There is a baseball movie starring Kevin Costner, (and I won’t mention the title because it has a crummy rating and lots of inappropriate content) but in that movie Costner’s character gets traded to a minor league team. When Costner’s character walks into his new team’s clubhouse, the pitching coach asks, “Who are you?”. Costner replies, “I am the player to be named later.”
Since our Illinois team hasn’t had a game yet this year, I got to be a “Player to be named later” on the Ohio trip that was mostly made up of guys from West Virginia. The West Virginia team was short players so they called in a few of us who didn’t have a season in our home state. Brent Gerber and I made the drive from Illinois. Brenden Hellyer made the trip from New Jersey and long-time, Saints veteran Wes Brown made the trip in from Pennsylvania.
Once Brent and I picked up Brenden and Wes from the airport, we were on our way to meet up with the rest of the team and then head to Southeastern CI in Lancaster, OH.
Our team struggled on the field for the first part of the game but we actually came roaring back before losing game 1.
Adam Blankenship shared his testimony and Mark Napier shared the Gospel. During the ministry time, I was down the left field line handing out Gospels of John. I had an odd conversation with a guy who was glad that we were there but really didn’t have any interest in the Gospel. These are always tough conversations. He kind of zig-zagged around the conversation making excuses of why he really didn’t think that there was a God. I ran into another guy who was a Jehovah’s Witness and believed some of the Gospel but ultimately clung to what he believed. These were two tough conversations. Not every conversation we have with an inmate results in them believing. I often feel like a failure after those conversations but, we ultimately know that God is the one who is working in their hearts. Our job is to be faithful in sharing the Gospel with those that we see.
We came back and won the second game. We then handed out MVP awards and Wes Brown concluded the day by summarizing why we came in and why it was important to follow Jesus Christ as Lord.
Overall on the day we handed out 125 Gospels and saw 8 men indicate that they professed faith in the Lord.
This is usually where I conclude the post, but, like any Saints trip, there are always some off-the-field highlights as well!
My job along with my roommate and rookie, West Virginia Missionary Athlete, Todd Childers was to do team laundry. This job is usually hard enough when we have to collect laundry from the entire team and get it down to the front desk where the hotel attendant on duty will usually wash our clothes.
Unfortunately, this hotel did not offer this service.
On top of that, this hotel didn’t even have a guest washer and dryer either!
So Todd and I gathered up the laundry in two garbage bags that the person at the front desk gave us and we headed into town to do laundry at the local laundromat in Jackson, OH.
One of the other veteran MA’s said that we could start the laundry in the machines and just pick them up after dinner. That seemed like a reasonable idea. I then had to call home and ask my wife how to run a laundromat washing machine because of course, as a 42 year old grown man, I have no idea on how to run one of these machines! My beautiful, soft-spoken wife was very emphatic, that whatever I do, DO NOT LEAVE THE LAUNDRY UNATTENDED. Over the course of 20 years of marriage, I have found out that my life usually works out better if I listen to my wife’s advice, so Todd and I planned to stay at the laundromat. After running around and getting $20 worth of quarters and some laundry detergent and after a few timer settings, we got the laundry clean! It could have probably spent a little extra time in the dryer ….but it was clean! Since we were late to dinner, I had my longtime IL teammate Brent Gerber order my food for me and I was happy to show up just in time for dinner after doing the laundry!
There was a small ice cream place nearby our hotel and we enjoyed some ice cream as a team before handing out laundry.
