The Story of Jonah

For the past couple of weeks I've had the privilege to accompany some ABC students into the infamous "Maula Prison" of Malawi.  Its reputation is for inhumane treatment of prisoners and hard-to-imagine overcrowding.  ABC has had an ongoing ministry in that place for several years now.  In fact, one of our Juniors (Charles Masukwa) was an 8-year inmate of Maula where he studied the Bible through ABC's "Bible College by Radio" program and when he was eventually set free - this is where he came.  Charles is now the student leader of the ABC ministry to Maula and faithfully takes out a team to them every week.  (For those of you who know my good friend and missionary Walter Mutti, he will be speaking at Maula on Thursday, January 26th). 

As we were getting ready to go, several guards approached Charles with a problem.  One of the "regulars" from Charles' weekly meetings had been released that week after almost 5 years in that awful place.  His name is Jonah.  The problem was that the government funds which were to be set aside to transport prisoners home - had been spent elsewhere.  He was a free man but he was sleeping on the ground outside the prison's administrative offices because he had nowhere to go.  He was free to go - but had nowhere to go and no way to get there. 

Here is a picture of Charles (on the right) sitting next to Jonah.  His skin is completely dried out and scaly due to lack of soap and proper sanitation for so many years but he was wide-eyed from the moment we pulled out of the prison gates.  What an awesome feeling driving a prisoner out of prison.  I wonder if I feel the same way about conversations which lead people to become spiritually free? 

Jonah literally owned just the clothes on his back and his pockets were completely empty.  His home village is a 2 day mini-bus drive (picture a mini-van with 15 adults in it) but he had no way of getting there.  I drove Jonah back to our house on the ABC campus and quickly ran inside to grab him some things.  I got him a bar of soap, a fist-full of Kwacha (Malawian money) for transport and food, and one other treasure. 
2 years ago (almost to the day) I bought a pretty cheap pair of outdoor boots to take with me to Haiti on our churches mission trip.  I think I spent $20 on them. Long story short, because of the earthquake in Haiti I didn't end up going.  I had intended to pass the boots along to someone else going to Haiti but they got lost in our basement for a while.  I found them as we were packing to move to Africa and meant to give them away before we left but somehow they ended up getting packed instead. 

I walked outside my front door with those boots and you would have thought that the obnoxious "Extreme Home Makeover" guy just yelled "Move that bus!"  Jonah lit up and just stared at them.  Odds are he's never received a gift like that in his life.  He held on to them like they were better off being hugged than worn on his feet.  After a few minutes we put some new(ish) socks on his very swollen feet and put them inside those boots.  Charles and one other student helped us lace them up so they were comfortable.  When Jonah stood up he walked like Beth (our 1 year old) who just started wearing shoes.  He was a little wobbly after not having anything on his feet for such a long time - much less boots with thick soles. 

He walked over to me and put his head on my chest and teared up.  I couldn't help thanking God for a moment like that and thinking to myself: "If this is all I came to Africa for - it would be totally worth it!"

At the end of the day, Jonah wasn't overcome because of the boots, he was overcome by the loving gesture.  He didn't know I had plenty more shoes in my closet.  He didn't know they weren't "the latest" style of LL Bean boots.  I don't even think he knew where he was or really, who I was.  He knew he was naked, hungry, sick, and in prison - and that a bumbling stranger cared. 

I got WAY more from Jonah than he got from the Hanlons.