A Burmese prisoner receives baptism
“Many will be dead the next time I visit,” John Siam lamented. “My burden for them is so great, I pray for them with tears. Prisoners are open and hungry to hear Jesus’ words of life, but if I cannot at least bring them a Bible, what good am I in this world?”
John’s words wrenched my heart. I have long felt compassion for those in prison here in the U.S., but our prisons are like luxury hotels compared to those in Myanmar. John, who has ministered in many Burmese prisons over the years, described to me the appalling conditions he often finds. Men, women, and children languish and often die before they complete their sentences. Many are incarcerated unjustly, because justice is a commodity to be bought and sold.
Seeing pictures of inmates, learning of their miseries, and hearing testimonies of conversions to Christ, I knew Heaven’s Family had to do something. Feeling in my heart that others must have a burden to help prisoners as well (and who wish to follow Jesus’ call in Matthew 25 to visit Him in prison), we decided to start a Prison Ministry & Rehab Fund. We began by recently sending money for Bibles and mosquito nets for 100 prisoners in Myanmar. John Siam will be delivering them. This is only the beginning! We want to serve prisoners around the world with the love of Christ and His gospel.
Prisons in poor nations are often hellish places where inmates receive little or no food, medicine, clothing, or other basic necessities. In some nations, the small children of female prisoners are incarcerated with them. If they don’t have friends on the outside who bring them food each day, they starve. These are people for whom Jesus died, who need our help, and who are often open to the gospel. John Siam recently wrote to us of one such prisoner:
Once, while preaching at a jail in Tamu, seven teenage prisoners were changed and baptized. One of them was crying with his heavy chain, and when I looked at him he told me he saw Jesus with a cup pouring something over his head. After a few minutes he died. His friend cried bitterly and I too cried, but I knew he was resting peacefully with Jesus.
