Shaking hands with the darkness: a chaplain's story of hope
30 September 2024
Salvation Army chaplain Jessica knows firsthand the heartache that intensifies for many women in prison, especially around Christmas, when the pain of separation from family and children feels almost unbearable. In her caring role, she offers not only a listening ear but also a heart full of hope, faith, and joy.
"Every time I go to the prison, I connect with these beautiful women, inmates who feel vulnerable and hopeless. I understand them because I've been there too. I've shaken hands with the darkness; I know that lonely place," Salvation Army chaplain Jessica shares.
Jessica understands despair, pain, and isolation all too well, having endured years of severe beatings and rejection for her Christian faith, both as a child and into adulthood in India. She explains that her parents were trying to protect her, as in her culture, the community’s opinion means everything.
While Jessica is now fully reconciled with her family, her conversion to Christianity as a girl came as a complete shock to her devout Hindu family. Educated to a higher standard than many of the girls in her community, Jessica learned of Jesus through a schoolteacher.
She says: “I’m a very people person. But I lived with total rejection and total isolation. Nobody had even heard the name Jesus in my family and suddenly this girl (me) is following Jesus.”
Despite facing over a decade of severe persecution and rejection from her family and community, Jessica’s Christian faith became an unshakable foundation. “What truly touched my heart was that this God loved me so much he died for my sins. I couldn’t imagine anyone doing that for me!” she shares.
Jessica eventually moved with her husband Ameet and their son Yahshua to New Zealand, serving with The Salvation Army, before moving to Australia and again serving the community through the Salvos. Her father eventually saw the peace, joy and love in her life, and the family was reconciled.
As part of her role in Salvation Army community chaplaincy, Jessica visits a prison ranging from low security to high security — listening, praying, and caring.
She sees her pastoral care of women in prison as a privilege. There is no judgment. Jessica is simply there to care. She understands that many of the women she visits have had painful and tumultuous childhoods and lives.
She says, “The prison chaplaincy has, in many ways, been a more transforming journey for me than for those I visit. I’ve mucked up my own life so many times. But God’s words [from Bible verses in Jeremiah and Isaiah] always come back to me, ‘I’ve loved you with an everlasting love... I call you by name. Child, you are mine.’”
Christmas care and joy for inmates
As Christmas approaches, Jessica says there is a sense of despair among many of the inmates she visits.
“Christmas is a time when the beautiful women we serve are most aware that many are isolated from family; many will not see their children,” she says. “Many women don’t want to even talk about Christmas.”
To bring some joy at Christmas time, The Salvation Army organises a small Christmas gift box for each inmate, with sweets, notepads, tissues, and other items.
Although a simple gift, Jessica says they carry a profound message, “It really means so much to them, ‘I’m not forgotten. I am loved.’”
Bringing hope to inmates at Christmas
The impact of Jessica’s work is evident in the gratitude expressed by the inmates. One inmate, who had suffered significant emotional pain and challenges and who had lost all hope, says she found great comfort in visits. “She said that if there’s one thing that kept her going, it was the chaplains checking in on her regularly,” Jessica says.
In low security, cooking and other activities are allowed with permission, including crafts. Jessica explains: “She would ask the chaplains if they could provide her with wool, as she loved knitting. She would make beanies and pass them back to the chaplains. Then chaplains, including myself, gave out those beanies to people facing homelessness and others in need, who absolutely loved them.”
Find joy in connection with community. Christmas at your local Salvos.
While Jessica has faced pain and suffering, she has also experienced God’s love and a number of what she sees as miraculous encounters — from hearing the voice of God in her darkest childhood days, to having a child after being told she would never fall pregnant, and later seeing her husband miraculously cleared from an aneurysm just before surgery was booked.
However, it is God’s love that has the greatest impact on her life and service.
“If I can share that with those women who express they feel lost, who are in their physical prison, but also in a spiritual and emotional prison, what a privilege,” Jessica smiles. “God has come through like a shining light in my darkest night and he has broken through the most difficult times of my life. I have no doubt he can do that for others.”