Ladies' Prison Visit

Recently I was asked to sub for a friend at a women's prison. (Almost a year has passed since I had last been there.)  It was raining.  The prison is over an hour away and the trip takes me through several towns and lots of countryside.  It's always a great drive because the freeway is bare of traffic.  I can set my cruise and do just that...cruise.
Railroad tracks run parallel on the left side heading out and the right side coming home.  Somehow it seems fitting for them to be near prisons - along with cornfields, barbecue, and farmers' markets.  They crop up in the long stretches of isolation in bunches.
It is different teaching prisoners than visiting them.
There is no vehicle or personal search when teaching as there is when I visit my brother. Visits only allow for keys, glasses, and I.D. When teaching, I can bring keys, glasses, bible, and paperwork, pen/pencil, and always I.D.  I sign in through locked doors and then pass through more locked doors with buzzers to indicate when. The wardrobe color is white, if that is a color.  (I am not allowed to wear white, by the way, lest I be mistaken for an inmate.)
I can remember having butterflies the first time I went. The unknown can be intimidating.  As the ladies began to trickle in, I met them individually and found that they were just like me...women making it through life one day at a time...and I loved them. This visit was no different.
Some come to class out of boredom, some come for credits to shorten their sentences.  Some come to learn more about a Savior who loves them right where they are.  There were thirty-one in class and I did not recognize any faces from the year before. But they knew me.  My friend had prepared them ahead of time.  Another friend was there to help me.  We watched a movie that day called "Grace Card." Forgivenss was the main message and it was obviously a much needed one because the tears flowed. My friend pulled some tissues out of her bible to pass around. (I must remember to pack some in my bible, too!) A female guard sat and watched the movie with us, laughed with us, and seemed to be the one they turned to for permission to go anywhere.
The room we used was a large one, and doors on each side led to other rooms, so that people came and went all during class. One woman passing through on her way out stopped to ask me to pray. Another was sobbing from news her mom had died. She wondered where her daughter would live without her.
I had to put this ministry on hold last year, but I'm hoping to return on a regular basis.  I am usually just a helper.  The process is simple. The ladies sign in and give me their 'lay-ins' - a kind of permission slip - and then find a seat in the room.  I take homework from them and hand out more. Pencils are valuable and sometimes never make it back into the box. Something so ordinary and simple suddenly becomes precious.
The only thing I am giving them is my time, some hugs, and prayer.  I can do that.
There are all kinds of prisons, even some of our own choosing. Christ came to set captives free. That is news worth sharing, and that is the message some are waiting to hear.
Romans 10:14-15  But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"