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Three years ago my colleague and I led an adapted “Alpha” course in a Beirut women’s prison, where we’ve been chaplains for about 10 years. Three women detainees, very different from one another, attended it every Friday. God could only have seen the incredibly different paths their lives have taken since.
Sarah, a Lebanese university student in her 20s, seemed eager to know more about the Christian faith, and was, apparently, the most active participant. Nadia, a Ukrainian in her early 30s, was a former cabaret dancer and (not so) occasional prostitute. She had discovered the Good News of Jesus on her own while reading a Russian Bible in prison. Nadia was happy about the message of forgiveness and the possibility of a new life and always eager to please us. I felt her a bit too compliant, but perhaps my French Cartesian mind is not comfortable with people who do not argue! Last but not least, Janet, a French university professor in her mid-40s, addicted for over 20 years to heroin, a combination of a Ph.D. mind and a child's emotional state. During our sessions, Janet would make some very insightful comments and then slip into “off mode" for the next 10 minutes, before coming back into the conversation with an intelligent remark.
Nadia had been charged for being an accomplice to murder and was awaiting sentencing (three to 20 years), while both Sarah and Janet were charged with drug dealing, and were serving a five-year sentence.
We explored together (in English, our common second language!), the message of Christ and it’s implications in our lives. They never missed a session (having a “captive audience is a definite advantage of prison ministry!). We finished the course in six months and all three wanted to continue, so we did the “Beta” course, a study in Philippians.
Sarah finished her prison time and decided to go to a Christian rehab center. Janet still had doubts and questions (the fruit of higher education?) while Nadia seemed to have none. At that point, the three of us continued the Bible study.
I asked Janet if she would be interested in a one to one weekly encounter with me. Janet and I met every Monday, sitting cross-legged on the cement floor in her tiny cell corner, exploring the pain in her past and trying to help her discover a new identity. No longer did she have to be an “EX” — ex-addict, ex-wife, ex-mother and ex-university professor — but could now have a new identity as a disciple of Christ! She felt that she had become too “marginal” for such a life. I assured her that, indeed, being a true disciple of Christ was to be very marginal, for it is the “narrow road.” By the time she finished her sentence, she had become a shy baby Christian, and was very afraid of what the future held for her.
This was 15 months ago.
Sarah dropped out of re-hab and went back to a dangerous life. Though she finished her college degree, accomplishing a good part of it while in prison under Janet's tutelage, she returned to her risky friends, holds no steady job and tries to manipulate Janet into meeting with “old friends,” who are of course still involved in drugs.
Nadia is still in prison. She was recently sentenced (a relief after four-and-a-half years of detention!), she still has a year and one half to serve. We provide her with a weekly e-mail link with her family in Ukraine. Nadia is still a committed follower of Christ and would like to use her remaining time in jail to take a Bible college course in Russian by correspondence. She is continually worried though about her family in Ukraine — her daughter, mother, brother who are very poor and for whom she used to provide financially. She is worried about how to meet their expectations to be their provider when she gets out of prison. She of course refuses to engage in her former illicit activities to generate income and really desires to meet and marry a Christian man, in order to be a wife and mother as well as helping her extended family.
Janet has been engaged in an incredible journey over the last 15 months. After her release, she avoided returning to her former apartment to avoid bad memories and dangerous encounters. She accepted a job teaching French at the French cultural center in Beirut and was just beginning to make ends meet when last summer’s war broke out in Lebanon. The French cultural center was closed and she lost her job overnight and had to give up her studio apartment.
Yet, she continued to grow in her personal relationship with the Lord and volunteered to help us set up in the Beirut Baptist School a dispensary for the refugees. She was also learning to depend on the Lord for her daily needs as. Claire, her 14-year-old daughter, previously living with her dad, came to live with her. Now Janet had to trust God for the needs of two people, including a teenager!
After the first few days of war, the air pollution from the bombing was so bad that many of us had respiratory or eye irritation. Janet developed in 48 hours an abscess of the cornea and lost eyesight in her right eye. She needed urgent hospitalization but had no job and no insurance. We prayed. God answered. Janet holds a French passport and was able to be evacuated with us by the French navy at no cost. After an overnight voyage by ship to Cyprus we flew to Paris where she was taken directly by ambulance to a central Paris hospital where she remained five days and her eye was saved.
After attempting to find work in France to resettle there with Claire, by the beginning of September, she still had no job, no home and no school for Claire. Our family returned to Lebanon on September 9, the day the airport re-opened. A few days later, Janet had a positive interview in Paris and got a job … in Beirut!
She is now a director of a Beirut school, her daughter lives with her, they both attend church, and were recently baptized together. What a redemption!
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