GOD RUNNER

            It’s a Monday, 8 a.m. and I’m sitting in a Calimax parking lot in downtown Tijuana, Mexico. I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to go where Jorge Garcia is going to take me. I guess I’m here because I was first introduced to Jorge by Chuck Colson. It was at a banquet at the Nixon Library in Yorba, Linda. I didn’t want to meet Chuck Colson, but Rose prevailed upon me to go because, “what your doing is a lot like what he’s doing.” I really didn’t think so, I was trying to keep them out of prison, not turn them around once they got there. I’d been taught that prison was an evil place from which no one ever really returns.

            It was more than that though, Chuck Colson looked like my father, a little under six feet, crew cut, dark horn-rimmed glasses, always at least a sport coat, shirt, tie and wing tip shoes. They were part of the generation before me, you know, “The Greatest Generation,” except my father didn’t live up to that ideal, he left my mom for another woman just when I was coming of age, and hadn’t spoken to me or my sister for thirty years. We all carry around our own little bag of prejudice.

            I tried to stay away, but he came to me. “I have heard good things about you Phil, your work in Mexico, and your approach to criminal defense. You know I did some defense work myself before I got indicted.”

            Wow, this isn’t what I expected. “Ahh, thank you Mr. Colson, that’s very kind of you.”

            “Call me Chuck, please.” He extends his right hand and I shake it; his grip is firm like other marines I’ve met. At least that’s consistent with my stereotype.

            “Have you met Jorge Garcia, he’s our Director of Spanish Ministries.” Jorge is shorter than Chuck, thinning jet-black hair combed back, tinted wire rim glasses, the kind that darken in the sun, but always have a little tint in them, and a pressed collared shirt that proudly displays the PF logo. His hand shake is soft, consistent with his humble demeanor.

            A late model Ford sedan pulls up next to me, Jorge smiles through the windshield and gets out with, “brother Phil,” as a greeting. “Jorge, it’s good to see you.” We give each other a hug; I pick up a hint of his cologne. Jorge is beaming, he has finally triumphed over my apprehension.

            “What we’re going to do, is load up on supplies before we go in. Soap, tooth paste, toilet paper, that sort of thing, then we’ll give it to the men when we get inside.” The Calimax is enormous, think Walmart. We load up four baskets of basic hygiene essentials, check out, load up the Ford and we are on our way to La Mesa Federal Prison. It doesn’t take long before we turn onto a side street and pull into a small parking lot in a suburban neighborhood.

            I’ve been here before, almost thirty years ago. Our church was supporting a mission known as Dorcas House, named for Dorcas in the book of Acts, “who was always doing good and helping the poor.” Rose was with me then, and we brought our children, Rebecca age five and Peter age three. That’s right we brought our kids with us, you see we were throwing a party for the children of the prison. Right again, the children of the prisoners; along with their mothers, were allowed to live inside the prison with their father. Rather than splitting up the family, they kept them together, a Mexican rehabilitation program. The down side being children were growing up in prison.

            It was a village from the Middle Ages. Everywhere on the perimeter a twenty-foot cinder block wall with razor wire at the top, with observation towers intermittently placed, looked down upon a hard dirt square covered with small shacks, make shift tents, and an occasional building used by the guards. Along one wall stood a series of small store front shacks that served as local restaurants and stores. Everyone moved about freely, the guards didn’t control anyone’s movements, they mainly hung out along the walls. Smoke lingered in the air from various cooking devises, that created a particularly detestable stench when mixed with the accumulated garbage spread throughout the yard.

            In the center a large kettle hanging from a tripod of sticks sat unattended. “It’s what the prison makes,” I was told. “Only the most destitute eat from it, they say its uneatable.” Now I knew why we had brought so much food with us, burritos, tamales, fresh vegetables, and gallons of fresh water. The fun part was we also brought a bag of toys, ice cream and a birthday cake for the children.

            We were escorted into a building covered with a tin roof at a far corner of the yard. Walking in I scraped the top of my head on a low hanging rafter, which only added to my already considerable anxiety. Once inside everything changed in the moment. All the children of the prison were seated in a circle on the floor surrounded by their mothers. Their excitement was palpable, and it turned into muffled shrieks of anticipated joy, as they caught a glimpse of the toy bag.

            Rose sprang into action; her teacher training knew just how to handle this crowd. Soon they were organized into various groups playing Duck, Duck, Goose, while the rest of us set up for the party. Before long she had both groups of kids playing together as if they went to school together. When the game ended; the excitement level rose another notch. Every kid loves cake and ice cream, but the expression on these kid’s faces crushed my fear, and replaced it with joy. After that, I got to play Santa Claus. There are no words to describe the look of amazement on the face of a child receiving her first doll, teddy bear, or truck.

            It was thirty years ago, but the memory was still fresh. I half hoped for a similar experience this time, but I knew better, the war on drugs, Cartel violence, and the explosion of the prison population in both of our countries, left no room for rehabilitation on either side of the border. The other thing I knew was La Mesa is bigger now, not in physical size, but population. Originally designed for 1,500 inmates, it now held more than 7,000.

            The guards outside the gate looked ominous, but as soon as they saw Jorge, everything changed. I didn’t understand the greetings in Spanish, but Jorge explained that we “were fast tracked through security, but before we went in the vice warden wanted to see us.” Soon we were escorted to her office, there were four of us now, we picked up Pastor Lalo and Eric Prager outside. Lalo was in charge of Baja Christian Ministries prison ministry, and Eric, Baja Bob’s son-in-law, its new Executive Director.  

            Jorge received a big hug from the Vice Warden as we entered her office. After which she broke into English for my obvious benefit. “The warden will be sorry he missed you Jorge, but please sit down and tell me who, and what you brought us today.”

            “You know Lalo and Eric, of course, and this is brother Phil, he’s a lawyer in California.”

            “Welcome,” she smiles sweetly.

            “Thanks for having me.”

            “Well Jorge, the men will be happy to see you, what you do; really makes a difference.”

            The conversation goes on like this for a short while, and then slips back into Spanish. I continue to marvel at the reception Jorge has received. Left with my own thoughts, my mind wanders. They must know his history, his record, this isn’t how it would go on the other side of the border. We’re not so forgiving, no matter how much good you’ve done.

            Jorge grew up the oldest boy in a family with seven children in the Colonia Liberte just outside of Tijuana. His parents were, “very poor, dirt farmers in Mexico. When I was twelve, they decided to move us across the border. My father had a job at the Hotel Del Coronado, busing tables. We lived in Imperial City.”

            Jorge didn’t adjust well to the change in culture. “I didn’t speak any English, and the schools at that time didn’t help us out much, in fact, I had one teacher who use to make fun of me, in front of the other kids, when I tried to speak English. He even used a ruler on me, right across my knuckles.”

            It wasn’t long before Jorge started getting in trouble. He wasn’t very big, “but I was good fighter. One time this bully was picking on a girl, I knocked him down, one punch. That made me real popular with the other kids, unfortunately I learned that violence can earn you the respect of others.”

            “I started hanging out with the wrong kids, my parents worked all the time so they didn’t know what I was doing. We stole bicycles, sniffed glue, gasoline, stupid stuff. By the time I was in eight grade I was staying out all night, quit going to school, then I went to Juvenile Hall. Got in a fight in the barrio, the other kid got stabbed, I only did ten days for that, but I learned about claiming your ‘hood; we were ‘Imperial’ or ‘South Side.’ I became a soldier in a war for the streets of San Diego County.”

            Inevitably Jorge was drawn into the drug trade. Juveniles, under the age of eighteen, receive significantly lighter sentences on drug offenses than adults, so drug traffickers recruit them as distributors. “I was bringing kilos of marijuana over the border, I’d just leave the car in a parking lot, I got $120.00 a delivery, that was a lot of money for a fifteen-year-old in those days. Then my uncle got me in deep, he was hooked up with what would later be known as a ‘cartel,’ before long we were bringing four trucks a day over the border, that was 320 kilos a day. I got as much as $5,000.00 a trip. I saved some of the money, but most of it I spent on cars, and my habit. I was into everything, pills, cocaine, heroin, LSD, you name it, I did it.”

            “I started moving heavier stuff, more money in cocaine and heroin, easier to get across the border. Things were pretty easy in Mexico, I got busted one time with an ounce of coke, when I was nineteen, but we were paying the local police chief a thousand a month, so I got out of that one.” The staggering profits in the drug trade made bribery a small part of the cost of doing business. “We found an INS agent we could pay off, $10,000.00 a trip across the border; it was worth it for the security, 200, 300 kilos at a time, yeah it was worth it.”

            “This is about the time I got married, we’d been dating since we were 15, nice girl. She really didn’t know about what I was doing, didn’t ask. We had four kids, but I was too busy running drugs to be much of a father, I loved my kids, but I loved the drugs more. By the time I was twenty, I was totally addicted.”

            Jorge was now thoroughly immersed in the dark world of drug trafficking. He hung out at night clubs, drove fancy cars, rented houses used to sell drugs, and started carrying a gun. “I had people working for me, even a body guard, the drugs make you paranoid. That and the money; people get greedy, you get ripped off, then you got to do something about it.”

            On one occasion, a car was left in a parking lot, but when the buyer opened up the upholstery to get his 300 kilos; it was gone. “I was sure I knew who did it. I went to his house, had some of my people with me, we tied him and his wife to a chair. We beat on him a long time. I wanted my money. He didn’t come up with it until I grabbed their son and put a .38 in his mouth. That’s when he gave me the money.”

            By now law enforcement in San Diego knew all about Jorge Garcia, but they had a hard time making a case against him. “One time, they raided one of my houses, found a pound of heroin. My lawyer told me I was looking at state prison, but my guy that lived there took the rap. He said it was his and nobody else’s. We paid his family $2,000.00 a month while he was inside.”

            “Then things started getting rough in the 80’s, the Cartels were going after each other, they had consolidated the suppliers. They were moving tons of cocaine in one shipment.” The myth that cocaine wasn’t addictive had taken hold in America, and our appetite for cocaine knew no limits. Drug lords working mainly out of Columbia, were becoming some of wealthiest people in the world. “I went to a meeting in Guadalajara, there was an FBI agent there, he was working for us. They had eight different planes they were using, flying in 200 kilos at a time. They didn’t need to drive it across the border any more. I knew our time was about over. Those guys don’t like leaving any loose ends, you’re either working for them, or you’re a problem for them.”

            Whether out of fear, or drug paranoia, Jorge turned to the dark arts for protection. “There was a witch I knew in Mexico, she was only four and a half feet tall, but she was the real deal. She used Tarot Cards to predict the future, and Voodoo against my enemies. We would meet at a mausoleum in the cemetery, she would kill a kitten and drink its blood. Horribly wicked things, I was totally consumed by darkness.”

            “There was only one time when the light shone through. A family friend, Manuel, he’d been after me to go to church. He was so persistent I finally said ‘yes,’ I’d go one time, just to get him to leave me alone. I thought the people would sit there quietly, like the Catholic church I went to as a kid. But at Iglesia Nueva Vida (Church of New Life), the people stood up and sang, some were crying, rejoicing, it really touched my soul. Then they had an altar call, I went forward, I was crying, they laid hands on me, prayed for me. I went down to my knees, said my own prayer, ‘God, you know I’m destroying myself, come help me.’ It didn’t last though, I got back to my car, made sure my gun was still under the dashboard, and started right up again. But a seed had been planted.”

            Jorge brings me back to the present, “Phil, time to go, they’re taking us down to the yard.” The Vice Warden leads us to a hallway and then down some steps, where we wait for a guard to open the door. We carry with us the Calimax bags filled with supplies that were searched while we waited. The door opens into a hallway made of steel posts and chain link running along the side of the building. Though I retained a strong memory of La Mesa’s “Recreation Yard,” there is nothing familiar in what I see. Everything is concrete and steel. The yard has been split in two, one section is filled with inmates either walking or jogging an oval pattern. These appear to be the older prisoners, as some merely stand in groups along the fence. The other yard is hosting the world’s largest soccer game, I marvel at the ferocity with which they play on concrete. The ball is torn apart, as are most of the men’s’ shoes, if they have a pair at all. I check out the interior walls, they are solid cinder block twenty feet high, I too am amazed that Andrew Tahmooresi was able to scale them without assistance.

            An exchange of prisoners on the soccer yard is complete, so the gate is opened and we are led between the two yards and into a cell block. As we enter, I am unable to see at first, as the bright sun outside is replaced by a dark interior room lit by one bare bulb in the ceiling. We pass right through, but the dank smell and a dripping shower head at the far end of the room provide evidence of the room’s purpose. As we pass through the final gate into the cell block, I am confronted by the most desperate conditions I have ever seen human beings endure. There are perhaps twenty cells in a row, and at each one of them, men come forward, reaching their hands out between the bars. I walk freely in a poorly lit hallway outside the cells. I estimate they are about twenty feet by thirty, each crammed full of men, most of whom are two, sometimes three to a bunk, in the triple high bunk beds that consume most, if not all of the space in the room. In almost every cell, tattered blankets lie upon the cement; covering what I must assume are the weakest of the men. In the back, there is one open latrine; which must require a major repositioning of the cell’s occupants for any of them to use it.

            Jorge, Eric and Lalo rescue me with instructions on what to do. “We need to divide everything up evenly,” Eric tells me, so we count what we have in each bag. I carry the soap bag as Eric, who is fluent in Spanish, asks the men up front how many are in the cell. He tells me, “twenty-two.” I am concerned that everyone gets a bar, but as I begin handing them to the men, I notice they are passed hand to hand to the back, until the last ones are kept by the men up front. We repeat the process with toilet paper, tooth paste, and some packaged food, each time the distribution is entirely equitable, no man goes without, no man gets more than his share.

            There is little time to reflect, but in the back of my mind I realize I know someone who did four months in one of these cells. Fighting a war in Afghanistan would be traumatic enough, I can’t imagine what Andrew went through while he was in here. He at least was able to mount a defense, and his circumstances became known to the public. These men often wait years before their case is adjudicated. Like this prison, Mexico’s courts are overcrowded. Many of them have been abandoned by their families. They have no one else; it’s as if Jorge, Lalo, and Eric are their only friends.

            The supplies distributed, I wander down the hallway looking in on each cell, dodging inmate clothes hung from lines tied to the bars and the far wall. As I pass by, I hear “Phil, …Phil, that’s your name isn’t it?” I am trained not to respond to inmates clamoring for me, but this is different. I go back to the cell I just passed, I see a tall, blue eyed, grey haired man at the bars, “Don’t you remember me?”

            “No, can’t say I do, what’s your name?”

            “Bruce; you visited me, remember?”

            “I don’t think so, I haven’t been here in thirty years.”

            “I haven’t been here that long, but your name is Phil, right? I’d swear you’re the same guy that came to visit me. Maybe his name was Phil, too.”

            Bruce extends his right hand through the bars, I am both perplexed and intimidated by the strangeness of it all, but I shake his hand.

            The cell block now explodes into a chorus of men singing. Lalo is leading the song, I don’t recognize the words, but I know the tune, Amazing Grace. It is hard to talk over the passionate plea of some 200 men. I learn what “saved a wretch like me,” sounds like in Spanish. My heart gets the better of me, I fear Bruce will notice.

            The entrance gate opens and a guard walks through, leaving it open. Jorge comes over, “Our time’s up here, but they said we can go into the HIV unit, so that’s where we’re going next.”

            Fear grips me, but I know it will do me no good to give into it. I’m part of this mission, and there’s no turning back now.

            “Well good luck Bruce, and God bless you my brother.”

            “No, no, Phil; God bless you, and thank you for coming.”  

            As I follow Jorge down the hallway, and out the gate, my rational mind seeks to understand the paradox of Bruce. I fail to come up with a logical explanation.

            As we wait in the corridor outside the cell block, Jorge tells me, “We may be here a little while, they’re moving other inmates.”

            “Tell me Jorge, are these the worst conditions you’ve seen?”

            “Oh no brother Phil, the prisons in Central America are the worst, Ciudad Varrios in El Salvador, with MS 13, that’s bad.”

            “So why do you do it Jorge, you could stay in the United States.”

            “You know, I was one of them, I was worse. When my wife divorced me, I really lost it, I lost my mind, I was doing more drugs than ever, injecting heroin, coke, you name it. My mom tried to help me, put me in a mental hospital. I was there twelve days, when they released me, they told me, ‘you keep this up, you won’t live another seven years.’ I didn’t care, when I got out, I started right up again.”

            “So, how’d you get it together, how’d you wind up here, doing this?”

            “I was trying to kill myself, overdosed three times, but somebody always brought me back. I told them, ‘why you help me; I want to die, that’s why I overdosed.’”

            “Well something happened; you’ve come a long way back.”

            “I was running out of money, I was out of the game, and there were guys looking for me. I was desperate, finally I went back to that church, Nueva Vida, I cried out to Jesus, ‘Save me!’ I was crying, I never cried; I had a stone heart, but I felt His presence. My Lord and Savior answered my prayer. I felt like I’d been saved for something, my wretched soul had been forgiven.”

            “I knew I had to change my life, get away from everyone and everything. My family still had some land in Mexico, I went and lived there, four years. I had no money, lived off the land, but I was sober, and in my right mind. I read The Bible all the time, I made a commitment to God, to help others like myself. When I came back to the U.S., I was a changed man. I even got married, to my beautiful wife.”

            “How’d you get in with Prison Fellowship?”

            “I had nothing when I came back, the big-time drug runner didn’t even have five dollars for a hamburger. I opened a janitorial service, God humbled me; I spent my days cleaning toilets. Then I started visiting guys I use to know, in prison; telling them about Jesus. That’s how I learned about Prison Fellowship, I saw the volunteers going into prison, they told me they needed someone to work with the Spanish speaking inmates, so I applied for ‘Director of Spanish Speaking Ministries.’ I was told I was going to get the position, so I gave up the janitor business, then, I guess they looked into my past and changed their minds. I happened to be going into Chino one day, the same day Chuck Colson was there, I told him what happened.  We were in the prison parking lot, he made a phone call, then he came back and told me; ‘you got the job.’”

            “When was that?”

            “2003, been with them ever since.”

            “Jorge, I know you’ve been working with MS13, I don’t know that much about them, just the El Salvador connection, and that they came out of L.A. I guess originally they were providing protection from other gangs, for Central Americans?”

            “That’s right, they really didn’t get so violent until the civil war in El Salvador was over. That’s when a lot of them got deported. They got caught up with the former security forces, that’s who taught them to be ruthless, hacking up people, going after families, women and children, bad stuff.”

            “You went to see those guys in prison?”

            “Yeah, Ciudado Varrios, the worst place I’ve ever been. They run MS13 out of there, they have a whole section of the prison, the guards won’t go into. They just slide food under the door, if someone dies, they drag him out and leave him outside the door. There’s 1,700 men in there.”

            “You went in there?”

            “Yeah, I had to go alone, they tried to talk me out of it. I just knocked on the door, told them Pastor Garcia was there to see them. They said they’d heard about me, so when they opened the door, they were all lined up on both sides of the hallway. Young kids, tattoos all over their faces, it was pretty intimidating. The ‘Leader” came up to me, asked why I was there, I told him, ‘I came to tell you, God loves you.’ He thanked me for coming, he even told me about his family, so when I got to San Salvador, I rented a little store front for his wife, she sold vegetables. They had two little kids. So, when I went back everything was good, I brought in some medicine, shoes, soccer balls, they couldn’t believe it. I even helped them set up a little bakery. They made enough bread to sell on the street, they were very proud of it. They made me ‘Spiritual Father’ of MS13.”

            This brings a smile to my face; I am proud of my friend. Chuck Colson sure knew what he was doing when he hired Jorge Garcia. “So, Jorge is that the most dangerous place you’ve been?”

            “No, not really, Bella Vista, in Columbia, now that one really shook me up. We were in their doing our regular ministry, when a couple of kids come up to me and say, ‘The Boss wants to meet you.’ I know; I can’t say no, can’t disrespect him, so I said, ‘okay, set it up.’”

            “How’d that go down.”

            “They told me, ‘two guys will meet you at a shopping center in Medellin, at 6 a.m.’ They said they’d be in a Suburban, and they described the guys. I didn’t sleep much that night, but I figured I didn’t have much choice, if I wanted to keep working in Columbia.”

            “Where’d they take you?”

            “After we got outside the city, they put a hood on me, so I don’t really know where it was. It took about two hours, we stopped at a couple of their security check points, I could hear them talking. Finally, we stopped and they took the hood off, we were at this big beautiful hacienda in the jungle. Swimming pool, horses, a gorgeous place. There were guys carrying automatic weapons everywhere, just like in the movies. Then El Jefe comes out, strong looking man, about 5’10” maybe two hundred twenty pounds, he tells me, ‘Pastor Garcia, I’ve heard so much about you, thank you for coming.’ He takes me inside, sits me down in this big room, with his guys all around. Then he tells one of them ‘go get the girls,’ this guy comes back with all of these beautiful young ladies, he tells me, ‘pick one of them.’ I tell him, ‘no, no thank you, I’m a pastor and I’m a married man.’ I know he’s testing me. He was alright with that, he sent them away.”

            “Then I hear him tell one of his guys, ‘get the suitcase.’ The guy comes back and gives it to the boss, he opens it and smiles. Then he closes it and turns it around and pushes it in front of me and says, ‘go ahead, open it.’ So, I open it, and its filled with hundred-dollar bills. He tells me, ‘that’s $250,000.00, it’s for you; your ministry, all the good work you’ve been doing.’ I didn’t want to disrespect him, but I know I can’t take the money. A lot of people died for that money; and if I take it, he’ll own me.”

            The Boss, he laughs and tells me, ‘use it to help my people behind bars, buy them Bibles.’ So, I try and tell him, ‘I can’t get it out of the country, they’ll stop me at the border.’

            He tells me, ’I can take care of that, just tell me when and where you’re going over, it won’t be a problem.’”

            “So, I’m praying for the right thing to say, and then I just tell him, ‘no, I just can’t take it.’ The Boss isn’t use to people telling him, ‘No’, I can tell he’s upset.”

            “What; my money’s no good, …you know I love God too!”

            Then, it just comes out of me, “You can’t help God, but Jesus can save you. Just let Him into your heart, and everything will change for you, like it did for me. He listened, but he didn’t like what I was saying, he didn’t want to change, at least not yet. I could see the rage in him, it kept growing.”

            I see the anguish on Jorge’s face as he remembers the moment. He pauses to collect himself, “next thing I know one his guys come up behind me; tells me it’s time to go. He walks me down to a room, unlocks it, and pushes me inside. I can’t see a thing, it’s dark, and I hear him locking the door.”

            Once again, Jorge pauses as the memory over takes him.  I have never seen my friend manifest fear, but he is searching for words now. I wait patiently, until, “I cried out to God. ‘I don’t want that life anymore!’ I told God, ‘I’m ready to take the bullet, but please God, protect my family.’ I was begging, ‘Jesus, save my family!’” 

            Tears now fill Jorge’s eyes; I feel bad making him re-live it. Trying to move forward, I ask, “how long were you in there?”

            “Maybe three hours; three hours of prayer, crying out to my God, ‘Rescue me! Save my family, do not let the evil one triumph over your servant.’ When you’re in that kind of trouble, you really pray. I knew God was with me but, I still was afraid.”

            “So, how’d you get out of there?”

            “Finally, the guy comes back, unlocks the door; tells me, ‘come out.’ He knows I’m scared; he doesn’t like me, doesn’t like the way I talked to El Jefe. So, he’s pretty rough with me, keeps the barrel of the gun in my back; until we get back to the Suburban. The Boss man’s there, shaking his head like he’s disgusted with me, with what he’s got to do. I figure they’ll just march me into the jungle, shoot me there; no one will ever know what happened to me. Then he breaks into a smile, grabs me by the neck and says, ‘You really think God could love an outlaw like me?’”

            “Yes, God loves all His children, just the same; so of course, He loves you.”

            “I tell you what pastor, these men are going to take you back Medellin. The money, I’m going to keep it here for you, you let me know when you need it.”

            “It was a long ride back, I really didn’t know what they were going to do, where they were taking me. Finally, they took the hood off, and I saw we were in the parking lot in Medellin. That was the first time I believed I was going to be alright. I just got out and they drove away. I went straight to the airport, got the first flight out to Miami. It took a while before I went back to Bella Vista.”

            I chuckle at this, just as a gate opens and a guard motions for us to follow him across the yard. I hide my trepidation as best I can, as Jorge tells me, “they don’t always let us come in here, they lock it down when someone’s too sick; but we really need to help them, most of these guys don’t have any family left.”

            Once again, as many men will fit; squeeze up to the bars, their arms thrusting through them. The cry of, “pastor, pastor, por aqui (over here); por aqui, (over here),” reverberates throughout the cell block. Eric and Lalo touch the hands of the men as we make our way down the hallway. They stop in front of one of the cells, and begin fervently praying for each man they touch. I remain in the background, counting out bars of soap, toothpaste, and rolls of toilet paper. If anything, the cells are more crowded than before. I notice some of the men are without shirts; revealing skin lesions and open wounds. Though I don’t understand their pleas, their gestures make it apparent; they are desperate to receive the meager supplies I possess. I can ignore them no longer. Starting with the soap, I give it to the men up front, who pass it to the men in back; just like before.

            As I approach each cell, I see more deprivation then I’ve witnessed in a lifetime. Yet, amidst the obvious pain and sorrow; there’s a beauty that’s inexplicable. Human kindness once given is contagious. It prospers amongst the most desperate of souls. I finally see this prison for what it is; right now, in this moment, it is the holiest place I have ever been.