If you have visited my blog in the past you know that I have the privilege of going into the prisons here in SK to teach. Recently, I went to this facility which is my 5th prison since I began this endeavor. This particular facility is close to the city where I live, only 1 hour by car. The prison is near the town of Trnava (tur- nah-vah). I’m guessing the population of the town to be about 25,000.

It seems to be a common sight that prisons such as this one have a similar looking building as you travel from town to town. Many buildings built during the communist regime have a familiar design within their particular function including schools, goverment buildings, sports arenas, hospitals...

This is a typical small-medium size town in SK with the churches having a prominent place in the center of town.

As is customary of our other prison trips, we were invited to come by the chaplain of the facility who is a Catholic priest. In this photo he is on the far left, his name is Gabriel. We had some time before the men would be assembled so he gave us a tour of the facility and then we chatted for awhile in his office. Gabriel doesn’t speak any English but I was able to ask him a few questions about his work, one or two on my own and several more using my translator, Fero, who is on the far right. Fero is 17 and a junior at the C.S. Lewis school where I sometimes do after school activities with kids. He has been on the blog before but this is his first trip into a prison and he was quite excited and a little nervous. Janko, also seen here, is my priatel (friend) from the Evangelical Mass Media Center who works to create these opportunities with the prisons. Usually there are no cameras allowed at these facilities. On each of our trips I put my camera in my pocket and ask at the security check in if our prison host would carry my camera for me in hopes of getting a few photos to chronicle our experience. So far I’ve been turned down each time. On this occasion I simply forgot that the camera was in my pocket and it didn’t get noticed at security. When we were in Gabriel’s office I remembered it and asked him if we could get a few pics. He told me to just keep it out of sight and don’t be obvious about it.

As I snapped these shots (from my hip) I was making Fero quite nervous. I joked with him that if I get confronted about the camera I will say it is his camera in which case they would give him his own cell. Fortunately, we were not incarcerated and were allowed to leave when we were finished. Here, we were waiting for the men who were signed up to come and participate in our presentation when a work detail walked past with a prison guard.

Usually we have about 20 to 30 guys in attendance. These are not mandatory meetings but totally voluntary. Today we had about 75 men in attendance. As always we get quite a range of ages. It is also common that we have primarily two ethnic backgrounds represented: Slovaks and Gypsy. Being that this was my first visit to this facility I shared the message on Anger, Shame and Healing. As always the message is wrapped in the core messages of the biblical gospel. On this occasion I delivered my message using the story of a prisoner I met in Minnesota many years ago as the back drop. This man, Jason, was serving a life sentence for killing a man who had been trying to flirt with his girlfriend at a party. Over a period of about 1 year I became friends with Jason and learned a lot about the abuse of his childhood at the hands of an alcoholic father and his beliefs about anger. I go into a little more depth about the father son relationship because research has indicated for years that most incarcerated men had significant relationship issues with their father or no relationship at all. The message is about 45 minutes long and typically there seems to be a high degree of attentiveness. At the conclusion we have a time for questions and answers. On this occasion the questions were mostly centered on faith or spirituality. One man asked if I thought that Jesus was killed by the Jews or the Romans. I replied that Jesus wasn’t killed but rather allowed himself to be sacrificed for our sake, which was more important to me than who put the events in motion.

After the message, we stood by the door as the men filed out and back to their cells. About 80% of the guys waited in line so they could shake our hands and say thank you. Some want to stop and engage us in conversation, which near the end of the line is briefly possible. One man (Slovak) spoke enough English to communicate with me without translation. He said he had lived in Texas briefly. He appeared as if he had been in a few fights recently. With a large man standing next to him he asked me if I thought it was acceptable for his friend to use anger to protect him when he is being attacked. He went on to share with me that he is often the target violence in this facility due to his small frame and weak appearance. My heart really went out to him. He was obviously suffering in a prison within a prison with almost no way to get free. In the brief time we had together I simply tried to empathize with him and tell him I would be praying for him. What a helpless feeling I had, although nothing which could compare to his helplessness.

As we departed Gabriel invited us to come back and share again sometime. We were glad to hear him say that he wanted us back because one of our goals is to develop a relationship with the facilities we visit in the hopes of creating a greater opportunity to serve in this mission field. Next week I will be going to 2 more prison facilities in the north of Slovakia, one of which I have never been to before. It is exciting to see God move in these endeavors, opening up doors which we could never open. As we walk into these opportunities we pray that God's name will be lifted up and the hungry/thirsty ones will recieve the bread of life and the water which truly satisfies.

And finally, this is a photo of my bible study group. We meet every other Sunday evening for 2 or more hours to work toward the goal of developing a biblical mind. From the left we have Miro(sk), Tony(Aussie), Monika(sk), Michael(sk), Paul(sk), Ivana(sk) and Milan(sk). There are 3 or 4 missing from the photo. One is from Poland, one is from the Ukraine and one is from Romania so we have quite a cultural mix of people. We have decided to focus on 4 foundational principles of scripture: Creation, Fall ,Redemption and Consummation. Currently we are studying ‘the fall’ in Genesis. What a great privilege it is for me to be included with such a wonderful group of brothers and sisters in the faith to learn and grow together .