Letter to United Church of Hyde Park

[recently typed up for my book of letters and papers from jail]...

April 21, 2008

Greetings Church!

I’m over halfway done now and it feels like “it’s all downhill from here.” I miss you all and look forward to seeing you again in a little over a week. My family and I realized we miscalculated the visit schedule here so the only opportunities to visit are on Sunday mornings. Oops—so let us visit together with a letter.
I am doing very well, and continue to be grateful for your cards and well-wishes. I do have a little flower garden of sorts, now in my cell, comprised of your cards, which adds much to the feeling of spring and warmth—whoever had this idea was quite clever. Thanks very much!

Tonight we are all watching “Walk the Line,” on TV [the Johnny Cash biography], which is interesting because of its own jail scene—as well as its depiction of the broken relationships and substance abuse. Actually, it is enormously profound for us to be watching it here, and quite a few of the women are mesmerized.
It’s been a quiet week in some ways—girls leaving and new ones arriving, and many of us have had a difficult cold. I think we discovered a bit late it could be passed through the playing cards. So most of us have been trying to sleep it off and disinfect everything we can.

I continue to write letters for friends here who need legal assistance or want to write their families—I wish I could say my Spanish has improved faster than it has, but, perhaps bit by bit it will come.

I just learned that my classmates at seminary are holding weekly prayer vigils while I’m in here, though I don’t know exactly when. If you would like to join them, just call over to school.

I regret that I have been unable to get access to the library here—they don’t like to take people very often. Still this has given me more time for Bible study. Today I read the book of Zephaniah. It’s a tiny little book, and so angry, prophesying so much destruction—and then, relenting and forgiveness and comfort. I wish I had a study edition of the Bible here, with text notes, but for now I can ponder a God who gets so angry, and yet loves his people.

I hope that by sending this tonight it reaches you before Sunday. Peace to you all—good to hear the quilt show went well! --and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Peace,

Le Anne

P.S.—Please remember in your prayers the young mothers who can’t afford bond while their cases are being heard, and a young woman whose parents asked the judge today to keep her here so she wouldn’t return to heroin. The young woman agrees she would be dead if she were not here, and is scheduled for rehab soon. Please remember also the three women in solitary confinement this week, they are really struggling emotionally under these conditions.