A week after visiting that colony, we were invited to visit a women's correctional facility. Having agreed on the date of our arrival, we gathered and prayed long for both the women's colony and our ministry.
On the appointed day, we loaded our worn and weary equipment and set out. At the gate—standard inspection procedure—and then we were inside. A multifaceted but monotonously gray crowd of women surrounded the entrance to the hall where we were to conduct the service. It was terrible to see these wretched women dressed in identical clothing and hideously ugly shoes on their feet. What stuck most in my memory were the looks in these women's eyes. Their eyes radiated incredible anguish and pain. My throat tightened, and in my heart I felt an incredible flow of love for these deprived, perishing women, as well as an enormous desire to tell them of the One who could change them, make them happy. Once a person knows the Lord, even here, in these horrible conditions, they can feel free. For freedom is primarily an internal state of the soul.
After finishing all preparations, we began the service. The entire front row was occupied by very old grandmothers. They looked to be over eighty. All of them completely toothless, wrinkled. They hadn't dreamed of such old age while still in freedom...
We began to sing. Everyone in the hall was crying. And from the stage came words saying that God loves a person so much that even if a mother is capable of abandoning her child, God will never do this under any circumstances. God calls each of you sitting in this hall to come to Him, to become His daughter. Then all hell broke loose!!! The theme of abandoned children left behind was too painful and wounding for these wretches. A wail rose up in the hall. They weren't crying—they were howling like wounded she-wolves! We didn't know what to do next. Then one of the brothers took the microphone and said: "Whoever wants to pray and ask God's forgiveness, come forward." He hadn't finished speaking when the entire crowd of sobbing, wailing women rushed toward the stage.
One of them, quicker and younger than the rest, grabbed the microphone from the brother first and began to shout: "Lord, forgive me for what I have done in my life!!!" —and began listing everything she had managed to do. We felt genuine horror.
I rushed to her and said that she didn't need to list everything; she just had to ask God's forgiveness for all her misdeeds. To which she answered: "When I was committing all these crimes—I was ashamed before no one. So why should I be ashamed now? I want to tell EVERYTHING!!!"
The hall supported her with a collective roar, and she continued. Behind her stretched an enormous queue of those who wanted to do the same. An endless stream of prayers of repentance lasted more than two hours! We prayed together with them and understood that we were witnessing the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of these desperate and starving women's souls.
Subsequently, a group of believing women was organized in this colony. They began to hold regular meetings. And after some time, the prison administration turned to one of the nearby churches with a request to send a minister who could perform baptism for those wishing to enter into a covenant with the Lord. God continued to add the saved to the church! Glory to Him...
