|
Jesus did it again: FDC 2001 Christmas Caroling Summary (2001-12-26) Dear fabulous Heart Renewal Prison Ministry front-line and behind-the-scene contributors, Jesus did it again! 39 of us from 7 different churches went, mostly without our shoes on, through the metal detector in the SeaTac Federal Detention Center to share the joy of Christmas with about 200 inmates of many different ethnic backgrounds last Sunday night (12/23/01). The Chaplain of FDC left me an urgent message the day before saying that there was some problem of getting us into FDC! Short silence. Chaplain continued, "Ha-ha-ha! That was just a joke. I am looking forward to everyone coming in tomorrow!" Chaplain asked me afterwards if I liked the voice message. I did, and it also taught me to trust Jesus in every step. Getting 39 volunteers in and out of 5 high-security prison units in 3 hours is not a trivial matter. For example, on Christmas eve, a group of high school brothers and sisters went into a detention center in Taiwan to sing Christmas carols, but they could not finish because the inmates were screaming and showing their disgruntlement. For us, when all of us jammed into this small space between the initial 2 iron doors, we had to make way for the guard to come through to open the second door for us. Someone suggested that we part the Red Sea for the guard to come through, and we did. What a difference it made to have 39 voices instead of 25 compared to last year. The angelic notes of :Joy To the World" covered every inch of the large two-floor common area in the inmates' living unit. Some continued with their activities while listening to us, some stood on the second floor, some sat on steps some crowded around us. When we hit the third unit, because we could not use any loud speakers in the common areas, some of these angelic voices became angelic sore throats. A sister was started to feel sick. Our music director, Steven, besides instructing the carolers, was also trying to direct his own misbehaving scratchy voice from his cold. Yet, Steven kept his transformed director wand, that used to be a barbecue stick, flying in the air with increasing rigor and determination, The carolers, the sick brothers and sisters, the half voices, and the angels all charged on, poured our hearts out and pronounce to the whole FDC "Glory to the new born king". Normally, there would be more than 200 people in the units we visited. Some of them were not there because they went downstairs to attend the English services. Thus, we were mainly caroling to people who did not know Christ. Last year, we mainly sang to the immigration inmates. This year we went to 3 additional units with inmates of thicker criminal records. I prayed silently in my heart that Jesus would set their hearts free. Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright. We swayed from side to side as if baby Jesus was in our arms. The inmates joined us. There was so little that we could do for the inmates. We could not bring them a nice Christmas dinner complete with chocolate cake. We could not give them a Christmas gift. We could not even give them a Christmas card. However, we could give them Jesus, the biggest and sweetest cake and the first Christmas gift in the history of mankind. We told them that many of the carolers did not know each other before this and the only reason why we gathered there was to say to them, "Jesus loves you!" We sang "We wish you a merry Christmas", and changed the last line to "and Jesus loves you". We sang this over and over, when the brother and sisters went out to the crowd and shook hands with them. Before the event, some of us who were new to FDC were not quite sure about this hand shake activity, but every single caroler except the guitarists went out responding to the calling to "go and make disciples of all nations ..." (Matt 28:19) There were these big roughens that saw us coming and received us into their seemingly impenetrable boundary. Brother Roger ventured to the second floors to reach more inmates. Some of us who were even more brave started to hug them. They cried and we did, too. To many, they are so untouchable, but no, not to Jesus - no, not to Jesus. When Kevin, my son, was 7 years old, he prayed this Christmas prayer: "Dear God, Thank you for giving us baby Jesus. Please change all the bad guys to good guys. Amen." Peter |