While working in the State Correctional facility as a Correctional Officer, there was always the possibility of being involved in a riot or other severe altercation.  In the six and one-half years that I was employed at the jail, there were two riots and one, the largest, just after I resigned. I have been involved in a few minor scuffles, but nothing serious.  Why nothing serious?  I will know why when I see Jesus face to face. The first riot occurred after I overheard two inmates discussing the probability that an uprising would occur.  I wrote a report describing the conversation. Being a Christian, the ridicule began immediately.  I was accused of 'grandstanding' when I only did what my job required.  Grandstanding is when one makes claims to bring attention to himself. Some time later, one of my inmate workers returned from his job and asked me if he could speak to me in my office.  It was about 3:00 a.m. so there was plenty of time.  He informed me that there were many inmates who've been planning a revolt.  When I asked him when it would happen, he only, said, "Soon." I needed to know more.  I asked him how, and the time of day it was most likely to happen. Concerning the time of day, he answered my question with a question.  Don't you just hate that?  His question was, "When are the most inmates to be in the dining room at one time?" After pondering this, I realized that there were always around three hundred inmates at breakfast when the are eggs 'on the line' as opposed to 150-200 during other meals. When I filed my report on this, I told only my closest Christian friends and my supervisors, because I didn't want to bring any attention to myself, But because many of the officers were close friends with he supervisors, I again was ridiculed and accused of 'grandstanding'. I felt the Believers needed to know so they could pray, and the supervisors needed to know so they could take the proper precautions which they did. After a few months, I was wondering if I may have jumped to conclusions or if the inmates may have deliberately said these things so that I would make a fool of myself before my peers.  The officers began saying that I have submitted a false report.  That I knew couldn't be believed. I knew that the devil was trying to get me to believe these things.  I also knew that I must not allow the devil to have this control. I knew that this was just persecution (2 Timothy 3:12) that I was suffering because of Christ.  Even in this persecution I knew that I would be able to overcome and conquer (Romans 8:37-39; 1 Corinthians 10:13).  I had to allow God to work it out for God had everything in control (Romans 8:28). After more time had passed, I had to have some time off work so I could be hospitalized for an operation to correct a deviated septum.  I've discussed this operation of the deviated septum in Chapter Four. While on Medical leave, I was informed by a friend, that the inmates had indeed rioted and it happened just as I had written it in my reports. The wonderful things about this is that God made sure that I was not on duty at that time.  He protected me from that terrible ordeal.  There were officers injured in that riot, but this was not the worst of them. The second one happened while I was on 'leave' in 1990.  Within two weeks after I went on leave, I read the newspaper accounts of a huge riot in the courtyard.  There were hundreds of inmates and only four officers.  This was so severe that the inmates literally flattened stone walls that were nearly two feet thick and about two feet high. I had gone back to the prison several days after this, and found what looked like a war zone.  Heavy rocks everywhere.  I couldn't imagine how all that destruction could have taken place at the hands of mere men.  There were huge rocks as far as 35 feet from the nearest wall. Again, God had seen fit to have me elsewhere during this uprising. The third incident was in 1991.  I had already moved to Arkansas nearly a year earlier.  At this time I heard about the riot over National News on TV.  I don't know much of this particular riot except that it was apparently worse than the first two. Never-the-less, I was not allowed to be there in the middle of it.  God works in ways that we as human beings can't begin to explain, or comprehend.  God know that I am a very peaceful man.  I wanted to hurt no man.  I was put in the prison by God for a relatively peaceful mission. As I stated in the first portion of this chapter, I didn't want to work in a prison.  It was not my kind of employment.  I was placed in the institution to be a witness to those thousands of men on both sides of the bars.  When my mission was completed there, I was taken out with God's permission.