THE JOURNEY SO FAR

(Here's Matthias with a new Polish friend. The photo has nothing to do with the story, but it's one of my favorites of the tour.)
Tour journal, part 6.
As we prepared for our last concert Monday morning, I told Chris I felt somehow that this one was the main reason we came to Poland. In a high security prison, we were given the chance to play and share the gospel with over one hundred inmates.

I explained that a lot of people realize that God exists, but they just don't like him. Thinking about God as the big judge in the sky reminds them of their guilt and moral failure. But perhaps the most liberating thing they could ever learn is that God is both just and loving.

I told them a story about judge that was required to take a case involving one of his dearest personal friends. I asked the inmates whether they thought the judge would be a just judge or be a loving friend. I heard prisoners discussing among themselves what they thought would happen.

When they learned that the judge had declared his friend guilty, they thought the story was over. But I continued, explaining that the judge had personally paid the friend's debt at great personal cost before declaring his verdict, thus providing his friend with the chance to go free. And then I asked again if the judge had been just or loving. He'd done both and done them fully.

We finished the concert, one of the inmates asked the warden if he could ask the band a question. At first we thought through broken translation that he'd asked how long we'd been forgiven. We told him how long we'd been believers. He tried again, and this time the translation came through something like "how often do you ask for forgiveness" and we told them we asked daily. Finally, he got the real meaning of his question through. "How long does it take to be forgiven?"

I almost lost it right there. With joy we explained that when God sees that with a sincere heart we repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness, it happens immediately. He smiled, in English said thank you and sat down. The director got up and thanked us for singing music that talked about the things that were on our hearts, because these are also the kinds of things the prisoners think about. Then all the prisoners were escorted to their cells. Pastor Chris told me that local pastors would be coming to the prison to follow up.