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When Erika Hall visited the old Deer Island Prison in Boston Harbor for the first time, she wasn't afraid.
"I was never afraid, because I knew God fills all space," she said. "I was just a worker for God."
Over her forty years as a Christian Science volunteer Chaplain in Massachusetts, Erika has served in three different institutions. After Deer Island Prison closed in 1991, she went to Bridgewater State Hospital. More recently, Erika has served at Barnstable County Correctional Facility.
At different times, Erika has conducted Christian Science church services, provided Christian Science literature and made individual visits to inmates. All of this, she said, is an effort to teach others more about who God is.
"It's been a very revealing experience, a very healing experience," she said.
One of those healings happened during a church service, when Erika said she saw a man fall unconscious to the floor.
"The lesson service was on 'Everlasting Punishment' - I was very inspired by the readings - and I went over to the prison and bent over him and told him, 'God is your life, you can get up.'"
After that the man started moving, Erika said, and as some correctional officers came in to help, the man was able to get up and walk out of the room, unaided.
"That was a clear healing in Christian Science," she said. "Wherever we go, the Christ is there - the Christ is ever-blessing."
In that blessing, Erika includes the employees at the various institutions she has served in.
"Many of the guards were very respectful, and some told me they appreciated the help," she said. "They don't have easy work, and to support the guards as well as the whole prison system is a divine calling."
As she has answered that divine calling, Erika said she herself has grown.
"I had to learn to 'Trust the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding,' and he will open the way," she said. "It has to be a constant trust, a constant prayer. Man is the reflection of God and this reflection can never stop."
It doesn't stop, for instance, at the prison walls. Erika said that her institutional service has compelled her to reach out farther and farther in her prayers.
"It alerted me to pray nonstop for all mankind," she said. "There's a great need with the opioid crisis - it's the whole nation."
That desire to reach out - to enlarge her community - is why Erika started serving in institutions as a Christian Science volunteer, and it's why she continues.
"I wanted to share God with all mankind, not just the members of the church," she said. "Nobody is excluded in the community of church."
