Ghislain Comes to Christ

How God Led Ghislain to Salvation…

Three boys going out for a walk around town. Nothing so unusual. Laughing and joking, getting some time together with good buddies. But what two of the friends didn’t know was that the other friend had another friend who had a bad habit of stealing cars and even doing ‘car-jacking’. That is stopping a car at a stop light, or fooling the driver to stop and pick up the person, and then that person forcing the driver and car to go somewhere where they rob and usually injure the driver. The bad friend had done just that and was forcing the driver to ‘joy ride’ around Brussels, Belgium.

As the car made a turn in the car-jacker’s neighborhood, he saw his friend and his two companions. He made the driver to stop the car and let his three friends in without telling them what had really happened. As they drove around, still with the owner in the car, now as a passenger, afraid to say anything for fear of harm, the gas gauge read near empty. They stopped at a gas station and agreed to split the cost for about $10 worth of gas, enough to get around town for another hour or so.

Ghislain volunteered, still not knowing that he was riding around in a ‘car-jacked’ auto, to go into the gas station and pay with the money that he had received from the others. While inside waiting to pay, he saw a police van pull into the station. The car-jacker ‘friend’ upon seeing the police arrive, took off running into the night and was not caught. The three unsuspecting buddies, were taken into custody. Two of them were born again Christians attending the New Jerusalem African church. Ghislain had been attending for a few weeks, but had not yet made a decision for Christ. He was wondering what it was all about, but hadn't yet learned enough about the differences between his parents’ religion, Roman Catholicism, and the New Jerusalem church’s beliefs.

In Belgium, suspects in a crime are considered guilty until proven innocent, so Ghislain and his friends were put behind bars in the same prison where murderers and hardened thieves are incarcerated. Ghislain was shaken to his very soul by this experience. When I came into Ghislain’s cell, I sensed that Ghislain was a very sensitive young man who needed and wanted to talk about life’s real meaning. I felt urged by the Holy Spirit to pass quickly on to eternal matters and the plan of God of salvation. Ghislain sat down next to me and for the next fifteen minutes, we searched in the Bible for the truths that set the prisoner free. I asked Ghislain if he would be ready to ask Jesus Christ into his life as Lord and Savior, confessing his sins and asking the Lord for the Holy Spirit to come into his heart. He replied immediately that that is what he wanted.

As we ended our prayer, the door opened and the guard announced that it was time for Ghislain go outside for his daily hour walk in the enclosed prison courtyard with the others in his wing. Just in the right moment, the Lord made the way and the door opened for salvation as well.

Some prisoners have looked at me when I come into their cell and say, “I know God has made it happen so that I have ended up in this prison, now I want to hear what He has to say to me.” God can use any method He desires to bring a young man into the place where he can hear God’s Word and be saved, I just want to be there and be ready with the Good News of Jesus to offer to them. It is just in that way that God has chosen for His Salvation to be received into a life, just like Ghislain did that day.
by Ken Barickman, Brussels Prison Ministry