Hello again!

Mike and I are leaving tomorrow morning at 5:30 to drive up to visit Kristi in Northern California.  I wanted to share God's work at the prison with you before we leave.

Now that school has started, the schedules have changed and we're not seeing all the boys.  We're hoping to get that worked out and may end up changing our visiting day or time or whatever.  Even though things were a little chaotic with boys coming and going, we still were able to see 15 of the boys tonight.  Two of them had never joined us before.

Caz has been released.  Please continue to pray for him now that he is "outside".  We hope to be able to stay in communication with him through letters and phone calls.  It was a blessing to NOT see him there!!!

Wissam was still there.  He is still waiting for his case to be reviewed and still hopeful he will be released when that occurs.

We shared our hello's, got hugs on arrival from a few which is normal now.  We asked how each one is doing and worked our way around the room.  Steve shared that he turns 18 in November and expects to go to the penitentiary soon after that. 

Mike's message tonight was about forgiveness.  As far as the East is from the West... he talked about how God chose East and West, not North and South.  Something he'd heard Pastor Chuck share recently.  It was very quiet while he shared.  Again, we ended up talking about how sin is sin - there are no gradients.  Then we talked about how hard it is for us, people, to be forgiving.  I told them that sometimes I struggle with forgiving others and sometimes hold grudges.  I shared Melanie's story of forgiving the boy who murdered her son.  We returned to the topic of the last visit - should we forgive Satan.  I shared that Satan hasn't ever asked for forgiveness or acknowledged that he even needs to be forgiven.  The conversation was lively.  The looks on their faces were intense at times.  It's just awesome to participate in these conversations!!

As we were saying our good-byes, Wissam asked if he could speak to us.  The rest of the boys left the area and we stayed to talk with him.  Wissam claims to be Muslim, but always stays with us, prays with us and writes to us.  Last visit he asked me to send him the "Footprints in the Sand" poem, which I did.  Tonight he wanted to talk about forgiveness.  He shared that he was falsely accused, that he lied to the police when he was first questioned, that his situation is hurting his whole family, and that he can't forgive the girl who accused him.  He has a 3 year sentence and has been incarcerated for a couple of months.   He was almost in tears as he talked to us.  We listened.  And then I asked him for the girl's name so that I could pray for her.  He was taken aback at first, then I explained that I wanted to pray for her to be touched by God's truth.  Her name is Aseret.  Please pray for her and for Wissam.  She has obviously been through a lot with all of this and I know she must be hurting as much as Wissam is.   It had not occurred to Wissam to lift Aseret up to God, to ask God to touch her life and to give the whole situation to Him, the One who rules.   We obviously don't know the truth of this situation, but treasure your prayers for these two young people.

Please pray for Troy and Oscar as we have not seen him for the last 3 visits.   The two new boys were Manuel and Gilbert.   When we had our prayer circle, neither one of them knew how to pray.  It always moves me to think that someone is talking to God for the first time. 

We will not be able to return for 4 weeks because we will be out of town again in two weeks.   We will send the boys postcards from Northern California.  They'll enjoy that!!

Thank you so much for your prayers before, during and after our visits.  It is truly amazing to see God at work during the minutes we spend with the boys.

Much love,

Susie

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Prayer Requests

I would like you to pray for my family and me, most importantly my mom.

~ Sterling

Can you pray for my cousin that just got married, because I am worried about her.

~ Christopher

Pray for my fam bam and everybody that's in the struggle.  Pray for my mother who is making a decision to return back to her job after an injury.

~ Steve