Beginning Tomorrow Today - By Timothy Sherman

morning and making them stand in loose staggered lines out in the open in the yard. Though it had seemed like the end o f winter with the first signs of the changing season of spring, on this cold breezy morning it was still very cold and icy. The snow had been melting but was now frozen again. I had been told that this prison work camp would hold thou sands of prisoners but it was not full to capacity at this time. It still seemed thousands were there. We were all forced to stand in the cold for what seemed like hours, shivering in body and mind. We stood facing a thirty-foot wall that was part of a large building. It seemed to be a three-story official living and administration com plex. It stretched two hundred feet or so on the other side of the wall. It then dropped down to about twenty feet high on either side. It had a walkway at the top back side of the solid wall. Guards could walk back and forth to guard towers approximately two hundred feet apart. I guessed this fence stretched for about six hundred feet and then was joined to very high wire fences with barbed wire stretched in a wide V at the top. I had seen this area before, observing it through windows and glancing at it as I moved in stealth from one barracks to another. The prisoners were called to the lineup every morning before breakfast and again before each work detail. I would notice it while moving around to avoid detection and I could vaguely observe it at night and on foggy days or during very heavy snow. Much ofit was a hazy, eerie blur because of the distance and limited view. I knew to avoid it and not even pay attention to it as guards watched it at all times. This morning I crept into the crowd and, after a ,hort while, found one of the core people who spotted me. I stayed in the back by the barracks. The feeling was one ofimpending doom and excite ment of faith at the same time but it felt safe to watch for a little while. Things were changing in a very extreme way at this juncture. The Lord had been preparing us for some time for what was about to happen. 58