100+ Inmates

‘I am writing to say a big thank you,’ began the letter we recently received from an inmate who had completed an OF program. The team has worked with over 100 inmates weekly for the past nine months. The same group of inmates will cycle through around six OF programs during a specific quarter before being moved to the next stage.

That’s a lot of lives to be prayerful about and pour into. While our rehabilitation programs provide the framework for the interactions, each group is unique, and no week is ever the same.

The letter continued, ‘…by taking responsibility, accepting, admitting, confessing and repenting, I have begun the healing process. Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this program. It has allowed me to self-reflect and see where I need to put effort into fixing and repairing, not only within myself but also with my family.’

The writer of the letter went on in to share his appreciation that the program was founded on biblical principles and scriptures that encouraged him to re-engage with the mercy and grace of God.

Allocating our resources and capacity for this ongoing demand is a critical focus. However, what also remains a priority is the team's professional development and their ability to maintain emotional and spiritual health.

This coming week the team are deployed across various correctional centres sharing the good news through our rehabilitation programs.

My Week in Prison

February is hot in Fiji, so facilitating Trauma Healing in a classroom with 14 men was draining and splendid.

It was an unusual class because of its age range. Twenty-two to seventy-two meant a diversity of experience, insights, and maturity contributed to some great discussion. At the outset, I’ve got to say that facilitating a group in prison is where I gain spiritual refreshment. However, as the team has grown and the frequency of programs increased, my time is taken up in encouraging, supervising, and making guest or gate-crashing appearances into the team member’s programs. Grabbing a week of my own to conduct a program was exceptional, and this week in Nasinu was just that.

Monday is always a settling-in day where they assess me, and I assess them. It’s not a Mexican standoff as much as it is a dance. Several men in this class worked with me in 2016 and 2017, so it wasn’t an icy start.

The first session of Trauma Healing is a dive into suffering and why we suffer. The whole concept of suffering is on-point for men in prison, and so it’s an easy place in which to get the discussion started. That begins to slow a bit when we start to look outwards at the suffering of others, but the whole session remains rich as we look at this through a cultural and biblical lens. What remains a mystery is that even though many of these men have been in prison for years and experienced and initiated suffering, it’s most often the first time they have openly discussed it.

As the week progresses, the vulnerability and discussions go deeper. Exploring suffering before moving on to heart wounds, to exploring the back story before prison. All are rich minefields to bring voice, pain, misconceptions, and insight. This is not a place or space for condemnation but to lead towards an openness where a conviction can begin its work.

What I love about facilitating a group in any of the ten programs we run is the one question that suddenly sends us in a different direction. It rapidly can become territory where there is no script, and at times, it feels like ‘buckle up’ and enjoy the ride.

We have one session we use across many of our programs called ‘the back wall of the soul’. This session has an impact that resonates with our men and women in prison. In our evaluations, this is the one session that becomes the sword of conviction. As the week progresses, we begin to find an acceptance not only for their wounds but also for the wounds they have inflicted on others. We symbolically take these wounds to the Cross of Christ as the beginning place of healing.

During this week, I observed tears from young men and old men. I observed remorse and sorrow and had the privilege of listening to suffering and pain. As I debriefed the week, my questions remained about movement. Have these men grown in their understanding of themselves and their victims? Have they encountered themselves? Have they encountered God?

I believe it was John Calvin that said, ‘we never understand ourselves until we have come to a devout musing on the Godhead’. Criminal rehabilitation always requires revealing the triune God so that men and women can be spiritually formed into His likeness and nature.

A Community of ....

by Peter Schultz

Just this last week, the number of men actively engaged in various OF programs was over a hundred. From Taveni to Labasa - from Lautoka to Naboro - from Levuka to Suva - the Operation Foundation team undertake an outstanding task, and in need of some inspiring, I sat in the back of one of our classes on Thursday morning.

Twenty-two men were being led by our team member, Savenaca, through our program called True Identity. There was the usual discussion and application as they moved through the session, but what I was looking for was the emerging pathways of honesty, repentance, and humility.

The conversation flowed between a mix of Fijian (i-Taukei), English and Hindi and as I sat quietly at the back I was mindful of the sheer diversity of the men in front of me. Murder, theft, robbery, rape, all markers of brokenness; all giving witness to a victim or victims; all revealing yet again the truth of the fallen nature of man. Could, and should, hope exist within such a group?

One man stood to share on a discussion point. “I’ve never controlled my anger…” Here was a point of honesty, and so I leaned in to listen. During the break, I pulled him aside to hear his story. “I’ve been in denial of my problems my entire life,” he shared, “and now in prison of all places, I have found my Saviour and I have begun to find peace.”

Our ministry theme for 2021 and 2022 has been ‘To Make Him Known!’ I’m in a quandary, do I change our theme for 2023, or is this our ground zero, the essential of what we really are all about? Making Him Known to a community of outsiders and outcasts.

One of the things shared about Operation Foundation has been that, regardless of which prison the program is being run, the outcome is the same. That is both a testimony to the team and their passion, but also a testimony to the Spirit of God, who desires to make Jesus Christ known among all peoples, and in our community.

Men of Peace

Fifteen men were assigned to our Anger Management program!

Immediately we knew that there are going to be some moments as deep hurts were triggered and old excuses invalidated.

The first session begins by considering the insight given to us in Proverbs 29:11 - “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” A confronting verse that leads to robust discussion, and where step by step we find men admitting, that at various times, ‘I have all been the fool’. A humbling but truthful first step.

These fifteen men all had a variety of experiences of anger and revealed various perspectives of rights, regrets, and remorse. As the program continued what was redrawn each day on the whiteboard is a line with three points. One the left the Foolish Man, in the middle the Wise Man, and on the right the Man of Peace. Day by day we built the vision, the self-reflection, and the tools to move towards the opportunity and value in the Man of Peace.

We are building the vision of the Man of Peace on Matthew 5:9 - “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God”.

Providing tools that control anger is limited in scope, we must rebirth a new vision of male identity that sits well outside anger and violence as valid forms of expression. Rebuilding a strong vision gives permission for deep healing and the reframing of identity. Twelve words uttered in the Sermon on the Mount provide the call to all men to find a new place of contribution, influence, and blessing.

This week another thirty men will begin their participation in the trial of this new treatment approach. We are combining all of what we know of what works in the treatment of anger management of Pacific men, and establishing that within a wider treatment framework that has a Christ-centred calling and vision.

Already both men and women in Nanuku have been asking for help in this area so our goal is to also take this new material into the community beginning in 2023. We believe it will help address the need for effective community-based treatment for domestic violence.

Why? - What Makes This Worthwhile

This photo above of Nanuku Settlement is just over a year old - what a year of witness and blessing it has been. The rubbish on the left of the picture is now gone. Some 1.5km of new concrete pathways allow people in the community to walk above the mud. The new site for the OF Community Centre is ready for construction.

We have had different teams - Police, Corrections, Rugby, Military, NGO’s, all engage in different parts of the community development, however last week two things happened that spoke more than all of those efforts combined…

Firstly, I was sent a photo of the young men working together cleaning the drains in Nanuku. Understand that Nanuku has no sewer system and so the drains are the conduit for all manner of waste and run-off. Volunteering themselves for this task was no small commitment because we are talking several kilometers of black ooze-filled drains to be dug out and cleared.

What it showed was the commitment to their community was beginning to develop and what a heartwarming experience that is. It was just one step, a profound step, that we prayed would begin and here was the evidence of it.

Secondly, I walked into Suva Correctional Centre on Wednesday and was met by a familiar face - one of the young men from Nanuku. I was more surprised than he was however as we talked his story unfolded. One of the primary reasons for making Nanuku our home is to begin the opportunity to address the issues that brought this young man to prison. The OF Community Centre will give us an ongoing presence in Nanuku Community and allow us the ability to craft interventions and supports well before the law needs to be involved.

Seeing my friend from Nanuku once again inside the prison walls validated our vision for a wider redemption ministry that is situated admist their community and their home.

Welcome Back to Prison

It began with a phone call from the Fiji Corrections Rehabilitation Unit, “We start programs next week and we’ll send through the OF Team’s schedules for each prison”. With only a few days to prepare we activated the OF teams to be ready for a Monday start in Suva, Lautoka, Taveuni and Labasa Prisons.

Over the last two weeks the OF team have worked with some 60 new inmates and this will grow to another 60 of the next weeks. We will then be working primarily with these 120 men and women for the next 3 months, taking them through different stages of their rehabilitation. We have also been asked to add and implement several new programs to our existing programs, in response we have been piloting True Identity, Anger Management, and Loving Living Life with these men and women with wonderful outcomes.

Over the last two weeks we have seen a deepening of faith, renewal of faith, and new commitments to faith. The OF team’s training to facilitate with gentleness, authenticity, and vulnerability have seen honesty emerge from previous denials, brokenness emerge from hardened hearts, surrender emerge from rebellion, and new hope emerge from hopelessness. Each day our internal communication system (Slack) is full of stories of what the team have witnessed and are celebrating in the lives of the men and women we are again working with.

We ask for your partnership as we work to restore the image and likeness of Christ in the men and women we have the sacred privilege to work with. Thank you!