Church members visit inmates

BUIMO prison in Morobe recently had its first visitors of the New Year by the Christian Outreach Centre (COC).
To kick-start their visitation programme, that will run throughout the year, the COC members on Wednesday gave food items to the prison.
The New Year visitation saw the church contribute 22 10kg bags of rice, 22 boxes of tinned fish, two bales of sugar along with sweet potatoes (kaukau) and cabbages.
Senior Pastor John Garu told The National that the visit was a vision that he had 20 years ago when he was working as an accountant for Trukai Industries Ltd.
“I started visiting the prison in the early 1990s, from 1990 to 1997, while I was an accountant at Trukai Industries and, at that time, I wasn’t a pastor,” he said.
“During those times, I saw the same people going in and out of the prison and asked them why they ended up in prison and they responded with three things; the food, shelter and security, which the community could not provide for them.”
Garu said he felt compelled to give something to the prison to show they cared.
At the end of every month, the church members collected money and food items to donate to Buimo.
“It’s part of the vision,” Garu said.
“It’s not something we intended to do because it’s New Year.
“It’s a dream that we had and from this year and onwards at the end of every month we’ll be going to Buimo to give rice and tinned fish.”
Garu said the church would visit the prison once a month in 2020 to deliver the food items to inmates.
“My encouragement to others in the community is that lets go and help them and not to give our back to them as troublemakers.”