Day 41: Thika Prison

Today, Nita, the woman who showed us around some Hindu temples, invited the GP team to help her serve at Thika Prison. As I mentioned before, Nita is an extraordinarily strong-willed woman who serves God by serving those who dwell in Kenyan prisons. She routinely visits various prisons in Kenya meeting prisoners and spreading the Word of God. When we arrived at the prison, we were split into 2 pre-determined teams: one of which would minister to the male prisoners and the other which would minister to the female prisoners.

I was part of the first team that would meet the male prisoners. The guards counted us off and then let us enter into an enormous courtyard where there were hundreds of prisoners sitting there looking at us. Nita had arranged for us to basically conduct a little bit of a church service in the prison. We started off with Rich giving his testimony to the prisoners, and after that, John gave a sermon on Hebrews. It was pretty cool, because initially, Rich and John were just projecting with their voices in English, but eventually, one of the prisoners offered to translate what they were saying into Swahili. Once John finished, he gave an alter call, and my teammates and I watched in amazement as hundreds of men raised their hands and stood up. Nathan then led the entire prison in a time of worship during which GP team and Kenyan prisoners sang songs to worship God together. We even sang "Oh How He Loves Us" in both English and Swahili together. It was an extremely humbling moment for me to watch. During the whole time, I didn't feel fear about being in the presence of prisoners, but I think that God really instilled in the hearts of us in the GP team that He loves these men just like He loves us. It didn't matter whether we were prisoners or students, Kenyan or American, young or old, He still loved us all and forgives us all of our sin. I don't know if all the men who stood up during the alter call understood what they were doing or if they were genuine, but regardless, I felt very humbled to be there to watch God work in that prison.

After the service, we went to another section of the prison where we passed out soap and toilet paper to men who had been recently convicted. As I passed out the items to the men and said "God bless you", many of them looked at me, smiled, and said, "Thank you." As I left the prison, I couldn't help but think that Nita and her colleague, Chaplain John, had an amazing ministry serving prisoners. It's always so inspiring for me to see people live out what is exactly written in the Bible. We Americans find so many ways to say "This is really what Jesus really meant..." or "This is how this passage can be applied in modern times..." or "Jesus didn't mean to literally..." that it's absolutely mind-boggling and humbling to witness people who just straight up follow what Jesus said. Would that I could do the same.