Back in January, I had plans to visit Florida...ONCE. My family and I flew to Orlando and visited Walt Disney World and enjoyed the recently added “Galaxy’s Edge” (Star Wars Land). We had fun as a family seeing all of the Star Wars attractions and we also enjoyed the warm January Florida weather before returning to the cold Midwest. At that point, it sure looked like there wouldn’t be any prison visits for at least several months and that “The Star Wars Trip” would be the only time that any of us might travel out of state this year. Much to my surprise, the Saints had an opportunity to visit Florida in April followed by another Florida prison trip in June that I was able to attend! There was a July Saints trip that I didn’t make it on but when the schedule opened up for an October Crusade, I seized the opportunity marking my 4th trip to Florida in 2021!
The Illinois part of the team arrived a day early and we were able to enjoy an evening visiting Fort Myers beach. The next day we met up with the rest of our teammates. We had guys flying in from all of the usual Saints spots around the country plus a couple of teammates from Brother Bob’s Outreach in Wisconsin.
Our first visit on the trip was to Moore’s Haven Correctional Facility. The team as well as the staff were excited that we were there. The opposing team actually had a name. They were the “Moore’s Haven Moonpies”. This added to the fun of the day. The staff made a big deal out of our arrival and they actually had signs made up saying “Go Moonpies!”.
We had a little trouble scoring runs in the first game and lost the first game on a walk-off hit. Scoring runs was actually something we struggled to do on the entire trip.
During the preaching times, My teammate Bruce and I had an interesting conversation with two guys down the right field line near the basketball court. I’m not 100% sure where these guys stood with the Lord but we shared and talked about the Gospel with them.
We came back and won the 2nd game of the day. This was one of the “happier” prisons we have ever been to. Out of all of the prisons I have been to over the years, this was probably the most engaged staff I have ever been around. The staff did a good job encouraging the men and facilitating the day so that we could play ball and share the Gospel.
Overall on the day we handed out 220 Gospels and had 14 men respond to the Gospel by saying that they made a decision to follow Jesus.
Tomorrow, we head to Okeechobee CI. Please keep our team in prayer!
