December 11, 2000
Baptist chaplain finds Death House work richly rewarding
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___HUNTSVILLE--Jim Brazzil was supposed to fill in for only three weeks as the chaplain to Texas inmates as they're put to death, but he found the ministry so rewarding he asked to stay.
___While most ministers would run from such an assignment, Brazzil calls it the most meaningful work of his life.
___Brazzil was a pastor of Texas Baptist churches for 25 years before becoming a prison chaplain. While that experience was positive and rewarding, it cannot compare to the opportunities he faces now, he said. "This is the most rewarding thing I've ever done."
CHAPLAIN JIM BRAZZIL outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville
___He saw the potential for this role the first time he worked an execution. After leaving the pastorate to become a prison chaplain, he served at another unit in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice before getting the temporary assignment at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, home of the Texas Death House.
___The previous chaplain had left, and Brazzil was recruited to fill in until a new chaplain arrived. But what he experienced during those three weeks convinced him this was the most important work he could do for God--and that it was a job God had been preparing him to do throughout his adult life.
___He had become a chaplain after working through the "Experiencing God" discipleship course, where he learned to see where God is at work in the world and join God there. While participating in a Texas Baptist Partnerships project in the Ukraine, his team went into 11 prisons. There, Brazzil saw where God was working and wanted him to join.
___Facing death and crime was not new to the pastor, who had done clinical pastoral education training at Baylor Medical Center and served as an EMS volunteer in his community.
___"My job is really no different than a hospital chaplain who sits with the family of someone who's dying," he said. "Except there's anger everywhere."
___In fact, it was an experience at Baylor Medical Center that most clearly taught him the importance of ministry to the dying.
___He was sent to the hospital room of a man dying of leukemia. The patient told him: "Would you sit here with me until I die? My family loves me, and they're having a hard time with this. But I don't want to die alone."
___The lesson, Brazzil said, is that "nobody wants to die alone," not even condemned criminals.
___"When I think about my situation standing there beside a man dying of unnatural causes ... I see transformation."
___The chaplain has actually led two men to faith in Christ as they lay on the gurney. And he has witnessed a visible change in those inmates, he said. They died "knowing they went home with no condemnation" because of the forgiveness offered through faith in Jesus Christ.
___Several other condemned men have found forgiveness in Christ the afternoon before their executions, he said, and perhaps 10 others have become Christians during the last month before facing lethal injection.
___Many of the men Brazzil stands beside in the Death House already are Christians before he enters their lives. Brazzil works with a team of chaplains in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
___His job with death row inmates begins only when an execution date is scheduled. Other chaplains work with the inmates throughout their stay in the prison system. Chaplains who work on death row are not present in the death chamber. To participate in the execution in any way would wreck their ministries with other inmates.
___Brazzil's work with those facing imminent execution begins in earnest one week before the scheduled event.
___While many death row inmates make peace with God before they die, others do not, he testified. Some are unrepentant to the bitter end, and others adhere to a variety of non-Christian faiths.
___By the time Brazzil sees inmates, it is perhaps easier to make headway with those who have not left a Christian upbringing than with those who have.
___He tells the story of a young man he saw executed who was raised in a prominent Baptist church in Texas. The man became a Druid while in prison.
___After the execution, Brazzil took the man's possessions to his mother. The Baptist woman told him, "My husband and I are seriously considering becoming Druids."
___"Why on earth would you want to do that?" the chaplain asked her.
___"When our son was arrested, our pastor never visited him," she said. "We received no cards, no support from our church. His trial was in all the papers and on television, but no one from our church was there. No one from our church was here for his execution.
___"We're going to change our faith," she said, "because at least they care."
___That drives home a point Brazzil wants to make to all Texas Baptists. While his work is rewarding and important, he's the last line of defense.
___To make a difference, it takes all parts of the body of Christ working together all along the way, he suggested.
___
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