I sat in the front row of the chapel on the cellblock where Marta Zavala came once a month for a service. She was Nicaraguan and had a ministry not only in the prison, but she also ran a drug rehab place. Several of us had come along with Marta to share in the service. Each one of us was asked to bring greetings. As I thought about what I could share, I sensed that I was to share a verse of Scripture from John 8:32, “…you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” I began to argue with myself. How could I share this verse with these prisoners? Here they were locked behind many doors. They shared small cells with 4 to 7 other inmates with barely enough room to sleep side by side on the cement floors. How would they respond to this verse?
I knew it was the Holy Spirit prompting me, but I chose to ignore His still small voice. When my turn came, I gave some simple words of greeting, but not the verse I’d felt impressed to share.
At the close of the service, Marta began handing out a small gift to each one who had come. It was just a ballpoint pen, but other inmates who had not been in the service, crowded into the room when the door was opened. They began shouting and pushing, trying to grab a pen too. I sensed that the crowd was getting out of control, but I wasn’t too concerned. I fully expected the guards to take control of the situation. Suddenly my host was urging his wife and me to the door. “We must leave immediately,” he said.
With the importance of following the lead of my host in mind, I quickly turned from the man I was talking to and Clara and I made our way out the door and down the long corridor between cells. I remember an inmate tagging along and insisting on talking with me, but afterwards I had no recollection of our conversation which Clara was interpreting.
The rest of the day, Clara was pretty shaken by what had transpired. A headache that wouldn’t quit forced us back to our rooms to rest. I journaled and really gave no further thought to our visit at Tipitapa Prison.
Several months later I was back in Nicaragua. I was to meet Rick and Clara, my previous hosts, and some others for breakfast. I was a little delayed in arriving, but the minute I stepped from the car, Clara met me. “Come quickly,” she said. “There is a man here who is anxious to meet you. You talked with him at the Tipitapa Prison.” Who could it be? I wondered puzzled.
As I stepped into the restaurant, a young man sitting next to Rick jumped up from his seat. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt. Rick began interpreting what he was saying to me. What he said was something like this: You had no idea, but that day at the prison I was so distraught I had decided to end my life. I was accused of performing an abortion, clearly illegal in my country. I had gone to a doctor’s office to return some books he’d loaned to me. When the officials came to arrest him, he bribed his office staff to confirm his story that I’d done the abortion. I was sentenced to prison. That day, you talked with me as you were leaving. You said, “You can know the truth and the truth will set you free.” You explained that although I was in prison, Jesus could set my spirit free. I went back to my cell and I thought about what you’d said. I prayed. Then I took down the sheet I was going to use to hang myself. Several weeks later, some of the doctor’s staff went to the authorities and confessed that they had lied about implicating me. And I was released from prison.
Rick went on to share that this man had been restored to his position at a government hospital in Managua.
What a way for me to realize the importance of obeying the Holy Spirit’s prompting. We never know what God wants to accomplish through us. What if the man at Tipitapa had not heard what God wanted him to hear? I am so thankful that in spite of my disobedience at the beginning of the service, while we were hurrying to leave, I shared with just the person who needed to hear that verse that day. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” Samuel told Saul. (1 Samuel 15:22)