A significant 24 hours in the life of me

On Thursday afternoon last week I was invited to go to Pollsmoor Prison to take part in prayer ministry. This was something I had looked into a few weeks ago, and was told that it was a bit late notice, but they would try and get me on the list to go. I found out at lunch time and said yes straight away!

A normal Thursday includes going to St Anne's, a shelter for abused women and their children, coming back for a short lunch break, and then going to Bonnytoun in the afternoon. Bonnytoun is a detention centre for teenage boys both awaiting trial and sentenced.

At St Anne’s this week we were promoting the ‘Red my lips’ campaign which takes place every April across the world, standing up for survivors of sexual assault and against victim blaming.
Supporters wear red lipstick with confidence, and spread awareness across social media. We discussed rape myths, what the word ‘slut means’ and if what people wear has any correlation to how much sex they are having. 

This was a really brilliant discussion with lots of different views being expressed, and we certainly left feeling empowered. We celebrated the strength of women with a photoshoot using red lips as props, creating warrior posters, and decorating cupcakes with red frosting, I had a fab time!
We had been told to wear any red clothing we had, so I wore one of my favourite handmade red dresses. Love all the photos from this morning.

Notice the chocolate cup cake with red frosting! 

This photo has a mix of legal and social justice volunteers that came to St Anne's this morning.
Really enjoy working with them!

Here are the clips we showed, this one on consent –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8

And this one on what the word ‘slut means’-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3bQLq9QGA4&t=4s

At Bonnytoun this week we did a workshop about the meaning of justice. We had planned to see the red group, but this wasn't possible, so we saw blue instead. Having already given this workshop to the blue group before, we had to improvise! 

We played chief and colours (a couple of group games the boys enjoy) and then decided we would extend the topic of justice into consequences. Asking questions such as ‘do you think it is fair that you are here?’ to this we got a range of answers, some said yes they got it and planned to change their lives when they got out, others said it made no difference to them and they are already planning their next offences.

We then had some small group discussions about their future and they asked us what jobs we wanted to do, when I said that I wanted to lobby governments on human rights issues they said ‘so you want to be like Nelson Mandela?’ and I was like ‘sure!’ they approved of this. 

We finish the workshops with music; sometimes the young people dance and other times they just sit and listen, tapping their feet. 

When the workshop finished my supervisor called me over to say that during the group discussion (which had taken place almost entirely in Africaans) the boys had been making inappropriate comments about my dress. This was frustrating but not entirely surprising. Sexualising white women is common and a cultural shift I am still getting used to.

I had a couple of hours to get home after work and change before going to Pollsmoor. We arrived, got searched and waited for all the arrangements to be made for us to begin our prayer walk. We spent about 30 minutes singing in a big room in the women’s unit. This was an incredible way to start, 3 men played guitars and everyone sang African worship songs, the style was very similar to ones I learnt at school with a lot of repetition involved they are easy to pick up (like ‘this little light of mine’ and ‘he’s got the whole world in his hands') so even though they were new to me I picked them up fairly quickly.

We then were led in prayer by the head of Hope Ministries, the organisation that runs the prayer walk and headed off in two groups. We snaked around the maze guided by people who worked for hope ministries and prison staff. All the women were locked in their cells but would come to the doors, climb up to stick their hands out of their narrow windows, smiling and waving to us - so excited to be prayed for. We lifted our hands out towards them, unable to touch them, and prayed, some sang, others quoted bible verses. There was over 100 in each of the two groups (267 of us in total on the walk) the atmosphere was like nothing I’ve experienced, there was such joy. Such peace in a place known for cramped spaces housing vulnerable women.

My group went to pray in the hospital area for the pregnant women and the crèche were women were close to giving birth. I learned that these women have a choice when they give birth, give their child up to a family member straight away or to keep them for two years before being forced to give them up.
I can’t even being to imagine what this must be like, no choice at all.

Both groups then met up again in the cafeteria to pray for the prison staff and all the women in the facility. They called ex-offenders forward to pray for the staff. This was very moving as about 30 of the group came forward and prayed for the staff’s strength, endurance and work/life balance.
Some of the staff were wearing civilian clothing and had given up their night off to help assist, this allowed us to have such a large group on the walk.
Felecia (the lady I was with) introduced me to Andrew May who is the assistant director at Hope Ministries, I mentioned the work I am doing and he asked me to get in touch as they would like to establish more links with juvenile prisons. 

He then went before the group and said he had just been chatting to a first timer from the UK who had said ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this before’ and he said that is because there is nothing like this anywhere else in the world! It is mind blowing that 267 Christians can turn up and walk around a prison for an hour praying for the people there.

I have been praying for a break through moment in my trip and this may well be it, I am so keen to find out more about Hope Ministries, and how I can be involved in prison work at home. I don’t really know what that might look like but am going to begin researching when back in the UK.

https://hopeprisonministries.org/

I can’t wait to go back to Pollsmoor next month to pray for another facility and experience even more.

‘We are not bringing God’s kingdom here, he is already here.’

Couldn’t agree with this more.

Prayer Requests:

-          - Motivation to keep going at work when I feel like I am not making a difference.

-          - To really get stuck into research revolving around prison ministry.

-         -  Keep depending on God, he really can do impossible things.

-         -  For the Social Justice team as we say goodbye to 2 volunteers this week, taking us down to a team of two and our supervisor, Michael.

Hope you have had an enjoyable week! Thank you for making it to the end of my twelth blog post. x