El Salvador…take 2 Day 6

 Hoy. Today.

We got up really early and were in the van for 3 hours to get to the women’s prison in Santa Ana. I loved the boys prison so much the last time, that I have really been looking forward to this ministry. As of yesterday afternoon we thought it had been canceled by the prison…but we found out in the evening that we were going to be able to go in. I had NOOO idea what was in store for us there…and I’m not entirely sure I will recover from it anytime soon. 

I’m sure my heart was overly sensitive secondary to the 4-5 hours of sleep I’ve gotten each night between the tossing and turning..I also recognize by this time in the week of work, I am completely exhausted on a mental level more than anything…

trying to overcome a language barrier and be efficient and effective at the same time takes SOOO much effort and attentiveness. And since I have been working on my Spanish EVERY day since March 2022, I have also been really tuning my ears into the patients words for as long as I can to try and learn to comprehend the language…

and maybe because we were working with women…who are more emotionally engaged because of the way God created us…I was more vulnerable to my own emotions..

The bottom line is…today was one of the hardest things I have ever done…and for whatever reason, I’m sure God orchestrated all the things to make sure my heart was right where it needed to be for Him to get his message across…and let me tell you…I HAVE. BEEN. SCHOOLED these last two days. Not by the patients, though I have learned from them!! But by my family in Christ that God has graciously put in my path this week to tell me things I needed to hear…at the level of my heart—not at the level of my head! I’ll tell ya that later. First, I need to make sure you all understand what I saw today…and I want to make sure that I never forget what I saw today!! PS there are no pictures from the prison (other than the one from outside below) because before we are allowed in, we take off any jewelry, no phones are allowed, our medical bags are checked, we are patted down, and our passports are kept in their possession till we leave the building. 

After all of that…

We walked through a few narrow open air corridors until we got to a large compound. When we walked into the door, we saw women all dressed in white shirts and white pants. All of them had on white crocs and some of them had white beanie hats on making them look a little bit like gnomes. Maybe 30 were sitting in rows of chairs waiting for us to start. Another 50 or so stood in a single line against the wall to our right. A few at the front of the line were clearly moving their way up a few steps. It seemed apparent that the women were taking baths behind the partition, tho their shirts were on and you could see them from the midsection up. It was confirmed later that was what they were doing. Across the back wall, were 8 iron barred gates. The doors were mostly closed and watched by other women who were also all dressed in white, presumably inmates with more privilege. All day long, there were faces peering out from behind those bars and there were girls standing as far back as I could see…when I dared to look. The gate guards would let some in and some out for different things…to go to the shower line, to take meal boxes in or out, or to get in the line to see the health team. I could barely see bunk beds in there. They must have gone back for a length because it turned out that in each partition, there were at least 100 women and probably more like 125 women and in partition #8 there were 175 women in there. Now I don’t know how deep the building was, but the length and width to the building we were in was roughly the size of my husbands automotive shop, about 100 feet by 75 feet. This prison held 18,000 women in it. 18,000 women all dressed in white.

I think the youngest patient I had was around 22 and the oldest was 70. Initially I thought that we were seeing women who were in there for a couple years for not ratting out the gang members they were tied to…turns out that was another sector. I couldn’t get the stories of everyone…there was too much work and not enough time…but the stories I heard were hard. Some were in because they had gang tattoos. Some were in because corrupt people lied against them…some were in for really committing serious crimes like murder and paying their time for their bad choices. I get it. It’s a prison. In one way or another, most of them technically “deserved” to be there by our standards. But darn. Listening to them tell us that they don’t know where their babies even are…to listen to them tell us that everyone in the world they loved has turned their back on them, to know they see others get a visitor and have to sit with the reality that no one in this world cares enough to visit them. For whatever reason they were there…I acutely felt the pain in those faces in front of me as I listened to their needs!  

It also caused me to wonder later…maybe Jesus refers to visiting those in prison because in reality…all of deserve to be in the prison of hell, but He set us free from that sentence when we trusted. Maybe He wanted us to remember that some bad choices don’t define who WE ARE in Christ…and so we should have care and compassion on those who also  aren’t defined in His eyes by their past stupidity. 

Again, as the day got longer and harder and as the weight of all that I was involved in felt more oppressive, God reminded me of Little Larry’s talk yesterday…I couldn’t help everyone of them…heck I might not have been able to help any of them for more than a few days…but I could share my gift, which is laughter and compassion and knowledge…and I could touch those that God presented to me today. 

We found out about 6 hours in, that the section of women we were seeing today were the ones with the chronic problems…the sickest of them all. We saw plenty of headaches, back pain, and scabies. We saw some injuries like the lady who probably has at least one if not two herniated discs in her back that have been worse since a recent fall. It took 2 people to help her hobble to the chair to see me. She was the one that told us that they slept 2 women in one twin sized bed. I gave her some steroids and a note to hopefully get a single bed for a few weeks.

Another girl had fallen 5 months ago and probably broke her forearm based  on the looks of the deformity in her right one. The prison put a splint on it and no hospital or doctor visit. Now both wrists hurt a lot, especially in rainy weather like they are seeing now. She is in her early 30s and will live with this forever. No one cares. Except her. And me. But my hands were tied and she has no voice. Lose/lose. 

I saw a 60 something with a pressure sore on her butt, among other issues. How do you tell her that she needs to take the pressure off her sore bottom when there are really no good options for where she can go to do that!

By the end of the day, after struggling to get thru the language barrier, struggling to make decisions that would be most helpful for the longest period of time for them, struggling to process my own thoughts and emotions let alone theirs…I found myself wondering again…how can my place here be doing anything positive. There are no good solutions for them medically…10 tablets of Tylenol or some cold medicine is very temporary. Bandaid on a boat hole.

My interpreter helped me clean up and as I gave her a big hug and thanked her, we found ourselves locked in tearful embrace. She prayed and rubbed my back. I have no idea what she said, but the love and passion in her emotional voice said all I needed to hear. I knew God knew.

The chaplain who had been hanging around all day also came to me and chatted. He was emotional as well as he talked. He had been watching all of us all day…and he wanted to tell me what he observed… he told the girls as they waited “You see?? You see how they smile at the other women as they sit down? You see how they interact with them? You see the love when you watch them work?? This is the face of Jesus you see in them. This is how Jesus looks at you.”

And it clicked.

Sometimes Jesus sends a person far far away from their comfort level and their home…to show a scabies infested woman in white from another land that He loves her so much that He sent His daughter 2000 miles to bandage her wounds in way that makes her feel His love and know that she is seen.

 

It’s still raining as I type…and we have one day left!! The rest of my gifts from the States will be given away tomorrow…and I will look into these last little faces, old faces, wrinkled faces, precious faces and use the gifts that God has given me…to use for His glory in their lives. To HIM be the glory. May I look at them as He looks at me!