We can exist, merely serving our time on this earth or we can live, and make Time serve us.
We can exist, merely serving our time on this earth or we can live, and make Time serve us.
This prison is
one of the top worst in the entire world. It was built for 2,500 men, and now
holds between 9,000 to 11,000 men! There are as little as 100 guards to manage
and run the place, so lawlessness and violence are common as guards are forced
to leave the prisoners to do as they like to a certain extent. Unlike a
number of other prisons, thing are run with money here. The prisoners with
family on the outside to bring them money, do ok so, so to speak as in get food
and a space to sleep, those with no one on the outside world, have to fight and
steal to survive, have barely enough food and not even a mattress or space to
lay. Corruption is the norm, and guards will take bribes from the prisoners
with money. Out of the 10,000 prisoners, over 7,000 have never received a
sentence or seen a judge. You ask them how much longer they have to go and they
tell you they have no idea, any where from a month to five years or forever if
their paperwork is never found. So many are put in here for just petty crimes
but then once they are in, they disappear. One young man no more than 18 said
he is serving a ten year sentence for a crime he did not commit but was set up
by drug smugglers, I believe him.
I imagine many of
you who read this have an attitude about prisoners much like I had. You think
about the victims they hurt by their crimes and think they are paying the due
punishment and deserve to be in prison. For many of them that is true, but you
have to think of times in your own life where you either made, or almost made a
serious mistake. Perhaps you had an outburst of anger and wanted to punch a
guy, or what if you were so desperate to feed your family that you were driven
to steal, or in many cases here, carry drugs to make money. Maybe our mistakes
never resulted with serious consequences but in another life, they could. If we
were raised in a third world nation, in extremely desperate circumstance, one
laps in judgment, one time of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and
now, your life is destroyed and it is possible you don't get out alive.
I think one of
the saddest most heart breaking things I have seen is a chained line of men
being brought into one of these horrible prisons. The look in their eyes makes
you want to cry. Like water being poured from a glass, all hope is leaving
their soul as they go from a free man, many very young, to realizing what it is
going to take just to survive in this new horrible world.
After meeting us,
the director, who is a police commander, allowed us to enter with all our
equipment and props. He notified the guards it was not necessary to search us
or our equipment and gave us a team of guys to help us unload everything (this
saved at least two hours and showed a high level of trust).
The auditorium
was huge and being filled with prisoners as we set up. No matter how many times
I have done this, I still take a big gulp when I look up and see around a
thousand men staring at me waiting to hear what I am going to say. It is a huge
privileged, and also a huge responsibility. We did a number of skits,
dances and routines for them and spent time talking and sharing things with
them to give them practical help and answers. It makes me so happy to be able
to make them laugh hard and to amaze them with a magic routine. I watch them
try to figure out how we do our tricks just like little children. It's like for
that period of time we are there, they travel to another world where they can
forget everything and be at peace and happy. There are a lot of religious
groups that come in here and try to get converts, especially evangelical
preachers. This one prisoner was explaining to me that the pastors will come in
and tell them that because the prisoners cannot pay the "tithes"
required by the "church" they need to tell their families to go to
the pastor’s church and pay for them. It is just outrageous. When we start, it
takes a few minutes to show the men that we are not like those pastors, and not
here to take advantage of them but to serve them. Laughter is a big key to
doing this. My dad does a funny act in a monkey costume that certainly does the
trick; I mean he has these guys literally roaring in laughter. I guarantee they
have never seen a pastor in a three piece suit dancing in a monkey
costume.
I asked them to
tell me some of the hardest things they deal with being locked up, then used a
board and wrote the things they said on it. I shared with them that these are
the things that they carry on their shoulders and the things that weigh them
down as I carried the board on my shoulders. I shared that they can allow these
things to crush them, or they can overcome them. By resolving their situation,
and choosing a different attitude, they can make this time serve them instead
of just serving their time. The outward things are not going to change, but if
they change the inward things, the way they deal with these problems and
perceive these problems, can change. This is true for all the things that you
and I face as well. True faith can change our lives. I then drop the board on
the ground and dance on it with my tap shoes that echo a beat against the
walls.
We do many acts
about forgiveness, a second chance and demonstrate that by caring for their
fellow inmates, then can make a big difference. I have a magic routine where I
take an empty bag that looks like a jail cell, and from it pull boxes full of
flowers. I take a big clothe with a clock painted on it, and from it pull a
huge rod, and use these tricks to convey that out of the emptiness of this time
they have, they can draw something eternal out. A time within a time. Something
can be brought out of nothing.
After our first
performance which started at nine in the morning, some of the prisoners (who
are allowed more freedom) made us lunch and also gave us these beautiful gifts
that they had made from ceramic. The director told us how grateful he was and
that he had never seen anything like what we did. The head psychiatrist came up
to my dad and asked him ever so humbly, how we do what we do saying he feels
like he just runs out and has nothing left to give and no real help to give
these men. He said he has never seen anyone so fully engage these prisoners and
connect on such a personal level. My dad shared with him a while and he was so
sincerely grateful. It blessed us and was a great compliment.
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| I got this picture from an online article. You can read Wikipedia articles about the prisons in Peru to get the history of what these people have been through. |
The second
presentation started at two in the afternoon and also went really well. I had made little packets up to give the prisoners and we
had some playing cards, candy and beautiful photographs that we printed for them
besides reading material, Gospels of John and music cds. I was glad to be
able to leave something with them however small it may be. Even a little
bracelet made out of cord means a ton to these men. I watch their faces as they
say good bye and line up to be escorted back to the patios and cells and I see
sadness return to their eyes. I am leaving, they are not, they have to return
to a hard horrible reality, yet I believe that we gave them something eternal,
hope, and hope does not disappoint. When we were walking out of the guarded
gate, a prisoner with his hands reaching through the bars waves to us and calls
out in broken English. As I write this I hear his words echo in my head, “we
love you friends, thank you, God bless you, don’t forget us…”
And I won’t.
“Remember the
prisoners, as though in prison with them… (Heb.13:3)”
“I was in prison,
and you came to Me. (Mt.25:36)”
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| My family with some of the prisoners who have more freedom and organize things. They gave us ceramic gifts they had made. |