Prisoners among nine baptised as SDA followers

DESPITE being rejected by society and branded as criminals, six prisoners at Lakiemata Jail, West New Britain, ignored that indifference and fought their way back into the arms of God last Saturday at Sarakolok Oil Palm Settlement in the Mosa LLG area.
The looks on their faces showed the many years of labour.
But a few words with them showed normal human beings held by the law behind the seven-feet-high barbed wire fence surrounded by towers and gunmen.
Fourteen prisoners were scheduled to be baptised over the weekend but a misunderstanding at the main gate of Lakiemata Jail by a correctional officer who was on shift saw six prisoners and two others on remand scheduled to go for baptism being stopped.
Two Correctional officers and a prisoner’s wife, with the six prisoners, made the decision to become not only members of the Sarakolok Seventh-Day Adventist church but to change spiritually.
Pr Linus Tokile, who was officiating during the ceremony, said baptism was the gateway into living a Christ-like life.
Tokile said the prisoners might be rejected and hated by society, probably cursed and branded as criminals and live within brick-walled rooms but God’s love had no boundaries.