so. We learned a lot about Hector and his life 6 months ago before he was arrested. He told us he was sentenced for 2 years for theft, but had hope for early release as a result of his changed behavior and genuine regret for his crime. Tony talked a lot about the changes in his life and ministry and Hector gradually loosened up and started to seem like he was enjoying himself. I later found out that since Hector has been in prison, Tony was one of if not the only person Hector's asked to visit. It was incredible to see Tony love on him and for Hector to get to experience a small dose of joy. It was written all over his face.
After an hour or so we finally headed out. The whole jail experience really blessed me in that it helped me take my mind off of selfish thoughts and desires that were keeping me from being fully present and focused. One of the things I learned that left me in shock was the fact that a large number of these inmates were actually decent people who deliberately chose the life of prison because it offered them more than they had before. Somehow a life of two small meals of rice and beans a day, limited freedom, tight and dirty sleeping quarters, and virtually nothing at all to do appealed to some of these people above their former lives in freedom.
So now I'm made alive because now I know some things just matter more than the things my narrow paradigm and hardened heart would allow me to see. I don't know why it took a jail visit experience in Honduras for me to internalize that, but maybe that's a question we should all be asking ourselves.
