Pebbles

Marilyn & Jim, outside the men’s prison in São Paulo, Brazil

I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.  (John 10:10)

How could I have known during my initial missionary trip, with CBC in the spring of 2012, that 6 years in the future I’d be so anxious to get into a prison in Brazil?  And how could I have known that I would feel so certain I was needed there?  It was 2018, Jim and I were well into our third year with Maryknoll Lay Missioners, with most of our efforts dedicated to visiting incarcerated men and women in São Paulo’s overcrowded and often violent prisons.And now, because of a hostage situation that had occurred at one of the state’s facilities the week before, all visits were shut down. This meant that the incarcerated men and women with whom we’d made friends, and who said they relied on our presence, were without us.  And we realized, we were without them. Helpless. Or so we felt.

Lord God, Be the Help for my helplessness.

Six years earlier, my husband Jim and I had been in northern Virginia for a short period of time between overseas assignments with the Air Force.  CBC’s missionary opportunity had seemed to fall into my lap, appearing in our church’s Sunday bulletin as an invitation to Catholics who wanted to join a faith-based works of mercy team.  Because Jim and I were already certain we would ask to join Maryknoll Lay Missioners after we were complete with our Air Force careers, CBC presented a perfect chance to begin a little early.Neither of us was a stranger to volunteer work, or to going into unknown situations.  But we had never presented ourselves for Catholic missionary work before, and I was a little uncertain as to what to expect.Part of the uncertainty was wondering how our actions could be of any lasting help.  On my CBC trip, to western Virginia in 2012, there would be twelve of us, working at five or so different projects over the course of a week.  How could we possibly make a difference in such a short period of time?  And would it be worth it to the local parishioners there, who would house and feed us while we were there?In São Paulo, six year later with Maryknoll, it would be easy to have had the same doubts.  Considering that CDP III Pinheiros, the prison we most often visited, housed 1,400 to 1,500 men in a space built for 572, you might imagine that we often felt a little helpless going in, especially in teams of just two or three. Occasionally we were even asked – how much impact can you have on the men in the few hours you spend with them? Communicating in a language you’re still learning? Visiting the different sections on a rotation that means you can only see them all about once every month?

Marilyn with the incarcerated men, writing prayer petitions.

I found the answer by imagining the prison as a still pond in the forest.  If you happened upon such a pond, one without an obvious spring or other source to feed it, you would probably find it stagnant. Stale, and even dirty. Any life in it would be in peril.

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. Psalm 42:2

But if that pond had just a little bit of motion – a reliable creek that fed it just a little, or someone who came by on occasion and tossed a few pebbles in – the story could be completely different.  The pebbles might provide just enough movement to avoid stagnation in the pond, to prevent putrification and death.So, the goal I developed for prison work, which I had begun to understand years earlier in CBC, was to be the pebble.  To be the pebble, tossed into the pond when occasion allows, that creates the ripple that stirs the water, and whispers of our faith to the people we serve, however humbly we do that.  So that the lives of the people we serve can flourish, and not stagnate.I learned that the people we served could be helped to flourish through our seemingly limited actions.  I learned that the size of our effort was not nearly as important as the amount of love with which we did it.1  And I learned that if we showed up, the Lord would provide the real power.I don’t have much memory of feedback from the people in western Virginia, except that we were graciously received on arrival, and graciously thanked on departure.  There was more opportunity to understand our impact in Brazil, because we were there for so much longer, more than three years.  The incarcerated men and women, their families, and even the guards at the prisons made it clear that our visits were of great help.  That we helped to create a calmer atmosphere.  That we helped to bring hope to what could seem to be a hopeless situation.

Lord God, be the Hope for my hopelessness.

And so, what I learned in mission work, beginning with CBC and then with Maryknoll, was not to doubt our abilities too much.  Instead of worrying about what we couldn’t do, it was best just to focus on what we could do, on the work before us.  After all, it is always the Lord, and not we, who makes anything worthwhile happen.  We are just the pebbles He tosses in.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13   

In São Paulo, we found other ways to serve the prisoners during the administrative lock-out.  We wrote them letters, we spent more time in touch with their families, and as you might expect, we prayed a lot for them.  We were able to re-enter the prisons after only a few weeks delay.  The prisoners welcomed us back warmly, and we learned that they had survived without our physical presence, maybe it helped them knowing that we were praying for them.As we renewed our relationships with the men and women we already knew, and began ministry with more newly incarcerated persons, we were reminded of our place and our purpose in the activity. We weren’t there to bring God, He was already there.  We were just there to help remind the men and women.  And we did that by being His pebbles.

Drawing by one of the incarcerated men.  “George” references Psalm 91, the Psalm of Protection, and adds the sentiment that “between things natural on Earth, and the dark nights, our Creator is the same” (unchanging, steady, unswerving). God with us, in both the easy and the difficult times

By Marilyn, CBC Missionary to western Virginia