Several escapes have happened since 1861, and a few are still at large according to the history of this Maximum-Security facility.
This prison holds 2,242 men prisoners when completely full.
I have preached here since 1991. It has several security checkpoints from the first entrance, all the way to the chapel. Up several flights of stairs, then down a few.
Four checkpoints to be exact.
It makes you feel that you may never get out of here, if something goes haywire.
In 1992 through 2004, I ministered once a month in the huge chapel.
On every other Tuesday, I would conduct a Bible Study for the men doing life sentences. I called them the Lifer Brigade.
These men love Jesus, and they are unmovable. The spiritual armor they wear depicts their faith in the Most High.
Steadfast in their trust in Jesus Christ, I watched them grow in the Lord and felt their pains and frustrations of doing life. Some were doing life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Many tears and breakthroughs happened as we learned to trust each other.
This took time.
They had as much time as it took, considering they were doing time, and trying to make the best out of the “timeclock” that ticked and ticked daily in their young lives.
Most were under 35 years old.
I was the elder guy back then, spending precious time with them as they counted the days and hours of each day in this grueling prison.
One man, I will call Mike, for the sake of anonymity, was around my age, and was locked up when he was 18. With 20 years of time under his spiritual belt, he remained in the same jail cell, looking out the same window every day.
He watched the ducks near a pond by Center Street in Salem. His cell was on the third floor (tier) overlooking the huge wall surrounding this dungeon of a prison.
He had a duck-eye view of the little creatures of habit.
He named each duck (in his mind) and became familiar with their behaviors over all those years.
He saw a family of ducks grow up and die.
Then another family started their journey across Center Street to the small pond during his countless years behind bars.
The same bars he arrived behind in 1976 to this current date of 1992.
One day in 1995, I was sitting around the same table we met each time I came. I had one hour, twice a month to minister to, pray with, and become a friend to men that society did not want any longer.
Mike was sitting across from me when the Spirit of the Lord said, though me, a word of knowledge to Mike.
“Mike, I see your daughter, Sir. She was very, very young when you went to prison, but today in her late teens, headed into her 20th birthday, she will contact you, and you will be reconciled to your precious Baby Girl. You will receive a letter within 10 days, Mike.”
He wept and cried like a baby himself.
I had to leave but prayed for all the men including Mike as he continued to cry and weep bitter tears of regret.
The next time I arrived for my Bible Study. Two weeks had passed since this Word came to Mike, from the Lord, through me.
Mike spoke about his only daughter, in front of the other 10 men this day.
With tears flowing down his face, he did his best to utter the words that told the story of his daughter.
“When my daughter was three years, I killed her mother. I shot my wife to death in front of my little girl. I was angry and out of control. I did not want to do what I did, but I did, and that little girl who I traumatized that day in 1976. She will turn 20 next week men.”
Mike went on to say that when he got this Word from the Lord two weeks ago, he initially believed, yet it was so specific, that he doubted the Lord for the next several days.
He stopped.
He reached into his blue jacket and pulled out a letter he had received. He got the letter a week ago, postmarked the very same day this Word came to him in our Bible Study.
He read it out loud to all of us at the table we were sitting at.
“Dear Daddy, I miss you. I do not remember too much about that horrible day my mom died. I have a fractured memory of that event and was too young to understand all the details. I am a Christian, Daddy. The Lord told me to write you a letter and forgive you and ask you to please be my Daddy again. Please?”
Mike had to stop and weep, as his brothers in Christ surrounded him and held on to him weeping too but rejoicing as well.
This miracle happened, exactly how it was spoken two weeks ago.
Mike finished his daughter's letter.
“Daddy, may I call you Daddy? I hope we can have communication together and let my Savior Jesus heal us together. If you write me back, I will be convinced for sure that it was Jesus who told me to write to you, Daddy. P.S., I love you and I want to be a part of your life. I know you were given a very long sentence when that happened, but I am okay Daddy. I have been living with my family who took me in back then, and I am living for Jesus. I hope you understand my heart. I am not afraid of you, Daddy. I love you, because Jesus loves me. I hope you get to know Jesus like me. Love, your daughter.”
This brigade of men in that room broke. All their spiritual weapons were put down.
All the tears from Mike became a cleansing flood, poured out on a table that day. All the men, myself included wept and glorified Jesus for His marvelous works.
His timing. His perfect timing.
This self-sustaining lifer brigade of men loved one another, long before I came on the scene. Their unity in the Spirit was strong and became even stronger that day Mike read his miracle letter.
From a little girl, the essence of forgiveness, and the pure mercy of our Lord Jesus, was poured out that day in the little Bible study room at the Oregon State Prison.
In 2006, my wife and I, and three other couples began LifeHouse Church located in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Eleven years from the day I was in that prison, ministering to Mike, we began this church for anyone and everyone who would come.
“Love, Hope, Restoration, Healing and Forgiveness” was our theme.
In 2007, after one year of being open, our church was given over to one of the founding couples as my wife and family began our plans to move to Houston, Texas. We would be leaving in three months.
Prior to leaving, Mike got out of prison and started coming to our church. I continued to stay in touch with him after that miracle letter he read back in the early 1990’s.
I had stopped going to the Oregon State Prison around the year 2000, but kept in touch with Mike via letters once a month.
Now Mike is in our church and doing well, having been reconciled with his daughter over these many years. She visited him in prison, and now he is becoming a part of her life in person after that horrible tragedy back in 1976.
She is a grown woman now, and her and her father spend time together as much as time allows.
One day, Mike was at work building cabinets in a cabinet shop in Portland, Oregon.
He called me to tell me the story that unfolded this day at work.
“Pastor Joe, I was at work when my boss walked up to talk to me about a job I was working on. As we were talking, my boss saw his ex-wife walk in and approach him.”
Mike said she pulled out a gun a pointed it at him and pulled the trigger three times. His body flew backwards and landed on the concrete floor of this manufacturing plant. She was taken down by other employees, waiting for the police to arrive.
“I was holding my bleeding boss in my arms, sitting on the floor watching him take his last breath. Pastor Joe, I led him to Jesus Christ before he entered eternity.”
I was floored talking to my friend and brother in the Lord on the phone.
He came to church and told the story to the congregation, and it was a healing day for most of us.
Especially for Mike.
Mike told me in my office after the Sunday service, “Pastor, the Lord gave me a glimpse of my past as my boss was entering eternity, bleeding to death in my lap. I saw the day when I killed my wife in front of my baby girl.
The Lord spoke to me and said that the day I shot my wife, she, too, was bleeding to death, like my boss was.
And while she was in the hospital dying, some nurse led her to Jesus Christ. The Lord revealed to me this issue in my heart the day I took my wife’s life out of anger.”
He went on to say that “Life and death is quick, compared to eternity.”
Mike continued to come to our church until we left for Houston, and he remained faithful for several years after we moved.
Mike.
The Lifer.
Part of a Brigade of men of God while in prison.
He remained a man of God outside of prison. A Comrade in arms in his brigade at the Oregon State Prison.
He fought the good fight of faith, and he laid hold of eternal life in Jesus.
From 1976 through 2007 completing a total of 31 years in prison, he finished his time.
He fought his battles in prison on his knees in prayer.
He was spared the death penalty.
He was spared a life without a daughter because the Lord gave his daughter back to him, and his daughter had her prayer answered as well.
Our fight is not in the natural army.
Our battles do not really exist in the real world called life on earth.
Our wars are fought in the Heavenly Realm.
Just know, the Lifer Brigade that I was blessed to be a part of for a season of time, lived on.
The ones doing life without parole continued to fight their battle on the battlefield of the Oregon State Prison. The walls made of stone that surrounded this prison could not stop the Holy Ghost from arriving to heal and deliver men behind its ominous stature of concrete and stone.
The razor wire can’t stop God.
The time served and being served did not stop men from repentance and being born again.
I had the honor to be a small part of this army of God called the LIFER BRIGADE.
If you must fight a battle today, tomorrow or next week, remember this one thing from this story about Mike and his daughter.
God is a God of Restoration, Reconciliation, and Mercy.
Throw down your natural weapons of bitterness and unforgiveness.
Do not harbor hand grenades of guilt and shame.
If a little girl witnessed her Daddy kill her mother, and then forgave him, then what excuses do we really keep in our hearts, harboring the pain of our pasts?
We must forgive the multitudes who have harmed us and killed our dreams?
Psalm 90: 4-6, “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. You carry them away like a flood; they are like a sleep. In the morning, they are like grass which grows up: In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers.”
If you and I wake up in the morning, it is a privilege to wake up knowing Christ.
He has already numbered our days anyway.
Smell the coffee brewing in the morning. Drink it and enjoy it.
In the evening, smell the freshly cut grass from your next-door neighbor, and remember your restful sleep and the grass.
It could very well be your last sleep and your final cup of Java Joe.
Maybe, maybe not. Only He knows.
Both will fade away. The coffee too.
Mike and his daughter were a lost cause at one time.
For over 30 years he paid the price for his sin.
God loved him so much and his daughter so much so, that God Almighty decided to weave back the torn fabric of their tattered lives.
He did it for them, and He will do it for you.
What Army Brigade are you really in? I hope it is a Lifer Brigade.
Fight your war in prayer.
Not in prison. Not in a jail. But fight for the right of life.
For His life, with parole.
You and I have been pardoned because of Jesus and His Blood.
Join the Army.
You are not too old. You are not too young to join.
No physical required. No paperwork and no boot camp.
It is His Army.
The ARMY of the Lord.
Jesus is our General.
Obey His orders and you will live forevermore. Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
