Nebraska Synod ELCA

by Pr. Rob Corum, Prison Ministry

As has been in the news, we recently had a death at the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) facility called the “Reception and Treatment Center” (RTC), which has a unit called the “Skilled Nursing Facility” (SNF), which is used for long-term care.  When people are sentenced to life in prison, the system has to be able to accommodate the end of life in human beings.  A person there (“Estell”) had recently entered hospice and asked for pastoral care, so I was called, even though we did not have a pre-existing relationship.  I was blessed to get to visit with him on a Tuesday, pray with him, and give him communion, and I promised to return.  I was not able to visit the next day, but returned on Thursday, and then again on Friday and Saturday because he was going downhill so quickly.  I arrived Saturday to find that he had just passed away shortly before I got there.  God’s love through me was comforting to some of the people who knew Estell and lived with him there, as well as an officer who was clearly having difficulty with the situation, and then to still others just days later as I led prayers in worship at another facility where Estell had previously lived.

What I was enabled to do with Estell and those who love him was beautiful and a blessing, but it did not go as I expected.  What I expected was to sit alone with him for a few hours over a few days, listening as best as possible as his ability to speak diminished, and pray with him several times, knowing that even when a person cannot speak, they generally can hear and are more aware than they appear to be.  But what I found was that I was never alone with him, as there was always another inmate present, who was part of a group of inmates who had volunteered to take turns sitting with any person who was dying, so that he would not die alone.  These were generally people who did not even know Estell, but they were Christians and as followers of the Christ, it was important for them to do what God does for us in this world in Jesus:  meet us where we are as one of us, walking the broken road with us, so we know we are not alone, and we are loved.  This was one of the most beautiful expressions of the Body of Christ I have seen.  One of the attendants was a substitute, who just volunteered because the others were in training that day and he was looking for a job, and he thought volunteering might help him get it.  But when he encountered this human being, whose body was failing him (causing some very messy and awkward problems), instead of running, he was moved to help this human being who was so in need of help.  When I told him he was really good at this and should be a medical porter, his response was, “Well, you don’t know me very well.”  But I didn’t have to know him to see God working in his heart.

In addition, the facility locked down a couple of times that week, and normally that would mean that these volunteers would not be able to visit Estell.  But the facility allowed it, for this special situation.  Estell happened to have a brother who was also in the SNF.  It was difficult for this tough guy to sit with his brother very long, but it got longer as the days passed.  At one point, he told me that Estell had another brother at the NDCS facility “Omaha Correctional Center” (OCC).  He asked me if I could make sure that his other brother knew what was going on.  It might seem strange, but I knew that my passing a message from one brother in one facility to another brother in another facility would be illegal.  But I imagined that for this situation there would be a process for notifying, so I said I didn’t know the process, but I would look into it.  A while later, an officer came in, and Estell’s brother asked him the same question.  He responded, “I’m on it; I’m working on arrangements for a video call so [the other brother] can say his goodbyes.”  I was amazed at his kindness and the extra effort he put in to be kind.

I expected “the system” to not care about this human being, and I was proved wrong.  What I found was that, in this dying person, in the Body of Christ caring for him, in an often-impersonal machine acting out of character, there was an awful lot of humanity.  And in the humanity, Jesus was visible, in prison.

Estell’s name is public information, in the news, but all other names have been left out for privacy reasons.  Apologies for places where that made the story awkward or less personal.