Yesterday Oscar and I went to the Commissary to get a paper that says I live here so I can then go to Immigration and update my paperwork. As I have said on Twitter, I am currently illegal. The paperwork wasn’t completed, so we couldn’t get to Immigration to make me legal. Today I went to jail. Fortunately for me, these two events are completely unrelated.
There’s a man who attends the Lambaré church, where I go, who has quite the interesting past. I don’t know his whole story, but from what I gather, he was basically hired muscle in his day. He’s been to prison and is now free and has completely turned his life around. Rather, and he would definitely correct me if he knew what I said, God has turned his life around. He would say prison didn’t change his life, the Word of God did. He quite frequently visits with several inmates in this prison called Esperanza (Hope) who have also been changed by the power of God. He asked me a few days ago if I wanted to come with him this time, and I said sure. I met a man called Ruiz.
Ruiz left home when he was 12 because his mother beat him constantly. He has three scars on his head alone that she gave him. He just took some clothes and a bag one day and left on his bike. He worked for a while, but after a few months (I think) he was hit by a car on his bike. If I understood his story correctly, the man who hit him was a Japanese man who essentially adopted him into his family and took care of everything he needed. After a while, for a reason I didn’t catch when he told it, he left and got into drug trafficking and selling, arms dealing, and eventually murder. He once killed an entire family – including the pets – because (I think) he owed them a large sum of money (maybe they owed him money…). He said after that, he felt free. At one point he killed 13 people one week.
When I met this man, all I knew is that he was a Christian. I met him in the pastor’s office, so naturally I thought he was the pastor. I found out eventually that he’s an inmate, changed by the Holy Spirit of God, well respected among his fellow inmates and guards alike, and is given a lot of liberty that probably no one else in the whole prison gets. I literally could not believe the stuff he was telling me because of the character of the man I was talking to. In his face I saw nothing but love, peace, and a man of purpose. These days, whatever he puts his mind to, he does. He’s made – to sell – shoes, jeans, backpacks, sandals, and has just finished a book. He’s earned the trust of everyone in the jail, enough that he can have his computer, scanner, printer, speakers, sewing machine, and other things (he’s saving up for an air conditioner) in the office, that the two actual pastors invited him into, at his disposal. Incredible, unbelievable hardly describe the change in him.
I used to ask, when I would hear of something terrible – like someone killing a whole family – what were they thinking? Which person in their right mind would ever do something like that? I would always come to the conclusion that a “normal” person would never do something like that. I spoke briefly with another man who says Ruiz’s story is nothing compared to his. Yet both of these men spoke of the Truth and had the peace and joy of God in their faces. I think they’re the first people I’ve met (that I know of) that were quite literally the worst possible kind of person you can be, and yet they spoke with authority and with so much *reason*. They are not unreasonable men. They’re in their right mind. That’s what God can do.
That’s the God I serve.
To quote a song by Shawn McDonald, “what a beautiful God.”
-j
I'm Jason, and I like to write.
I never committed homicide (in unchristian terms of the word), but I would say that neither was I in my “right mind” until God did a good thing in my life. I’m not trying to steal any glory from Ruiz’s conversion, except maybe to give it to God for anyone’s conversion.