This picture, as you will notice, has nothing to do whatsoever with the text. Still, I think that it is a cool picture of a Huastecan lady.
Today Theresa and I met with the Apostle Paul. Well, okay, maybe not directly with the Apostle himself, but we spent a wonderful hour or more with Miguel Iglesias this afternoon. If you know my story, you will remember that in 2003 I spent a bit over three months in the penitentiary in Reynosa, Mexico on charges of transportation on illegal drugs. If you are unfamiliar with this part of my life then please go to the Voice in the Wilderness website at www.vitwministries.com and look for the tab named “Prison Experience”. When you click there you will find an article by Grace Fox entitled “Jailed in Mexico: 106 Days Behind Bars” which appeared in Power for Living in June 2009. Grace did a wonderful job of capturing my story.
While in the pen I was privileged to meet one of the most gentle and wisest men that I know – Miguel Iglesias. If I have spoken to you personally about my time there you will have heard me talk about Miguel, and will have heard me say that in many ways I feel as if I personally know, and have shared a cell with the one-time Saul of Tarsus, now Apostle Paul himself.
There were many miracles which I was witness to in my life over those three months – miracles which literally saved my life on more than one occasion. However, that is not the point of this blog. What I do want to highlight though, is how God brought me under the covering, and literally into the cell of brother Miguel. Miguel was both brother, pastor, and cellmate over those difficult months.
Pastor Iglesias was not always caring for the spiritual needs of the flock, nor was he always someone with the gentleness and wisdom of the Holy Spirit delightfully evident in his life. I am not at liberty to disclose why he was in the penitentiary, nor do I wish to glorify evil and sin. Let’s just say that he was not sentenced to 35+ years in the federal penitentiary for no reason. He did not enter as a Sunday school teacher. But then, when I read my New Testament, I encounter the story of a man who also breathed out threats and murder towards the fledgling Church – the followers of Jesus Christ. He also, formerly, was not exactly known for his gentleness.
But at precisely the right time God stopped Saul dead in his tracks with a blinding light, and turned him around 180 degrees. Miguel was not knocked physically off of his horse and blinded, but he was put away in federal lockdown for almost twenty years. There, also at exactly the right time, God began to peal the scales off of Miguel’s eyes. There in federal prison, with some of the most hardened prisoners, God softened and broke brother Miguel’s heart.
God’s ways are beyond our wildest imagination, and his exploits make better story material than the best of fiction. In the hellhole of a drug-infested, murderous, sex-corrupted federal prison, God used a recently converted Miguel to bring the prison warden to the Lord. Through this relationship of discipleship on the part of the warden, God moved on his heart to assist in the petitioning for a piece of land within the penitentiary to be allotted for building a church. With the aid of money from the States a beautiful church was built inside the walls of the Penitentiary. By the time that I arrived in August of 2003 there was a building which seated over 100 men. Often there was standing room only for the daily services. After I left, the building was extended to be able to seat over 150 men. A year ago when Theresa and I returned to visit the Prison Church, we were also shown a beautiful Bible Institute complete with library. This biblical institution has graduated students, who upon being released from the penitentiary, have gone across Mexico with God’s Word.
God, through the influence of Pastor Iglesias, changed the complete atmosphere of CERESO II Federal Penitentiary of Reynosa, Mexico. Where there was once a co-ed system where women prisoners were being managed sexually by the male prison guards, where men and women could at one time be seen at any time of the day shooting drugs, and where darkness, murder and death were once common, now the Kingdom of God was beginning to reign. Men were beginning to be filled with a hunger for God. Men were meeting nightly within their cell blocks at lock-down, joining hands and praying for God to move within the walls which held them prisoners. These were men who, although held within prison walls on the outside, were gloriously set free within. It was still a dangerous place to be, and I can attest to the fact that it was no picnic even at the best of times – but it was a shadow only of what it once had been. God was at work, and the power of Hell itself could not hold back the Light. At the pivotal center of much of this move of God inside the walls was one man – my friend Pastor Iglesias.
Miguel was released in February of this year. Today Theresa and I had the privilege of meeting him for the first time as a free man. He sat and quietly related to us how good God has been in his life.
What a man! What a testimony!
Tomorrow Theresa and I will head home to Cd. Valles. We have been in Texas for the past five days getting ministry business taken care of. We hope to get an early start in the morning so that we will arrive back in Valles by mid afternoon. Tomorrow evening we will once again take a team to one of the cell churches where we will show an evangelistic film as a part of the “Evangelism Explosion ministry” of the local church.
Please remember us in your prayers. It is beginning to get dangerous in Mexico, and we covet your prayers.
P.S.: I have purposefully not put a picture of my friend Miguel in this blog. It probably would not be a very wise thing to do for the sake of his privacy. I am sure you will understand. Thank you.
