SDA church praised for helping with prisoners’ rehab

TWO students were among 27 prisoners from Barawaghi jail in Chimbu baptised recently as members of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church.
President of the Eastern Highlands and Chimbu SDA Mission Rev Joanis Fegamo conducted the baptism at Tem Creek outside the jail.
Senior jail officer Mark Kusia commended the church for partnering with Correctional Services to help in the rehabilitation of the prisoners.
Kusia said spiritual rehabilitation was the way forward to help prisoners settle down and contribute meaningfully to their communities when discharged from jail.
He said prisoners commited crimes because they didn’t accept Christ in their lives and ended up in jail.
Kusia said that it was not by mistake that they ended in jail, but through God’s plan and now they were changed spiritually.
He said under the prisoner welfare and rehabilitation programme, hundreds of prisoners had been baptised and changed spiritually before being discharged.
Kusia said over the past six years, there had been no mass breakouts because of such programmes.
He said the various churches programmes made the work of jail officers easier.
“We allow prisoners to move around freely and even to Waghi River and come back into the jail,” Kusia said.
He thanked all churches involved with spiritual rehabilitation of prisoners.