Today I had a visit from my friend, Mark. He's an active member of the Gideons, a worldwide organization that distributes Bibles into the hands of anyone who wants one...
Mark arrived around 10:30 and left shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon. Because I knew he was coming I didn't go to church this morning. It was a joy, however, to fellowship with my friends.
Mark had recently returned to the United States after a two week missions trip with several other Gideon members where they gave out thousands of Bibles in the South American countries of Guatemala and Nicaragua. He also took lots of photos of the people and the countryside and brought a stack of photos into the visiting room to share them with me. I was overjoyed and humbled to see so many school children with smiling faces, each one holding up a new Gideons Pocket Testament in Spanish that was given to them as a gift.
But I also saw photos of terrible poverty. Yet the people living in those shacks seemed happy. So I mentioned to my friend Mark how I wished I could share the photos with the men in my congregation. It would give them a greater appreciation of what we, even as prisoners, have here in the United States. To live with an entire family in a one room shack, without running water and a flush toilet, and to have no vehicle so that you have to walk miles on dusty dirty roads in order to get to school or to the local market, is a way of life that few Americans experience nowadays.
Towards the end of the visit Mark and I joined hands, and we prayed. For me today was not only a time for one-on-one fellowship. I actually had a Sunday in which I could rest rather than run around in a state of busy activity. I needed this visit.
D.B.
Mark had recently returned to the United States after a two week missions trip with several other Gideon members where they gave out thousands of Bibles in the South American countries of Guatemala and Nicaragua. He also took lots of photos of the people and the countryside and brought a stack of photos into the visiting room to share them with me. I was overjoyed and humbled to see so many school children with smiling faces, each one holding up a new Gideons Pocket Testament in Spanish that was given to them as a gift.
But I also saw photos of terrible poverty. Yet the people living in those shacks seemed happy. So I mentioned to my friend Mark how I wished I could share the photos with the men in my congregation. It would give them a greater appreciation of what we, even as prisoners, have here in the United States. To live with an entire family in a one room shack, without running water and a flush toilet, and to have no vehicle so that you have to walk miles on dusty dirty roads in order to get to school or to the local market, is a way of life that few Americans experience nowadays.
Towards the end of the visit Mark and I joined hands, and we prayed. For me today was not only a time for one-on-one fellowship. I actually had a Sunday in which I could rest rather than run around in a state of busy activity. I needed this visit.
D.B.
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