MATSAPA, Swaziland (BP)–John Madelege found freedom behind the bars of one of Swaziland’s largest prisons.
Madelege, a psychiatrist, was convicted of murdering his wife. He heard about Jesus from Southern Baptist missionary Don Bradley and local Christian Mandla Sigwane, who visited the penitentiary in Matsapa, Swaziland.
The convict didn’t believe in God and had never read a Bible. But he was curious about what Bradley and Sigwane had to say and soon accepted Christ as his Savior.
Then Madelege felt a call from God.
“Pastor, God is calling me to preach,” Madelege told Bradley, a Texas native assigned by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board to the southern African nation.
The missionary was stunned. Madelege’s prison sentence would last 17 years. How could he be a preacher? Then Madelege added, “What God has called me to do is pastor a church.” That confused Bradley even more.
After praying about the sense of calling, Bradley, Sigwane and Madelege came to the same conclusion: a prison church. They approached prison officials for approval.
“You have done so much good, the morale of the prisoners in the whole camp has changed,” the officials told Bradley. “We’ll let you do anything you want to do.”
So Madelege, Sigwane and Bradley started a church behind bars. About 40 men now attend worship services each week, as well as daily Bible studies.
Madelege and other Christian inmates visit with other prisoners, witnessing and inviting them to church.
In nine different prisons in Swaziland, Bradley saw 60 prisoners accept Christ as Savior last year. Officials have approved showings of the “Jesus” film and baptism services inside prison walls nationwide.
Bradley, a native of Mineral Wells, Texas, encounters inmate after inmate whose life has been transformed by what one traditional Baptist hymn calls God’s “wonder-working power.”
“God is not limited by prison walls and by sin,” he said. “He will forgive any sin of any man, woman, boy or girl no matter who they are, where they are or what they have done if they will just trust in Jesus and follow him.”
The once-hardened criminals who now worship Jesus in Swaziland prisons prove it.
