Monday, January 6, 2020 -
Every day I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who are imprisoned for the sake of Christ around the world. Today I learned the name of one of them, who along with six others was just released. His name is Sanatan Majhi from Odisha, India. They had been serving life imprisonment on false charges for the alleged killing of a Hindu guru, which in turn triggered the death of 100 Christians and the destruction of 6,000 homes, leaving 30,000 people homeless. Perhaps you recall hearing about this incident back in 2008.
These innocent men, after spending 11 years in prison, were released on bail after appealing to the Supreme Court of India. When Sanatan was asked, “How did you like prison for such a long period of time, because you do not look like you were in prison,” he replied without any hesitation and with a smiling face, “The past eleven years were like eleven days for us.” When asked how it was so, he said, “Your prayers kept us in the sweet presence of God and we did not feel any sorrow or sadness for we were innocent and we rejoiced because we suffered for the name of Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit gave us the strength to live in different jails with different experiences. Wherever we went we started a worship service every day – morning and evening – and shared from the Word of God. Our life was with the Bible and His presence gave us comfort and sound sleep. It was not a prison for us, but an opportunity to witness for Jesus Christ, our Lord, inside the jail.”
He continued, “We were very much happy, and felt relieved that our families were being taken care of by our Christian brethren. From far and wide they came forward when we were taken into custody. The Lord supplied all our needs abundantly. We grew much in the Word of God, and also our academic knowledge grew tremendously. So it was a blessing in disguise.” Please pray for these seven men as they face trial.
I can definitely relate to everything these men say, except that I have only been incarcerated for 13 months, as of yesterday. Please also pray as Kathie and William seek to find a new lawyer for the civil case in Vermont since my attorney withdrew from the case due to the motion to vacate my sentence in the criminal case because of ineffective counsel. That motion is still pending as well, so pray Judge Arcara will indeed exonerate me completely, and that it would also lead to Lisa Miller’s exoneration.