Rat Water and the Economy of Survival

Unfortunately, Sergio had taken kiosk orders while I was on chair duty, so I missed the opportunity to buy some much-needed fluids. However, sympathetic Sergio took me to the lunchroom filing cabinet and found it full of leftover breakfast items from past mornings. There was no doubt that a business opportunity existed for the pacos and their sycophants. “Here, these sixteen little Colun orange and pineapple kids’ juice boxes should tide you over in the meantime,” he said. I picked up eight crummy Colun vanilla yogurts too, which would go along nicely with the orange and apple recently acquired from Miami. The bill came to 5,000 pesos—about seven U.S. dollars. Not caring about who profited illicitly, I was relieved. The gulps of flavored rat-water had gone down hard at lunchtime, and now I was looking forward to drinking the juice. Nothing and no one in prison surprised me any longer. For me, any non-aggressive means to satisfy needs was simply acceptable.

One learns basic economics very quickly behind bars. Supply and demand operate with brutal efficiency in a prison economy. When the water runs out, the price of any liquid rises. When the guards control access to the kiosk, they become monopolists who can extract rents from desperate men. When a man’s wife brings food on encomienda day, he becomes a temporary capitalist whose surplus—a sandwich, a bag of chips, some cookies—can be traded for goodwill, information, or safety. I had paid 50,000 pesos through Sergio to bribe Cabo Cisternas and keep my private cell—recalling the biblical maxim that “money answereth all things” (Ecclesiastes 10:19)—and I did not consider it immoral. I am a Libertarian, and I do not mind paying for services, even if others consider them to be repugnant. The state that put me in that cell had no moral standing to complain about the bribes required to survive within it.

The Cell Change Crisis

One morning, Sergio opened the building door and called out my name. Anyone hearing his name called got a little anxious. Upon entering the interior of the building, Sergio told me, “The Cabo wants to speak to you.” Cisternas was leaning on the ramp railing outside, near the parking area. “I need to make a cell change, Gringo; you need to move in with guatón (fat-gut) Rubén upstairs in cell 20. I cannot leave anyone alone in a cell.”

I was surprised, although I should not have been since there are never any absolute guarantees given in terrestrial hell; uncertainty is part of the torture. I had a good relationship with this paco and tried to think quickly on my feet, then replied without the corresponding subtlety required by Chilean cultural norms: “Shoot, I just spent a few hundred thousand pesos fixing up my cell, and it would be a shame to lose it all. Why couldn’t Rubén move in with me?” Young Cisternas replied that there was nothing he could do. “My hands are tied, and I am not going to jeopardize my career by taking payments.”

I went to Rubén, who was not pleased by what he heard. After considerable time discussing the matter with Cisternas, he emerged claiming victory. But appearances were deceiving. Back in the dining room, Sergio came in and explained that Rubén had not resolved anything and that I still had to move out. He added that I needed to stop chattering nonsensically with the paco about how much I had invested in fixing up my cell or by directly offering a bribe.

Of course, the paco wanted money. I had paid him before indirectly. “I want to get you into the best position possible,” said Sergio, “where you make just one payment.” So I handed over 50,000 pesos—about sixty-three U.S. dollars—and Sergio quickly zipped it inside his chest pocket. Nothing more was said about me changing cells. Rubén continued to believe it was his doing. “Let him keep thinking that,” said Sergio, “but do not tell anyone about this brokered deal.” I agreed. Sergio was always careful to conduct such business in private.

The episode illustrates a principle that theologians and ethicists rarely discuss: the moral complexity of surviving inside a corrupt institution. The man who refuses on principle to pay a bribe may find himself sharing a cell with a knife-wielding drug addict. The man who pays may preserve the quiet space in which he can read his Bible, write his books, pray, and maintain the small daily disciplines that keep his soul from disintegrating. I do not pretend the calculus is simple. I merely report that the man inside the walls faces choices that the man outside can scarcely imagine, and that taking those choices “patiently” often means accepting a moral landscape that is far more tangled than any seminary classroom would suggest.

The Machucados and Their True Colors

The latest additions to 118 were showing their true colors. Juan, a relatively tall and lanky subject with a small, protruding pot belly, seemed more like a con man intrigued by poker and gambling. To Ismael’s chagrin, Juan had astutely asked me for a 1,000-peso loan earlier, when no one else was in the dining room. I gave it to him and said not to bother making repayment promises; he had no intention of keeping them. Juan probably just wanted to see how many bills I had in my wallet so he could get more later on. I had just received some cash from my courier, Panchito, and now had 117,000 pesos on hand—which is a lot for prison. So, I would have to be extra careful around that murderer for as long as he remained in 118A.

Cristián was another story entirely. He had a degree in physical education and had notably built up his chest and arms. He had a real knack for drawing and successfully operated a tattoo business. His girlfriend was a nominal Evangelical, and he, too, had an interest in the faith. He discussed with me his willingness to get right after being released from jail and marrying his girlfriend. Akin to Delfín, Marcelo, Miami, Ismael, and perhaps a few others, he struck me as different from the other machucados—not in that he was innocent, but in that he did not share the innate criminality of the typical prisoner. He was just a man itching to do something stupid, and he did. Rather than having the envious resentment of the machucados, he admired my culture, reading, book writing, knowledge, evangelicalism, and chess playing, and had the genuineness to tell me so.

It was Cristián who, at the end of a chess match one afternoon, said to me, “I know you are a Christian and I want to ask you for something.” He wanted me to pray for his newborn son, who was sickly and having trouble breathing. I replied, “Here is how I pray for others who have needs but are not Christians. I ask God to save you, your wife, and your son from your sins, and then I pray for the healing of the boy’s body. What would be the point of praying for bodily healing alone if he would spend the rest of his eternity in hell along with his parents?” Cristián needed the Savior. He was sick with sin and needed to go to the good physician, Jesus Christ, for help. I then gave him several Bible references to look up during the evening: Isaiah 55:1-2 and 7-8, Romans 10:9, 1 John 1:8-9, and John 3:16-17. He was momentarily serious in his inquiry; indeed, one could see from his face that he was not fooling around. Ismael looked on as if he was interested in what I was sharing, but said nothing.

Such encounters are the unexpected mercies embedded within the monotony of prison endurance. God does not send a man to terrestrial hell merely to test his patience—though He certainly does that. He sends him there, in His sovereign and often inscrutable providence, so that the Gospel may reach men who would never hear it in any other setting. Cristián had seen my generosity, my Bible reading, my attitude, and my actions in the dining hall for several weeks and had decided that I was a serious, committed Christian. That observation opened a door that no amount of formal evangelistic programming could have opened. The daily endurance—the chair-carrying, the rat-water drinking, the bribe-paying, the chess-playing, the sandwich-sharing—was itself a form of witness, because men who watched me take it patiently were compelled to ask why.

The Monotony That Never Ends

Every day in jail was part of a “long weekend” that never seemed to end. It is a holiday in hell of sorts—not necessarily full of torment, albeit that happens from time to time—always filled with uncertainty, peril, boredom, monotony, restlessness, unfulfilled desires, dissatisfaction, a lack of joy, and the absence of love. Those elements are manifested in the food, one’s clothing, one’s quarters, and one’s social relationships. There is simply nothing good one may find in such a place, wherein one trudges out his existence. While it is certain that one will eventually emerge older, it is unclear that one will necessarily emerge wiser, stronger, or better prepared.

Like hell, prison is about cruelty and suffering loss, affecting both the reo and his family, friends, and supporters. It is like holding on to a long rope attached to one’s ring-shaped life preserver while floating in the midst of a hurricane. “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). The next time you fling a half-crushed fly into the toilet bowl and watch it helplessly swirl down into oblivion, remember that the reality and expectations of the hapless machucado are little different. The imprisoned man exists for the moment, controlled by forces he can hardly influence, destined to be the devil’s plaything one second, then hurled against a rock the next. The only significant difference between prison and hell—other than the noticeable differences in pain level, number of visitors, and required length of stay—is that no innocent people will be in hell.

Christmas Day with Castro back in 118’s driver's seat was no different than any other day in jail. No exceptional food, no special events, no carol service, no Lord’s Supper. The Lord whose birth wider Christendom celebrated—albeit not Historic Baptists, who do not celebrate Roman Catholic holy days—was Himself a man acquainted with grief, and that Christmas behind bars taught me what every persecuted Christian eventually learns: the manger and the cross stand closer together than the greeting cards admit. My Supreme Court hearing had been postponed yet again. The hearing that was “sure” to happen never did. I simply had to grin and bear the news, knowing it was tactically for the best, even if it meant enduring more time in prison.

And yet, even in the flattest stretches of monotony, God’s providence operates. One reads the Bible differently when one has nothing else to fill the hours. One prays more honestly when pretense has been stripped away by institutional degradation. One discovers which friendships are real and which were merely acquaintances with warm language. One learns—slowly, reluctantly, painfully—that the patience Peter commends is not a passive resignation but an active, disciplined refusal to let the prison do to the soul what it has already done to the body.

Patience as a Theological Discipline

The Westminster divines and the framers of the 1689 London Baptist Confession understood that sanctification proceeds through affliction. The Confession declares that believers “may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein” (Chapter 17.3). Prison is a hothouse for every temptation the Confession enumerates: the world presses in through corrupt guards and criminal companions; the flesh is provoked by deprivation, boredom, and the constant proximity of vice; and Satan finds easy access to a soul weakened by isolation and uncertainty.

Yet the same Confession affirms that God’s purpose in suffering is not destruction but purification. “The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of God, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him” (Chapter 8.5). The man who boils rat water and drinks it without cursing God has not earned anything—salvation is by grace through faith alone—but he has demonstrated the kind of patience that Peter calls “acceptable with God.” And that acceptability is not a matter of stoic indifference. It is the fruit of a faith that trusts the sovereign God to bring good out of circumstances that appear entirely bereft of good.

I finished the book of Numbers during those weeks and thus completed the entire Bible after thirteen months of confinement. That quiet accomplishment—invisible to the guards, irrelevant to the courts, unnoticed by the media—was perhaps the most significant thing that happened to me in prison in 2020. Not the news stories, not the legislation, not the Supreme Court hearing that never materialized. The Word of God, read daily in a concrete cell with bad plumbing and worse water, was the anchor that held me when everything else shifted. Passages I had taught from a pulpit for years read differently in a place where every other source of hope had failed. The same proverb that had been wounding me—“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick”—also pointed to the cure: “but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). I had felt the heart-sickness of deferred hope on every postponed court date. The word itself was the tree of life that held me upright between the disappointments. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). In prison, that is not a metaphor. It is survival.

Action Steps

Establish daily spiritual disciplines that can survive institutional disruption. A man in prison—or in any severe trial—needs anchors that do not depend on favorable circumstances. Read the Bible systematically, pray at fixed times, and maintain these practices even when the guards change the schedule, the water runs out, or the court hearing is postponed again. Patience is not spontaneous; it is cultivated through routine.

Prepare practical support for prisoners that addresses daily physical needs, not just spiritual ones. Churches and supporters should ensure that inmates have clean water, edible food, basic hygiene supplies, and small comforts like juice, fruit, and vitamins. The soul cannot easily attend to Scripture when the body is being assaulted by contaminated water and institutional neglect. Whole-person ministry is not a concession to materialism; it is biblical obedience.

Recognize that small daily trials compound into a serious spiritual assault and treat them accordingly. Do not dismiss a prisoner’s complaint about a broken oven, a stolen knife, or a guard’s petty tyranny as trivial. These are the bricks of which despair is built. Visitors, chaplains, and supporters should listen carefully to the texture of daily life and offer specific, practical help rather than generic encouragement.

Maintain financial resources and practical wisdom for navigating the corrupt prison economy. This is uncomfortable counsel, but it is realistic. A prisoner who cannot pay for basic services—a cell assignment, access to the kiosk, a timely delivery of supplies—is at the mercy of men who have no mercy. Supporters should ensure that prisoners have sufficient funds and that those funds are managed wisely, with trusted intermediaries where necessary.

Use the monotony of prison as an opportunity for sustained intellectual and spiritual work. I completed the entire Bible, wrote and edited six books, studied Italian, and taught chess during my incarceration. These activities were not distractions from endurance; they were endurance itself. Encourage prisoners to read serious books, study languages, develop skills, and use the enforced idleness for purposes that will outlast the sentence.

Discussion Questions

Peter distinguishes between suffering “for your faults” and suffering “when ye do well” (1 Peter 2:20). How should a prisoner—or a church supporting a prisoner—apply this distinction when the facts of a case are disputed or complex? What practical difference does it make?

The chapter describes how small daily indignities—carrying unused chairs, drinking contaminated water, bribing guards to keep a cell—compound into a “grinding assault on the soul.” How can churches and visitors recognize and address this kind of slow erosion, rather than waiting for dramatic crises to intervene?

The prison economy described here involves bribery, extortion, and morally ambiguous transactions that are necessary for survival. How should Christians think about the ethics of such transactions? Does the corrupt institutional setting change the moral calculus, and if so, how?

Cristián’s request for prayer—prompted not by a chapel service or evangelistic event but by weeks of observing daily Christian conduct—illustrates a pattern of witness through endurance. What does this suggest about the relationship between patience in suffering and effective gospel proclamation? How might churches cultivate this kind of witness among their members who are incarcerated?