CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICE AT CAMP ELKTON

This is the script of the Christmas Eve service that McFreedom (and his friend Larry) wrote for the inmate-led service at "Camp Elkton" this year.  He said it was so well-received that I asked him to send it to me.  I wanted to share it with you all so you could share in the "ministry" that is going on in this Federal Prison.

So take your seats and let me present:  "Christmas Eve at Camp Elkton"

Welcome:
Good evening and Merry Christmas!  We welcome you to our worship service tonight.

I know we would all rather be somewhere else on Christmas Eve.  However, here we are in the Elkton Chapel.

God has brought us all together in this place to celebrate the miracle of Christmas -- the Lord Almighty sending forth His only begotten Son to take on human flesh, thereby securing our eternal salvation, which is the very foundation of the Christian faith!

As we worship tonight in word and song, we should contemplate the enormous depth and breadth of God's love for us.

We hear Jesus' own words from the gospel of John 3:16

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

And so, tonight, let us joyfully celebrate together in song as we contemplate our greatest Christmas gift;  our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who was born in a manger.

Let's begin by committing this service to God in prayer.  (prayer)

Instruction:
Our service this evening will follow a different format than what we usually have in the chapel.
We will be using a traditional format that has been used since the 19th century called "Lessons and Carols".  This is often used in candlelight services on Christmas Eve -- only tonight we don't have the candles.

Each lesson tells part of the Christmas story from the scripture.  After the scripture is read, we will respond together with some classic Christmas Carols found in your hymnals.

After each Carol is announced, the organist (Larry da Lutran) will play the tune through once to get you familiar with the melody.  Just follow the choir as they sing.

Let's begin our lessons. 

LESSON 1:
Please stand with me as we sing hymn #145 "O Come All Ye Faithful".

Please be seated.  (for those of you reading this blog…you don't really need to sit and stand…just feel free to sing the Carols!!!)

Approximately 2,000 years ago, Jesus was born in a small little town with nothing better than a feeding trough for cows, to lay in.  This is the event that brings us together every December as we celebrate Christmas.

However, the Christmas story doesn't begin here.  The story begins another 800 years before Jesus was born.  The story begins with the prophets of old who told us that this miraculous event would take place in this tiny little town.

Micah 5:2 tells us:
"But you, oh Bethlehem Ephrathah (eff-ra-tah), are only a small village among all the people of Judah.  Yet a Ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past."

Now we look at the book of Isaiah where the prophet proclaims:

The Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, the virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel - which means, God is with us."

Now let's fast forward approximately 800 years and read what Luke records in his gospel.

"At that time, the roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken through the Roman Empire.  This was the first census taken when Quirinius (Ker-in-ous) was governor of Syria.
Everyone returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census.  And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home.
He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee.  He took with him Mary, his fiancee, who was now obviously pregnant.  While they were there, the time came for her baby to be born.  She gave birth to her first child, a son.  She wrapped him snuggly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them."

Please turn to hymn #141 and join us in singing, "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

LESSON 2:
Here in prison, we receive messages through different methods:  Email, postal mail, inmate.com, and of course the loud speakers!!  

The shepherds received the message of Jesus' birth in a way they had never seen before that night.

Luke describes it this way:

Luke 2:8-14
"That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them.  They were terrified, but the angel reassured them."
"Don't be afraid!" He said.  "I bring you Good News that will bring GREAT JOY to all people.  The Savior - yes, the Messiah, the Lord - has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!"
"And you will recognize Him by this sign:  You will find a baby wrapped snuggly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger."
"Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others - the armies of heaven - praising God and saying:

GLORY to God in highest heaven, and peace on Earth to those with whom God is pleased!"

Please stand with us as we sing Hymn #132 "Angels We Have Heard On High".

LESSON 3:
Please be seated.

After hearing the message from the angels, the shepherds followed their instructions.  Both Luke and Matthew record the story as follows:

Luke 2:15-15
"When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Let's go to Bethlehem! Let's see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
"They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph.  And there was the baby, lying in a manger."

Matthew 1:22-23
"All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through His prophet:
Look!  the virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son, and they shall call him Immanuel, which means God is with us!"

Please join us in singing hymn 137 "What Child Is This?"

LESSON 4:
They found the baby in Bethlehem.  But this was no ordinary baby.  This baby is our Lord and Savior just as Isaiah prophesied and Luke explains:

Isaiah 9:6-7 
"For a child is born to us.  The government will rest on his shoulders.  And He will be called:
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His government and it's peace will never end.  He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of His ancestor David for all eternity.  The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven's armies will make this happen!"

 Luke 2:17-20
"After seeing Him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
All who heard the shepherds' story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart, and thought about them often.
The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.
It was just as the angel had told them."

Please stand as you turn to Hymn #133 "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"

LESSON 5:
Please be seated.

The birth of our Savior was not without controversy.  There were people who wanted to worship Him, and there were people who sought his demise.  Matthew explains this further in his Gospel.

Matthew 2:1-12
"Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod.
About that time some wise men from Eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the newborn King of the Jews?"  We saw His star as it rose, and we have come to worship Him."
"King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem.
He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"
"In Bethlehem in Judea," they said, for this is what the prophet wrote:
"And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel."
"Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared.  Then he told them, "Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child.  And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship Him, too!"
"After this interview the wise men went their way."
"And the star they had seen in the EAst guided them to Bethlehem.  It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was."
"When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with His mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him.  Then they opened their treasure chests and gave Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
"When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route,  for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod."

Please stand and open to Hymn #166 "We Three Kings Of Orient Are"

LESSON 6:
Tonight we walked together through the Christmas Story.  The story of God fulfilling his promise to send a Savior, a Messiah, to live on Earth along with us.  He came to show us the way to live in freedom.  He came to show us what it means to have true love, true healing, true hope.  He came to Earth to die on a cross.  He came to rise from the grave.  He came to give us the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation with Him, the one who created us.  This all began with his birth in the rural town of Bethlehem and Him -- lying in a feeding trough!

This is the very reason Jesus came to Earth.  The apostle John explains it further:

John 1:1-4, 14
"In the beginning the Word already existed.  The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He existed in the beginning with God.  God created everything through HIm, and nothing was created except through Him.  The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone."
"So the Word became human and made his home among us.  He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  And we have seen His glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son."

Jesus IS the Word.  The Word came in the form of a baby in a manger.  He came to save us.  Will you let Him?  Will you accept His invitation of grace?

This same Jesus, is inviting you into a relationship with Him.  He desired to give you love, hope, healing and forgiveness.  All you have to do is accept His invitation, and He will pour out his grace over you.  He will clean up the mess in your life, He will mend your wounds, He will repair the broken mess of a life we created.

Please stand with us as we close our service tonight, let's sing Hymn #147 "Silent Night, Holy Night".  Sing it quietly and reverently in solemn reflection of our Lord Jesus.  The last verse will be sung without the organ.  After we sing, let's continue in quiet reverence as we exit the chapel.

Amen

Ever since this service, Bryan has had several of the inmates come to him to let him know how much they appreciated this service…that it felt so much like a Christmas Eve service back at their home churches.   Thank you, Jesus, for allowing McFreedom to be a flickering light in the darkness of the Federal Prison.

Mrs. McFreedom

CHRISTMAS WEEK AT CAMP ELKTON - PART 2

Many of the guys have already torn through their Christmas bags and devoured its contents.  There is real lack of self-control here.  I'm not suggesting that I have mastered the discipline.  I have a long way to go to have complete self-control.  But I have saved my Christmas bag.  It remains unopened waiting for the right occasion to open it - perhaps on the anniversary of my departure from the SHU.  After all, that is when I received my first bag from last year.

Christmas is a special time here with the daily mail call.  The big red mailbags are more full than usual.  We delight in the extra work the cops have to heave those mailbags onto the counter.  The smart ones use a wheeled cart to bring them in and then assign an inmate to lift it and dump it on the counter where our four e-mail computers sit.  We stand anxious to hear our name called only to respond with "pass" to have the mail handed to us like an old fashioned bucket brigade.

I received many cards and letters this season.  It is always encouraging to get a card or note from you all.  Thank you so much for sending them to me.  One of my favorite cards came from my wife.  She always has the perfect words on her cards; not only the words she writes, but the ones printed in gold or silver.  I am convinced that she either writes the message on the card and sends it to hallmark for printing or she knows someone there who writes them specifically for her.  They are always the best.  Besides her perfect cards, she sends me great pictures.  She sent me a picture of the Christmas tree Jake cut down for her this year.  It looks just as I remember it.  Full of lots of lights and ornaments and the tree itself is very full.  This is no Charlie Brown tree!  I have this picture tucked in ledge of the bunk above me so I can look at it as I lay down.  Along with this photo are the pictures of the Christmas cookies she made.  They look so good I want to eat the photo.  Yes I got many cards. And I thank each of you for the kind greetings you sent to me.  Christmas is way better out of the SHU.

Christmas day was a good day to sleep in.  Especially when this cold of mine is settling in.  We had some very light snow fall and it was quite cold outside.  I walked the hallway greeting everyone with a cheerful Merry Christmas greeting as we passed.  Even to my atheist and Buddhist friends received my greeting.  As much as they grumble over the greeting, they still partake in the holiday.  Christmas dinner was very nicely done over at the “Dirty Spoon Diner”.  We had roast turkey, ham glazed with maple syrup, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans with sliced mushrooms in them (I found two mushrooms) and of course, cranberry jelly.  It was all very good and there was so much of it.  I saved my ham and put it in an instant coffee bag and slid into my pocket for latter.  The pecan pie was the same as what we had for thanksgiving and it too made it's way back to my cubicle.  Thank goodness for big pockets in the jackets and elastic waste bands on pants!

That's the news from Camp Elkton this week.  It was a good week.  I miss my family but I enjoyed talking to many of you on the phone in those 15 minute slices of time.  I hope you all had a great time with your family and friends this Christmas season.  Don't forget why we celebrate Christmas each year.  It is not for the discounts, sales and special deals; It is not about the best gift or the biggest gift we get; Instead it is simply about Jesus.  He is the reason we can celebrate.  God gave Jesus to us as his gift to us so we can be reconciled to Him; to save us; so we can live forever with him IF we accept him.  He brings us love, He brings us healing, He brings us hope.  That is the best gift we could ever receive.  All we need to do is accept it.

May God bless you this Christmas

Love,

McFreedom

CHRISTMAS WEEK AT CAMP ELKTON - PART 1

Christmas sure snuck up on us quickly here at Camp Elkton.   The weather warmed up after Thanksgiving and melted all of our snow.  There have been a few storms that rolled through the Eastern seaboard but the snow seems to be attracted to the larger cities.  We get some of the left overs of the snow but it has not amounted to much.  Our snow crew teams do not get many early morning calls to clean the snow.

It turned cold here this week and the sky has cleared.  The snow on the ground barely covers the grass.  The change in temperature seems to have brought about a cold virus here in the unit.  Don, our retired miltary man here, has been hit very hard by the virus.  He has been hacking and wheezing through the night. You can tell it is severe by the deep sound of the cough and the heavy wheezing.  It makes you feel badly for the man and at the same time you are glad you don't have it. With the close company we keep here you wonder as you listen to him how long it will be before it makes the rounds to you.

We do have a medical department here but we have to pay $2.00 for a sick call visit, much like a co- pay at the urgent care facility on the outside where you are. Here at Camp Elkton we call this the "Don't-Care Clinic".   They generally are not interested in how you feel.  This is more of a triage to make sure you are not going to die and wind up with a lawsuit from your family.  Don was diagnosed with bronchitis and they gave him some steroids but they waited until it was quite advanced.  Residents here are good about "sharing" and I am the recipient of their good will.  I have come down with this cold virus now.  I hope it passes before Jeannie comes out to visit. For now, I will save the $2.00 co-pay.

One of my homeboys, Larry "Da Lutran", was a classical organist for the Lutheran church (hence the made-up last name) before he moved into our community this summer.  Like many of us here, he has been frustrated by the worship services we have at the Elton chapel.  I prefer the contemporary worship services that we have back at NRC and he prefers a more old-school worship service. More of a classic style of hymns and liturgical service. Larry abhores the contemporary worship style. I told him I graduated from the hymns to Contemporary worship.  He calls this mode of worship that I like "happy clappy" and the songs used in that service are 7-Eleven songs.  I asked him what he meant by that and he tells me that so many of these songs are 7 words repeated 11 times.  I laughed, but I instantly thought about the song "O Happy Day".  A song that has worn out its welcome on my list of favorites.  I argued with Larry about the Happy Clappy part as I am particulary fond of this style of worship.  We have agreed that people are akin to different styles of worship and both are acceptable to God.  We also agreed that it is not worth arguing about and we we can poke jabs at each style, as long as he agrees that I am right  at the end of the day!  Hahaha.

Larry is a fantastic organist who plays with passion on the keybards.  He carries a picture of the organ he played inside his offical Lutheran Hymnal that he had sent in to use here.  He has long grey hair and beard that he is letting grow wild.  He wears a headband made out of a scarf that looks much like a fez the shriners wear, only without the top and tassle. You can see his grey hair squezze out the top of his headband almost like a crown.  It is a unique look that only Larry can pull off.  When he is playing the piano or the organ here he plays with dramatic hand motions and really puts his shoulders into the movement.  His feet are sliding across the floor as though he had all those wooden petals that a real Lutheran organ would have.  It is a sight to see when he plays. He has also earned the name the "Mad Organist".

One day, after a chapel service, Larry cornered Pastor Culp and had me join him to ask if we could do a traditional style Christmas Eve service here.  Larry had an order of service already written out with six lessons of Chirsts birth and the classic carols that would go along with them.  Pastor Culp looked it over carefully and committed to verify the calendar for that that night if we committed to practicing and taking care of the details.  The deal was made.

Down the hall from the chapel, the recreation department has a small practice room with a studio piano, bongo set, and drums placed in it.  Anyone can sign up to use it and no talent is required. Each inmate is limited to two hours per week   This means that we had to have several members of the newly forming Chrismas eve choir to sign up for rehearsal time. So now we had daily rehearsals and sometimes twice a day.  

The choir was not a regular choir.  In fact, you probably would not have seen a choir like this in any church. Russ, another homeboy from Wisconsin, is our leader but he doesn't like to use traditional hand gestures of a choir director as he leads, rather he prefers to lead by correction after the fact.  Paul the Italian Catholic joined the choir and brought great enthusiasm to the group.  His ability to curse made it very untraditional but colorful.  Matt is another guy from the Catholic church who has suffered from cerebral palsy all his life but has not let the disease define him.  Dave who loves to speak in the Kermit the Frog voice, when he does not sing, joined our choir and sometimes helped with unscripted and mostly unwelcome dance moves.  He is not shy about "leaving the closet".  Bruce is other member who has severe insecurities about singing but worked hard to get it just right as he practiced.  With the exception of Russ, the choir members were not in any other choirs here at the camp, which started some buzz in the community as a new choir was formed.  We already have a Catholic choir and a pentacostal choir but now we have this new group and Nobody rehearsed as much as we did  for a single performace.  The other choirs only rehearse once a week but our choir practiced daily.

The plan was to have a couple of readers in the service to alternate in the service.  Pastor Culp had to be one of them as he was the offical chaplain.  However he had a reputation of going off script and free-lancing his thoughts.  Sometimes these rabbit trails of monologue would go for several minutes and then lead to another rabbit trail. Before he is done you forget why he started on this trail.   He does this in weekly services often.  After 15 - 20 minutes of this we lose track of the point he was trying to illustrate.  Larry feared that he would do this in the Christmas Eve service so he needed a plan.  Larry asked me to read the scripture in our rehearsal time to get a feel for how this would work.  He liked my ability to follow the punctuation so he assigned me to read the Scriptures.  He then decided to have me read everything with the exception of the last lesson.  He felt obligated to include Pastor Culp and that it would be safe to let him have the last one.  After all, if he went over our allotted time, it would be on him.

We had our final meeting with Pastor to go over the script that we wrote out.  We learned that Father Bernie pulled a fast one on us and scheduled a Catholic Mass for Christmas eve in our time slot.  So now we had to wait until they were done with thier service and dismatle the cathedral so that we could prepare for our serivce.  Larry was very dissapointed and ready to throw in the towel.  I could see how important this was to him and I reassured him that we would still have ample opportunity to have a serivce even if it was later than usual.  Word was spread about the special service and people were becoming interested in it.  Some were even surprised that we were doing this without using the existing choirs.  It was as though we had created a bit of a rift in the balance of the churches.  It is good to be radical once in awile.

Christmas Eve came and we had access to the chapel for final rehearsal.  Larry tuned up the organ to his liking and we connected a guitar amp to the organ.  This gave the organ a powerful sound in the Elkton Tower Chapel.  I found some problems in the script and made some last minute re-writes for the evening.  While we waited for the Catholics to finish the service, Pastor Culp invited me to sit in his office as we waited.  We talked through a few details.  I had written out the script for his lesson to give him an idea of the flow we were seeking.  I had told him that he could modify and make any changes he desired but he told me he liked what I had put together and would roll with it.  So we chatted about our families and my life before prison.  It was a nice conversation in the short time we had.  He is a good man with a high level of tolerance and understanding.  God has certainly gifted him for this role.

We had a good turn out for the candle light service - without the candles.  As I suspected, there were many there who normally do not attend any of the services.  It was nice to see new faces.  I stayed on track for most of the lessons and flubbed my lines a few times.  I was thrown off at the begining when they broke out in a routine habitual clap session they do in our regular services.  The choir did well and I didn't hear any of the foul words used in practice when mistakes were made. Kermit used a human voice the entire time and the "closet door" remained closed.  The organ pumped loud pipe sounds through the amp which sat right next to my ear.  I may have lost a little more of my hearing that night.  It was really nice to hear a room full of men belting out those classic carols.  O little Town of Bethlem,  Hark the Herald Angels Sing, What Child is This, We Three Kings, Silent Night, etc.  The service was about 45 minutes which had to be a record in the Elkton chapel.  This worked out well with the double scheduling so we didn't need to rush back for our recall.  It felt like a service we would have back home.

Finishing a service early or on time is so unusual here.  Most services the chaplain has to escape the service to accomodate needs of people from other faiths.  Tonight was different.  It was a graceful departure.  The choir gathered outside Pastor Culps office to chat.  Pastor Culp joined us and we had a pleasant conversation together.  Again, it felt much like a service back home.  I step back to watch this take place and I recalled how it seemed as thought the next step was to go out to Applebees and continue the conversation over some appetizers.  So I told everyone there that we should go to a local Applebees and that I would buy for them all!  This brought a good laugh as we knew it wasn't possible but the idea was welcome just the same.  Instead we headed back to the housing unit while Pastor Culp went home to build a fire and help his wife wrap presents.

Every year the BOP hands out a Christmas gift bag to inmates all over the nation.  These bags are filled with different typs of snacks from the commissary provider sealed in a large clear plastic bag.  Everyone knows they are coming and the day they arrive is very special.  After lunch on Tuesday, the voice announced a recall notice and everyone went back to the unit. We waited anxiously, knowing we were getting our federal Christmas present soon.  They brought each unit one at a time and had them line up on the sidewalk near the compund office near the visitation room.  We then entered the West entrance of the "Valley Ridge Mall" and walked down the hallway toward the commissary, the Elkton Walmart.  Inmates who work in the Commissary handed out the bags one at a time as we walked by the door.  There were several cops keeping watchful eyes on the whole process to make sure nobody was given an extra bag.  At the end of the hallway, the food service cop was handing out a bag of butter cookies and two packages of expired hot chocolate as a bonus gift.  Perhaps they were stocking stuffers  - without the socks.  We paraded back to the unit with more guards on the sidewalk to prevent us from re-entering the line to get another package.

The atmosphere of the unit was electric with excitement as inmates tore through thier bags.  The rustle of plastic bags filled the air.  Many didn't waste any time eating the food.  People were walking around the hallways holding up the items they wanted to trade.  It reminded me of trick or treating when I was young.  I remember how I would want to trade the candy I didn't like with my sisters.  I think we liked too much of the same items so it was hard to get more of my favorite candy.  The same was true here.  Everyone wants the bags of popcorn.  We can't get popcorn here anymore unless you are in the visiting room.  Well, that's not completely true, they are selling carmel corn for the holidays at the commissary.  I have several bags stocked up, but I wish they wouldn't have put all that carmel on it.  I will just have to suffer through it.

Stay tuned for Part 2 -- McFreedom