Kingdom Seed Sown in Prison

Following the Sandinista Revolution, thousands of the defeated National Guard as well as political dissidents were held in custody prior to appearing before special tribunals that sat from late 1979 to 1981. Most former National Guardsmen were sentenced to up to 30 years in Cárcel Modelo (Modelo Prison), a large penitentiary at Tipitapa, some seven miles [11 km] northeast of Managua. As we shall now see, many honesthearted people within those harsh, overcrowded confines were set free spiritually.

Late in 1979, an elder in Managua received a letter from a fellow Witness who was incarcerated, but not yet in Cárcel Modelo, for having served in the military under the Somoza government before coming to a knowledge of the truth. In his letter, the brother requested literature to share with other prisoners. The two elders who delivered the literature were not permitted to see the brother. This did not discourage him, though, for he continued witnessing to his fellow inmates, even conducting Bible studies with some of them.

One of those students, Anastasio Ramón Mendoza, made rapid spiritual progress. “I liked what I was learning so much,” he recalls, “that I began to accompany the brother as he preached to other prisoners. Some rejected us; others listened. Soon about 12 of us were studying together during recess in an open courtyard.” About a year later, one of that original group was baptized.

Early in 1981, this small group of Bible students was transferred with other prisoners to Cárcel Modelo, where they continued sharing the good news with others. At the same time, Bible-based literature also circulated quietly among the prisoners, some of it finding even more “fine soil.”

Consider the example of José de la Cruz López and his family, none of whom were Witnesses. Six months after José was imprisoned, his wife obtained a copy of My Book of Bible Stories from Witnesses she met on the street. Her sole objective was to give it to her husband. “When I began reading the Bible Stories book,” relates José, “I thought it was an evangelical publication. I knew nothing about Jehovah’s Witnesses. The book impressed me so much that I read it several times and began sharing it with my 16 cell mates, all of whom enjoyed it. It was like a drink of refreshing water. Prisoners in other cells also asked to borrow it, so that it made its way through the entire ward, ending up worn and frayed like a pack of old playing cards.”

Several of José’s fellow prisoners were members of evangelical churches; some were even pastors. José began to read the Bible with them. He was disappointed, though, when he asked them about the meaning of Genesis 3:15 only to be told that it was a mystery. One day another prisoner, himself a Bible student, said to José: “The answer is in that book you have that is published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I can study it with you if you like.” José accepted the offer, and with the help of the Bible Stories book, he learned the meaning of Genesis 3:15. Thereafter, he began to associate with the inmates who identified themselves with the Witnesses.

One of the things that attracted José to this unique group within Cárcel Modelo was their fine conduct. “I saw people whom I knew to have had a very corrupt life-style now manifesting fine conduct because of studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses,” says José. Meanwhile, José’s wife continued to obtain literature from the Witnesses and pass it on to her husband who, in turn, progressed spiritually. In fact, his study group even assigned him a section of a ward where he could preach from cell to cell. Thus he was able to lend his few pieces of literature to interested ones and also invite them to the meetings, which were held in the ward during recess.

Caring for the Spiritual Needs of the Prisoners

The East Managua Congregation tended to the spiritual needs of the growing number of prisoners in Cárcel Modelo who were reading the literature and making spiritual progress. To that end, the congregation set up a program whereby certain brothers and sisters would secretly take literature to the prisoners. Visits were allowed every 30 to 60 days, but a prisoner could receive a visit only from the person he had previously requested. So not all interested ones could receive personal visits from local Witnesses. Still, that did not present a major problem because the inmates would soon get together and share things with one another.

The elders of the East Managua Congregation helped to organize and direct the activities of the expanding group within Cárcel Modelo. They maintained regular contact especially with the inmates who were taking the lead spiritually, explaining to them how to conduct weekly meetings, carry out the preaching work in an orderly fashion, and report all such activities. In turn, these prisoners passed that information on to the others. Good theocratic order certainly became necessary, for by that time a large group of Bible students had formed in the jail.

Cárcel Modelo originally had four wards, each holding as many as 2,000 prisoners. “Each ward was independent of the others,” explains Julio Núñez, one of the visiting elders, “so the weekly meetings were held separately in each ward’s recreation area, with approximately 80 people attending altogether.”

Baptized in a Barrel

As new ones advanced, several expressed the desire to be baptized. Visiting elders approved the candidates for baptism and helped the prisoners taking the lead spiritually to arrange for a baptism on a date that coincided with an assembly being held on the outside. Usually a baptism talk would be given the night before in one of the cells, and the following morning when the prisoners went to the baths, the candidates would be baptized.

José de la Cruz López was baptized in prison in November 1982. “I was baptized in a trash barrel,” he relates. “We gave it a good scrubbing with detergent. Then we lined it with a sheet and filled it with water. However, armed guards arrived just as we had gathered around for the baptism. ‘Who authorized this baptism?’ they asked. The brother taking the lead explained that one needs no authorization to do what God says. The guards acquiesced but wanted to watch the proceedings. So with them looking on, I was asked the two questions put to baptism candidates, and then I was immersed in the barrel.” At least 34 prisoners were eventually baptized in this way.

Some inmates made rapid progress. One of these was Omar Antonio Espinoza, who served 10 years of his 30-year sentence in Cárcel Modelo. Prisoners were moved periodically, and during Omar’s second year, one of his cell mates was a Witness. Omar noticed that other prisoners regularly visited this man, who taught them the Bible. Impressed by what he saw and heard, Omar also requested a Bible study.

Omar began studying with the aid of the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, covering a chapter a day. After 11 days, he wanted to be a publisher. When he completed the 22 chapters of the book, he asked to be baptized. However, the brothers asked him to think about the matter a little longer. They also recommended that he study a second publication, namely, You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, which had just been received in the prison. In a little over a month, Omar completed that book too. What is more, he quit smoking and made other changes as well. Clearly, Bible truth was influencing his life. Seeing these changes convinced the brothers that his desire was genuine, so Omar was baptized in a barrel on January 2, 1983.

Prison Sign Language

In order to pass on information received from the elders visiting the prison or to gather information, such as service reports, the incarcerated publishers had to communicate between wards. Brother Mendoza, who was baptized in prison in 1982, tells how they did this.

“Some of us,” he says, “learned a form of sign language that had developed among the prisoners. When it was time to observe the Memorial, we estimated when the sun had set and then signaled one another so that all of us could join in prayer at the same time. We did this year after year. Signing also helped us with our study of The Watchtower. When brothers in one of the wards did not have the study article for that week, we signed the entire article to them. At the receiving end, an observer read aloud the signs to a friend who wrote the article out.” But how did spiritual food get into the prison in the first place?

Spiritual Food Nourishes Prisoners

Elders, their families, and other publishers of the East Managua Congregation regularly came to Cárcel Modelo to visit the prisoners. For almost ten years, they brought both material and spiritual provisions for their brothers, including The Watchtower and Our Kingdom Ministry. The spiritual food, of course, had to be concealed.

One elder hid magazines in the hollow of his big wooden crutches. “Young ones also helped out, since they were rarely searched,” relates Julio Núñez. The visitors were even able to get the Memorial emblems into the prison.

Each ward had its own specified day for visitors, and approved people usually spent the whole day with the prisoner in a large courtyard. In this way, a handful of Witness inmates could meet with their brothers and sisters from Managua and obtain spiritual supplies. Then later, when these prisoners returned to their wards, they were able to share what they had received.

Not even Kingdom songs were overlooked. “In our ward,” says Brother López, “only one of us had contact with the visiting brothers. So it fell upon that prisoner to learn the tunes to a few songs at a time and then to teach the rest of us. Because we had only one songbook, we all practiced before the meetings.” Brother Mendoza was one of the few inmates who could have Witness visitors. “Carlos Ayala and his family visited me,” Brother Mendoza says. “His two daughters taught me at least nine Kingdom songs, which I taught my companions.” Brother López was one of those who learned the songs secondhand. He recalls: “Later when I began to attend meetings on the outside, I was delighted but, I must admit, a little surprised to learn that we really had been singing the same melodies.”

Staying Spiritually Strong in Prison

What kind of environment did the brothers and interested ones have to put up with in prison, and how did they remain spiritually strong? Brother Mendoza recalls: “Prison food was rationed. All the inmates were beaten on several occasions, and at times, guards fired shots around us as we lay facedown on the floor. These things were done to put our nerves on edge. When there were clashes between some of the other prisoners and the guards, we were all punished by being sent out into the courtyard naked to bake in the sun. We Witnesses used these occasions to upbuild and console one another. We recalled Bible texts and shared points we had learned in our personal study. These experiences helped us remain united and strong.”

Taking advantage of their abundance of free time, many Witnesses and interested ones read the Bible through four or five times. It was not unusual for them to study carefully, and several times over, all of the Bible-based publications that came into their hands. With special appreciation, Brother Mendoza remembers the Yearbooks. “The experiences from different countries, the maps​—we studied them all,” he recalls. “Each year we compared the increases, the number of congregations, the number of new ones baptized, and the Memorial attendance in each country. These things gave us great joy.”

Under such circumstances, new publishers quickly acquired a good knowledge of God’s Word as well as theocratic organization. They also became zealous preachers and teachers. In February 1986, for instance, Cárcel Modelo had 43 publishers conducting 80 Bible studies. An average of 83 attended the weekly meetings.

All these spiritually liberated inmates were soon to experience additional freedom, for the government decided to grant a pardon to all political prisoners. As a result, the last 30 publishers within Cárcel Modelo were set free on March 17, 1989. The East Managua Congregation promptly arranged for the newly released publishers to be contacted by the elders in the areas where they moved. These elders, in turn, welcomed their new brothers, many of whom later became elders, ministerial servants, and pioneers.

[Box/Pictures on page 122, 123]

We Found True Freedom in Prison

Between 1979 and 1989, Cárcel Modelo was filled with military and political prisoners who had been associated with the former government. The Kingdom message penetrated these walls, filled the hearts and minds of honesthearted individuals, and nurtured within them a Christlike personality. (Col. 3:5-10) Here are a few comments from some former inmates.

José de la Cruz López: “When imprisoned, I was embittered and had no hope, no future. Then I met fellow inmates who had become Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was impressed both by their explanation of the Bible and by their fine conduct. At last, I was spiritually satisfied and had a hope. I felt that if I had been willing to give my life for a human government that could offer no genuine hope, how much more so should I be loyal to the One who gave his Son for me! After my release, my wife and daughters and three other family members also learned the truth. Truly, I can never repay Jehovah for what he has done for me.”

Brother López serves as an elder in Managua.

Omar Antonio Espinoza: “When I was 18, I was given a 30-year sentence and served 10 years before receiving a pardon. Although I regret having lost my liberty, it was in prison that I came to know Jehovah and true freedom. Previously, I had led a dissolute life, but now I made a complete turnabout. I am grateful to Jehovah that my cup is full in a spiritual sense. My determination is like that of Joshua: ‘As for me and my household, we shall serve Jehovah.’​—Josh. 24:15.”

Brother Espinoza serves as an elder in the city of Rivas.

Anastasio Ramón Mendoza: “Within a few months of confinement, I began to read the Bible on my own. Then I began to study it with a fellow prisoner who was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I soon became convinced that I had found the truth. Yet, I put off baptism because I was seething with hatred for my captors​—a state of mind that I knew did not have Jehovah’s approval.

“I prayed intensely, both for forgiveness and for help to overcome my hurtful attitude. Jehovah heard my supplications, for he patiently taught me to hate not individuals but bad attitudes and actions. I was baptized in 1982. Since my release in 1989, I have studied the Bible with many former military men and others who were in a situation similar to mine. Some are now my spiritual brothers.”

Brother Mendoza serves as a ministerial servant in Managua.