With the Regional Justice Center offices in Kent taking preventative steps for a possible flood in the Green River valley, we got all involved in the chaplain's office. Nearly our entire religious services library was packed in boxes and taken to various homes or given away.
Here, Dwight Hawley, who faithfully works with me on Wednesday and Friday nights since 2002, is preparing for a Wednesday night session. The inmate population is now reduced from 1,200 at highest capacity to 525. Many are asking if we will see significant flood damage. We sure could.
I am blessed to meet with Dale, who is deaf and mute, in the medical unit. As you might imagine, this is a new challenge. We are working through a "new beginning" Bible study. We communicate by writing notes to each other.
I have been delighted to witness the transformation of Josh, a young man from our church family. On one afternoon, preparing for a visit with me, he unintentionally bumped into an inmate who was carrying a bowl of soup to his table. The soup was spilled on the floor and the other young man was interested in a conflict with verbal accusations, right in front of a guard. Josh told me several weeks ago he might have handled it all very differently. He cleaned up the mess on the floor with a third inmate with the other inmate continuing his verbal jousts. Then, Josh purchased the inmate a dinner from a food machine in the unit, at his own expense. The rest of the inmates just watched. My Bible study with him changed to "walking the second mile" and "loving your enemy," from the Sermon on the Mount.
"No matter what level of spiritual maturity we are on, we need renewed appearances, fresh manifestations, and new visitations from on high.
While it is right to thank God for the past and look back with joy to His visits to you in your early days as a believer, I encourage you to seek God for special visitations of His presence."
I am meeting "Just Five Old Men," Saturday, October 10, for a concert in Olympia to support our PFCEastern Washington and Oregon Missions trip the first weekend in November. I'll be presenting the Prisoners for Christ ministry and our missions tour. On the way, I'll be sharing with a brother who is mired in a "slough of despond," as John Bunyan calls it.
Guest teaching has kept me busy in the Auburn School District. I even had kindergartners for an hour on Friday. That was a big stretch...yes... but is was good. I am scheduled for virtually every day in October and some in November.
Faithful ministry continues at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kentwhere precautionary and active steps are being taken to prepare for a flooding condition now being thoroughly reported in the media. I saw the blueprints for a wall to be constructed around the RJC.
As part of the RJC work, I am president of the Chaplaincy Advisory Group that meets monthly. We just enjoyed a wonderful appreciation dinner with nearly 100 guests at the Valley View Christian Church. We were presented steps at the RJC surrounding the flood preparations. It was a fantastic night. I was especially pleased because Vivian, one of our godly officers, joined
us!
Recently, I enjoyed fellowship with Jerry Corelli and Jim Dixon in Tacoma as we considered future PFC concerts, shared our life stories, and started our friendship.
At church, we celebrated our first official Sunday with our new senior or lead
pastor, John Nagel and his wife Becky. Here, our "Loud and Clear" worship band is playing and our son Andy is ripping on the drums in the back left corner.
Back to "fresh manifestations" from Spurgeon--
I do not mean to minimize our daily walk in the light of His countenance, but consider that though the ocean has its high tides twice every day, yet it also has its spring tides. The sun shines whether we see it or not, even through our winter's fog, and yet it has its summer brightness.
If we walk with God constantly, there are special seasons when He opens the very secret of His heart to us and manifests Himself to us - not only as He does not to the world but also as He does not at all times to His own favored ones. Not every day in a palace is a banqueting day, and not all days with God are so clear and glorious as certain special sabbaths of the soul in which the Lord unveils His glory. Happy are we if we have once beheld His face, but happier still if He comes to us again in the fullness of favor.
I commend you to be seeking God's second appearances. We should be crying to God most pleadingly that He would speak to us a second time. We do not need a reconversion, as some assert. If the Lord has kept us steadfast in His fear, we are already possessors of what some call the higher life. This we are privileged to enjoy from the first hour of our spiritual life.
We do not need to be converted again, but we do need the windows of heaven to be opened again and again over our heads. We need the Holy Spirit to be given again as at Pentecost and that we should renew our youth like the eagles, to run without weariness and walk without fainting. May the Lord fulfill to His people His blessing upon Solomon! 'That the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon.'"
Essential Points in Prayer, “The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life,” ed. Robert Hall, Emerald Books.
Jim Dixon, my faithful ministry partner on PFC missions trips around Washington and Oregon, shared this account from a previous trip.This was a very great answer to prayer for myself that happened while ministering at Walla Walla. Many times volunteers are ministering to the inmates but we are also very ministered to by them, as well.
Mark and I had an opportunity to allow several inmates play some solos and sing a few songs at Walla Walla, with the permission of the the volunteer chaplain. Some of the inmates are extremely talented musically and love to share in some music time and their fellow inmates love this.
After I was finished with my songs and sharing, Mark gave a message from God's word. While I was sitting with the inmates listening to Mark, I heard a word to me: "have some of the inmates pray for Aaron." Aaron is my son who has been struggling with drinking and church attendance. When Mark was finished, I went up and told a short bit about Aaron and asked if a few of the guys would come up and pray for him. A dozen men quickly came forward, gathered around me and began praying.
When I got home after just four days, Aaron told me that he was done with drinking. I saw him reading his Bible again and went to Church. He has been listening to worship CD's again. He is still not drinking after several months. His attitude in speaking with his wife is changed. His change is very clear.
I want the guys at the prisons and jails to know that their prayers are great and the Lord is using them as much as those that come to minister to them. The Lord worked in their prayers. I only obeyed Him and asked what I felt He said to me.
Mark and I have been ministered to as much as we minister. I feel that I get more than I give. I hope that the inmates are encouraged and know that the Lord is using them greatly. His ears are open to His children!
With the Regional Justice Center offices in Kent taking preventative steps for a possible flood in the Green River valley, we got all involved in the chaplain's office. Nearly our entire religious services library was packed in boxes and taken to various homes or given away.
