On Faith
JAMES BOETCHER
Saturday, September 1, 2001
Carl stepped up to the podium wearing a tan jumpsuit with the words HCCC INMATE stenciled across his back and also down one leg, looked at the packed house in the Hilo Seven Seas Luau House and said, "The best thing that ever happened to me was going to jail." Prisoner finds freedom
in following GodCarl, like many other men and women incarcerated in jails and prisons across Hawaii, had found something more precious than his misused freedom. He had found God. Or, rather, God found him.
Carl had made so much money selling drugs to people from all walks of life that it ceased to mean much to him anymore. He told how he even recruited children as young as 8 to sell drugs on school campuses. But life lost its meaning just as money lost its value.
And then the inevitable happened: He was arrested, convicted and sent to jail.
As he sat in an 8-by-10-foot cell with two other recent arrestees, a chaplain gave him a Bible and invited him to the weekly Bible classes. As is so typical, he remembered something his grandmother read to him long ago, and began to thumb hesitantly through the book. His eyes fell on the words, "For God so loved the world ..."
He looked around the cramped cell and thought about what his life was really worth. And then he began to cry. Tough, hard, cool Carl realized he was a 30-year-old failure headed nowhere. Something unexplainable had just happened. He had found something bigger than himself to live for and someone who could truly meet his needs.
Carl's testimony touched the 400-plus people at the Good News Jail & Prison Ministry Luau that evening. But he and the 19 other inmates attending that night were also affected. They saw more than 400 people from across the Big Island who came because they cared about inmates.
Upon their return to the two Big Island penal institutions, these 20 men spread the word that there were people who actually thought about them, prayed for them and even gave money to help them receive the spiritual help for which they longed.
Carl was nurtured in his newfound source of strength not only by the chaplain, but also by a team of 170-plus volunteers, prison medical and educational staff and caring guards. Even the guards could see him change over the many months of his incarceration. He began to share his new faith gently with other inmates by pointing them to the same source of strength that helped him and by encouraging them.
I'll let you in on a little secret: The real evangelists in a jail or prison are the inmates who truly have found Christ.
Carl served his full time and has been free for nearly two years. He has been continuously faithful in his local church and has been successful in starting a small business. And instead of selling drugs to children, he has gone into our schools to warn them. And he still thanks God for the miracle that changed his whole life through a jail cell.
The Rev. James Boetcher is chaplain at
Hawaii Community Correctional Center and
Kulani Correctional Facility on the Big Island.
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