Chillicothe CI holds a dear place in my heart. 3,647 days earlier, I was on my first ever Saints trip and our 3rd stop of that trip was to Chillicothe. I remember still being nervous but having so much fun playing softball and being part of a group who would tell people about the Lord. That day 10 years ago was one of the prison visits that God used to show me the need for prison ministry and just how fun serving the Lord can be.
When we arrived at the prison, there was a lady who was waiting in the parking lot who was waiting to see her son. There were a few of us who took a few moments to pray with her. This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen a parent waiting to visit a loved one. For some reason it really hit me a little harder this time knowing how hard it would be for me as a parent if my kids were incarcerated.
We were processed through security and made it out to the prison field. I remembered the walk to the softball field from 10 years prior. The prison is an older prison, and you have to walk by some of the older buildings on the way to the softball field.
Several Saints teams have played at Chillicothe before and they have the reputation for having really good softball teams. We started the first game and got down by a few runs and the game started to get out of hand early. As a ballplayer, I was frustrated, but as a veteran of a few prison softball games, I was aware of the bigger picture of why we were there, too. We had a young team and the Chillicothe team was just as good. As the game came down to the last couple of innings, something interesting happened. We started to chip away at the lead and actually came all the way back to win the game! We enjoyed the victory but went right into ministry mode. During our ministry time, we will typically have a couple of guys who share their testimony and share the Gospel behind the microphone while the rest of the team will go around the rest of the prison yard and hand out literature and talk to the men that we see. Todd Childers and I went to the bleachers in left field to make sure that part of the yard had been visited. This part of the yard was well out of the range of the sound system. While we were out there one of the men said he wasn't sure where he was with the Lord. I had a few moments to share the Gospel with not only him, but the entire section of bleachers. I didn't preach a message but I did walk through what the Gospel was and that he could know the Lord if he put his faith and repentance in Him. One of those men made a first time profession that day. Please pray for him and the rest of that group in the bleachers!
After the ministry time, we played the second game. After the game, we shook hands with the men and reminded them that God loves them and that what they do with Jesus will be the most important decision of their life.
We then enjoyed a nice local BBQ meal as a team. As we returned back from the hotel, we played a bus game. We did a tournament bracket of the most famous people from our hometowns. Most of the team was from the Huntington, WV area, so their entries were guys like Soupy Sales, Hal Greer, and Chuck Yeager. I am from Peoria, IL so my entry was Jim Thome, but, in hindsight, I could have also said Richard Pryor. We also had one guy from New Jersey whose hometown was the same hometown as the kid who played Smalls from “The Sandlot”. As the debate and voting raged on, it came down to Wilt Chamberlain (Philadelphia) vs the kid who played Smalls, and, in a not-so-stunning upset, Wilt won…
That evening, Todd and I got to do more laundry so we went back to the laundromat and had some time to just talk while we did laundry. Todd is about 15 years younger than I am, so it was fun sharing stories about what it was like to start a team and to share what I learned from starting the IL team. We also talked about marriage and kids and once again, it was fun sharing what lessons I learned the hard way over the years.
Overall on the day at Chillicothe CI, we handed out 164 Gospels of John and saw 19 men share that they trusted the Lord that day.
