“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9
Our dear brothers and sisters, we would like to deeply thank you for your prayers about our Thailand prison ministry trip. It is really difficult to visit inmates due to the need for a lot of documents and permissions from the embassies and even those documents often don’t allow people to visit. Yet, for us, It was a huge blessing from God because we saw His mighty hand leading us (Joshua 1:9)and I would like to share one of those moments.
One of the prisons we visited was the Women Correctional Institute of Bangkok, where my sister Irina Kulpin was blessed to visit Yulia, who had been incarcerated for 3-years already and never had visitors before. On the documents, Irina was permitted to visit either May 14 or May 15, and on May 14, Irina received a 20-minute visit with Yulia and evangelized to her.
As Yulia explained, she and other women prisoners live in a big prison cell of 205 women and children (women who gave birth in prison live in that cell with their children). They all slept on tile floors until one year ago someone bought and donated bunk beds to the prison. At the end of the visit, Yulia asked Irina to please come again tomorrow and Irina explained to her what the document said but told her to pray about her wish anyway because everything is possible for God.
After Irina’s visit, we asked the prison official, regardless of what the document said if it is possible for Irina to come again tomorrow, May 15? And the official said, “Yes, but come at 8:00 am.” We truly saw this as a miracle from God, praise the Lord!
The next day Irina was able to visit with Yulia, and she told Irina that she prayed very hard yesterday and today one of the prison officials told Yulia she can have two 20-minute visits. So again, after this visit, we asked the prison official for another 20-minute visit that same day, and they agreed. We saw this as God giving us already a third chance with Yulia, and on this third visit Irina called Yulia to repentance, she was willing but did not know how to repent and so Yulia repeated the prayer of repentance after Irina. This truly was just one of the many miracles in Thailand where God showed us that He was leading us with His mighty hand.
Praise God, we were also blessed to visit and share the Gospel with 5 more Russian-speaking inmates in Bangkok prisons, Klong Prem Central Prison, Remond Prison and Bang Kwang Central Prison. God provided us with a chance to pray at the Bombat Piset Prison (our group is at the entrance on the photo above) so that the Gospel spreads there also and may His name be glorified there too!
Ministry in Vietnam – Tanya Yevstratenko