She has spent three and a half years in the women’s prison … half of her original sentence … and according to the law here in the Dominican Republic she is qualified to request “freedom”.
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If the prisoner has papers in order, a person lined up who agrees to give her a job (called the “Garante”), and has a record of good behavior, she is quite predictably allowed to spend the rest of her sentence living and working in the country. For this reason we moved to this island eight months ago to teach in a Christian school and set up an apartment so she could with us when she was released. And now it was Friday, the day we were to receive the news.
Friday was a half day of work … an early release from school to accommodate the upcoming spring break. In this mostly Catholic country this upcoming spring break week is called Semana Santa (Holy Week) and it is a major time of partying. Without a Catholic upbringing I lack the perspective to understand what is truly happening, but as I understand it, many people don’t go to work, the beaches and resorts are packed, and there are many drunken parties. It is the end of 40 days of Lent … and these people do know how to break Lent! Trying to teach the concept of “Integration by Substitution” to my calculus class on that last day was difficult. It was like a jockey on a thoroughbred race horse trying to keep him under control as he steers him into the starting gate.
Somehow the students survived my class, the bell rang, and they charged out the door at noon. When the last student disappeared I reached for my cell phone to see if my wife had heard any news. In my limited understanding it seemed pretty certain what the news would be.
Several months ago the judge who has been handling our daughter’s case asked to meet us. He knew that soon he would be arbitrating a parole request and wanted to meet the people that she would be released into the custody of. At that time he impressed us as a compassionate judge who truly cared for prisoners and wanted to do what was right and was favorable to the idea of releasing our daughter.
Then several months later when he knew he was going to be absent on the day of her scheduled hearing he called our daughter personally to tell her not to show up. He didn’t want her to have a substitute judge who was unfamiliar with her situation and risk the chance of denial. Her papers were collected and in perfect order, the garante came to court and testified on her behalf, and her record of participation in the prison showed her to be a model prisoner. And … to top it all off in my plan … it was Semana Santa … a full week of not having to work at school. It was the perfect timing for God to release her so we could have an unpressured reunion with our daughter.
Number 2 on my cell phone quick-dial brought my wife’s voice on the second ring. Yes, she had heard some news. The parole request had been denied! Although I had prayerfully and mentally rehearsed my dependence on God’s will and timing in this matter, a person does have to plan ahead for the future based on what seems will logically happen, if you know what I mean.
It seemed very logical that she would be released, so we planned to leave town Friday night and stay overnight at a friend’s house with her before going to the beach for the weekend.
Carol had her clothes ready to pack lying on the bed and I made sure I withdrew some money from the bank and ate some lunch before coming home. We were all ready to go … just in case. And I suppose this is the way it has to be in a sinful world when a finite man wants to serve an infinite God.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
It is the stuff that the daily walk of faith is made of. So, in my understanding, the test comes not in whether we plan correctly or not. It comes in the attitude we demonstrate when we receive “bad news” … or news that informs us that our plans aren’t going to turn out the way we thought they would.
At the moment Carol told me “the news” I thought of Job in the Bible. When he heard the bad news that he had lost his children, his health and his fortune, his attitude was:
“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither:
the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
LORD.” Job 1:21
How could I dare entertain thoughts of doubts or despair in such a small matter when I know that God is good and in control. So I turned my budding disappointment over to God … the same thing that Job must have done many times as a habit in the small areas before he ever came to the larger test recorded in Scripture. Only that morning Carol and I had discussed a verse in Proverbs we had read:
“The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it
whithersoever he will.” Proverbs 21:1
We truly wanted to believe and act on the truth that God is sovereign.
As Carol hung her clothes back up in the closet I talked on the phone with a friend of our daughter who had visited the prison to talk with her. This friend had also picked up the paper that had the court decision recorded on it and who also talked with the lawyer to find out more details on why this unexpected decision was handed down.
Evidently a judge was recently discovered to be corrupt. He was convicted of taking money from people in exchange for judicial favors such as making sure certain prisoners were released from prison. Bribery and corruption are common in this country but it is not legal and certainly not prudent for elected officials to be caught or suspected in such dealings. Since this incident happened only two weeks earlier, the prosecuting attorney, and court system in general, were watching for anything that smacked of corruption. We discovered, contrary to what we thought earlier, that every prisoner who requested parole on that same day with our daughter last week was denied their freedom … everyone! It was a hot issue and no judge was willing to risk suspicion.
To complicate matters, Cherish appeared on a television show only two weeks earlier during which she was interviewed. As she shared her testimony she made the statement that just as God had given her spiritual freedom, she was confident of getting her physical freedom soon. The prosecuting attorney jumped all over that one and the rest is history.
Shortly after arriving home on Friday afternoon my wife and I went for a walk. The temperature was 85. The sun was out and it was the perfect climate for walking … like it is most of the time here in Santiago. We needed time to talk things through and regroup with this unexpected news.
By the time we came back home an hour later we both felt that it was important to visit our daughter at the prison the next day on Saturday. Her prison is located about a half hour from the capital and it takes roughly two hours on a Greyhound-type bus to get to the capital (Santo Domingo) from where we live. Since the visiting hours are from 9–11 AM we have to get up at 4:30 in order to make it. Carlos, a friend of our daughter, picked us up at the bus station and took us to the prison. The four of us were able to fellowship together for two hours. What a delight to share things of the Lord with our own daughter! This is a gift beyond measure!
On the bus ride back home, in my typical linear fashion, I tried to summarize what happened. My honest feeling is that our daughter has accepted this situation in the attitude of Job and is living in joy and faith trusting that God has a reason for this delay. She confessed that during these last eight days she was so confident that she would be getting her freedom that she lost “the fire in my bones like Jeremiah had”, as she put it. Although she spoke to one woman who made a profession of faith, she felt that she was cooling off in her relations with other women since she was leaving soon. So she prayed and asked God to restore the fire.
“It is interesting,” she noted as we conversed with her, “that God answered my prayer on the same day that I heard that I could not get my freedom.” As the rest of the day unfolded she was able to talk individually with seven women to share her attitude of joy and obedience to the Lord even when things seemingly fall apart. In fact, many of these women sought our daughter out to talk with her because they had heard what happened and couldn’t understand why she was still singing as she cleaned the bathroom.
As one can probably imagine, in a prison of over 300 women there is virtually no privacy. She also confided to us that modesty is a virtue that she has severely redefined since coming to prison. When she needs time to pray and read the Scriptures she hangs a blanket down from the upper cement bunk to create a small bubble of privacy on her cotton-padded mattress. We told her that she was in good company because Suzanne Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, who had 19 children in 21 years, used to sit on the couch with her apron over her head when she needed privacy to pray. The children knew she was communing with God and did not bother her during these times.
As our daughter put the “apron over her head” Friday night to spend some time with her Spiritual Father, she felt the need to sing. For an hour she sang of her love for the Savior and her desire to walk with him … no matter what. Since coming to prison God has put a desire and ability to “Sing unto the LORD a new song …”, (Psalms 149:1) so she has written a number of songs that she sings from her heart. Here are the words to a song that she wrote this past week:
Nada en Este Mundo (Nothing in this World)
I don’t want anything in this world …
Passing, vile and dark.
Tell me, what do you gain living in such vanity?
Things I used to look for, the desires that used to call me,
Don’t have any power over me anymore. (2X)
Only Your love is what I look for … in this world;
Only Your life is what I desire to live here;
Only Your grace is enough for me … to live in You.
To know my Christ …. is what I desire;
This world is crucified for me;
I don’t look for anything in this world, there’s death and suffering.
Are you confused and tired, desperate to find
True love that fills you? Jesus’ arms extended to you,
You would be completed in Him. (2X)
These words are the translation. She writes and sings in Spanish. So for at least an hour while she was singing “alone” her voice echoed down the cement halls of the prison. This seems similar to the time that Paul and Silas were in jail. After they were beaten and their feet placed fast in the stocks, they prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. Later when a great earthquake opened the doors of the prison and everyone’s bands were loosed, the terrified guard asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
An American Dominican woman came to the prison two weeks ago with a story almost identical to our daughter. She was arrested for the same charge, she has a Christian mother, and has not turned her own life over to Christ. Janet is one of the seven that our daughter shared with yesterday and is now meeting with her and praying she will receive Christ. The point I am trying to make with all this meandering is that our daughter’s attitude and spirit was an encouragement to us when we visited with her on Saturday at the prison.
On a practical level we are planning the future, carefully remembering to add in our hearts the phrase “if the Lord wills.” A Christian lawyer who was present at the hearing last week saw what happened and has decided to take over her case. He presented an appeal to the court Friday afternoon on her behalf. By law they will respond and give her a date for another court hearing within 20 days. During the next court date she will be giving her testimony before five judges who will hear the case. Therefore by the end of April we will be taking another trip to San Cristobal to support her as she presents another appeal for freedom (Lord willing).
Now ... we begin our twenty-day wait.
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