Five missionaries trained by New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary were trapped at Rayburn Correctional Center, then named Washington Correctional Institute, during Katrina.
ANGIE – Five missionaries trained by New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary were trapped at Rayburn Correctional Center, then named
Washington Correctional Institute, during Katrina.
The storm, whose eye passed within ten miles of the prison, brought
un-precedented opportunities for these men to share their faith.
All five are incarcerated for life. They received their theological
education while at Angola and relocated to RCC as part of the “Farm’s”
missionary inmate chaplain program.
They work with Wayne Cook, chaplain at RCC and senior pastor at Pine
First Baptist Church, and multiply his ministry at the prison
exponentially, the pastor said.
These men recognize that God can bring good from the worst this world
has to offer, Cook said, and the inmate missionaries agree.
“God uses prison to transform lives. I don’t know if I would have ended
up in the ministry if I hadn’t been in a place where He could get my
undivided attention,” Inmate Chaplain John Sheehan said.
When Katrina blew through, the inmate missionaries discovered a bad
situation can deteriorate even further. In this worsening circumstance,
they found renewed opportunities to serve their Lord.
When Cook was unable to get to the prison right after the storm, the
five inmate chaplains prayed with and counseled distraught prisoners.
But their greatest opportunity for ministry was bused in when prisoners were evacuated from the Terrebonne Parish Jail.
The prisoners fleeing Katrina’s wrath were housed in the prison gym,
segregated from the other inmates who call RCC home. The inmate
chaplains were the only RCC inmates permitted into the gym to mingle
with the evacuees.
Two of them, Arthur Rhodes and Leo Pinyero, soon discovered that these men were spiritually hungry.
According to the evacuees, Terrebonne Parish Jail did not allow services to be held and baptisms were impossible.
A further complication was that several of the inmates were Spanish
speakers with limited English. Pinyero is bilingual and was able to
witness to the Spanish-speaking inmates in their heart language.
The two inmate chaplains delivered Bibles and the good news of the
gospel. They shared their testimonies. They held services and conducted
Bible studies. Before the evacuees left RCC several weeks later, 11 had
been baptized and another four were awaiting baptism.
While incarcerated missionaries ministered inside RCC, Southern
Baptists ministered to prisoners who were put to work on the outside at
the Pine church distribution center. For weeks inmates worked alongside
church members giving out staples. An inmate on a crew working at the
church said, “Doing this work makes me feel good. It keeps negativity
from taking over. I hope someone somewhere is doing this for my family.”
“Katrina blew unsaved evacuees into our prison,” Chaplain Cook said.
“My inmate chaplains let another wind – a spiritual one – blow in their
lives. The result was a revival among evacuees at RCC.
“Katrina left a lot of destruction in its wake, but at RCC the hurricane made an eternal difference in some lives.”