Chaplain Heinrich’s Jottings

While some recognize it as the legendary April’s Fool Day, April 1 will forever be the anniversary of my first day as Assistant Chaplain at Chester County Prison. I have been in many ways challenged, stretched during these past 12 months but I am more surprised and thrilled by the opportunity to be a coworker, a witness and an ambassador of the Almighty God, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.

Serving Muslims in distress, loving antagonistic Satanists, sharing death notifications with inmates who erupt with violent and charged emotional reactions (deaths included murdered mothers, newborns), discerning between truth and deception, all form an incomplete list of the issues that came my way during this year one.

Not everything, however, was dramatic, traumatic or borderline dangerous—there’s a fair share of the mundane, repetition to calm the waters of the soul. This includes receiving and distributing hundreds of Bibles and other literature, arranging special religious diet trays, presenting classes, preaching and, what may sound downright boring, talking to many inmates. These sessions reminded me of how broken humanity really is, what horrible things men can do to another, how engrained sin is and how hopeless we are without the saving grace of Jesus Christ, the crucified Lamb of God, the last sacrifice. Pointing to Him as the Only Way, The Truth and The Life is what turns the seemingly mundane into an electrifying encounter between darkness and light.

Please pray for and support chaplains because we are on the frontlines of a spiritual battle that will only reach the surface of society a few short years from now. Losing Peter Roomet and Lillian Anthony in one year was a major blow; but by God’s grace He introduced Rhonda Soland seamlessly into the works and overall, in my humble opinion, with no momentum lost.

Thank you for the love and support expressed in so many different ways during the time of my father’s unexpected illness and death. The Body of Christ is truly amazing and once again proved to me that it is an unrivaled tool/weapon in the Hand of God which can also do amazing miracles during an inmate’s reentry into society. Please be part of such a miracle in your special way where you are.

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