It’s been a busy summer and the new blog has suffered. I spent a couple of weeks in Ukraine and there is so much that I could tell you about the trip. Little by little I’ll share with you the adventures and heartbreak I experienced.
I arrived in L’viv on Wednesday evening, July 27th. Getting there was an adventure of it’s own, a story for another day. On Thursday a full day was planned for us. We visited a state-run orphanage for babies and pre-schoolers, the hospital ward at a huge prison, I met one of my sponsored kids and we participated in food distribution as part of HART’s child sponsorship program. I want to tell you about the prison.
The L’viv City Prison is in the downtown area of L’viv. It houses thousands of prisoners in conditions that bring to mind World War II or Soviet era movies. Think bleak, barren, run down, miserable and then make it even worse.
Let’s start at the beginning ... we all had to produce our passports for this visit, leave all our belongings behind (no cameras, no money) and then we entered the prison. We were going in with a ministry group from one of the churches who go in to visit the prisoners in the hospital ward of the prison, bring them hope and some treats (cookies, fruit, chocolate, etc.). We helped carry in the boxes of food and then the door clanged shut behind us. I’m trying to be calm about the fact that I’ve given my passport to someone I don’t know, in a country that isn’t known for honesty and trustworthiness (especially in police and government officials), in a place I don’t speak the language, in a prison where there is no exit available to me. Yikes.
The first room we were in was something that reminded me of a LubeX bay --- vehicles would pass through here and there was this weird deep pit they had to travel over. At first I thought it was for servicing vehicles and then we realized the purpose was to have someone in the pit examining the bottom of vehicles as they left the prison. This wasn’t a game we were playing - this was real.
We moved all the food boxes into the hallway of a prison wing. Prison blocks/cells led off this hallway. The women from the church began to sort the food into bags for each cell. Our group took a couple of bags and headed into the first hospital ward/cell.
Now, when you think hospital ward, you’re probably envisioning those mint green or robin’s egg blue walls at the hospital you last visited, where the floors are tiled in shiny linoleum squares, big windows in each room, overhead lighting that can be dimmed in a number of options, white curtains to pull around each bed for privacy, hospital beds that adjust in seventeen different ways, nurses with white uniforms, stethoscopes & lots of machines beeping and flashing lights.
The guard opened the first cell and the first thing I saw was cigarette smoke so thick the room had that grey misty, hazy feel of a film noir - late at night the mist rolls in across the bay. This haze had the smell of European tobacco - acrid, nasty, unpleasant. Let me add that the same thing happened in every cell we went into yet we never once saw a cigarette. I suspect smoking is not allowed and as soon as the key rattles in the lock all the cigarettes disappear. For the most part the walls and floor were bare concrete.
Each cell was about 10 feet wide by 24 feet long. I know this because one of the cells had ceramic tiles along one wall. I counted 48 tiles and estimating they were 6” I guessed the room would be about 24 feet long. The width wasn’t much more than 10 feet wide because 2 beds wouldn’t fit end to end across the room.
Beds ... 8 to a cell. Different layouts in different cells but packed so tightly the inmates could barely move between the beds. One cell had three rows of cots - the rows separated by a row not more than a foot wide. Simple cots with a thin mattress and a couple of greying, various colored blankets on each.
In one corner of each cell there was a cinder block wall about 4 feet high enclosing a space about 5 foot square. In that lovely little corner was a squat toilet and small, dirty sink. No privacy, no odor control. I had been warned about the smells in the ward from the latrine but I think the tobacco smoke overpowered the toilet. Each cell has a pecking order with the highest on the roost getting beds nearest the window ... and furthest away from the latrine.
Sick prisoners from any part of Ukraine are sent to this ward in the prison in L’viv. There did not appear to be any onsite, attending medical staff. I’m assuming that a doctor or nurse saw them occasionally but no serious medical treatment was offered. Each cell contained 8 people - either all men or all women. One man in one ward had a growth on his chest the size of a watermelon.
The people we were with go into the prison to share the love of Jesus and give these inmates some hope in a dreary, hopeless world. Through an interpreter some of the prisoners shared they were there to die. The man leading our group used to be a prisoner in one of Ukraine’s prisons. He gave his life to Jesus and when released determined that he had to go back into the prison to share that same hope with those incarcerated. In each cell (we visited 6 or 7) he would share, someone from the group would share their testimony or a word of hope, we’d leave the food and move on. The inmates welcomed the visit, probably glad for a change in their dreary day.
I’ve reached the end of this story and don’t have an uplifting moral to share or a challenge to give you. About all I can say is if you are in Canada, the US or one of many other free and democratic countries in the world, be grateful for where you live and do not take it for granted. Think of those in countries where their freedom is not guaranteed and where prison is an awful hell they are living. Remember Matt 25:36.
Oh one smile before I wrap this one up - as we were leaving the prison, the guard had our stack of passports and called each person’s name from the passport and compared the picture. I was second last to be called ... still trying to be calm. The guard then smiled and said that was all the passports he had. Darrel was standing next to me and his name hadn’t been called. The guard then laughed, gave Darrel his passport and we were free to leave. Prison humor ...
