“I Didn’t Hear No Bell!”- 9/23/23 FPC Terre Haute Update

“I wonder if Rocky IV is playing on TBS today?”

This is something I said to myself when I got home from church this afternoon while the Cubs and Bears were playing on TV.

To be completely honest, I had a feeling both games would be bad for my health. While on the flip side, I had a feeling that Rocky would PROBABLY beat Drago again which takes a lot of pressure off of a sports fan like me.   

And for the most part, I was right!

Being a Chicago sports fan has been a maddening experience as I write this in late September of 2023.  I am also writing this as my 0-2 Bears are getting crushed by Patrick Mahomes and my Cubs, who are clinging to a playoff spot, just won a stressful nail-biter one run game.  

We have had to go through every level of expectations with the Cubs this season, and despite their off-season improvements, we all should have known better about the Bears’ expectations.  

I did my best to manage my Chicago Sports expectations today while also managing to take a nap!

Our expectation for our Illinois SPM team was to go to 8 different prisons on 7 dates picked before the season.  Those dates were neatly spaced at three weeks between visits.  

Of course, four of those dates were wiped away by cancellations. Two dates and one extra prison sprung back into our schedule which meant we had one visit in June and then everything backlogged in August and September. Everything backlogged late in the year which meant we had a stretch of going out every other week for almost two months straight!  

One important thing to note- our Illinois team wasn’t the only team that had to face the scheduling shuffle- every other team in our ministry had to adjust and be flexible as dates were changed because of cancellations and staffing shortage issues in the prisons across the country.  

My expectations of how our Saints Prison Ministry season was going to go in Illinois was quite different from how things actually played out, but God still provided for our team and the ministry in 2023.  

Of course, I had expectations and plans for how yesterday would go too.  

Yesterday our The Saints Prison Ministry softball visited the Federal Prison complex in Terre Haute.  

This was our last trip of the 2023 season as an Illinois team.

We huddled up and prayed before we left as a team. We enjoyed a breakfast at the Champaign Chick-fil-A on the way to the prison.

We had plans to visit the FCI (Main Prison) and the FPC (Prison Camp).  While we were checking in, we found out that the 2nd part of the day at the FPC would be canceled. Shortly after getting that news, the Lieutenant on duty walked in the entryway to meet us and let us know that we would not be able to go into the FCI because of some internal issues within the prison. 

That almost ended our day and would have been the second time in 3 weeks that we had driven all the way somewhere just to be canceled. 

The prison staff worked things out and figured out a way for us to go to the FPC and at least get a little bit of time in the yard there. 

We left the FCI and drove over to the camp.  We unpacked our gear and we had about 40 guys who played and sat in the stands.   We were able to play one seven inning game and won 26-12!  We had several guys play remarkable defense and we managed to hit a few home runs as well!

On a side note, the last time we played softball at the Terre Haute camp in 2013, we took two pretty ugly losses.  We then proceeded to take another ugly loss in 2014 when we had to play basketball because it had rained too much.  Getting a win on the field was special for those of us who had played there before!

After our game, Tommy Dault shared his testimony.  Tommy just wrapped up his first full year with the ministry.  He shared his story about how he came to know the Lord and how his faith was impacted as he became a dad.  Kris Mettlemann shared the Gospel afterwards.  Kris, like Tommy, just finished his first full year with the team as well.  Kris gave a clear Gospel message to the men in the stands.  I appreciate his ability to communicate the Gospel clearly.  

Overall on the day we handed out 36 Gospels of John and had 5 men indicate that they made a decision to follow the Lord!

It wasn't the day we were expecting but we are thankful that God provided an opportunity for us to share the Gospel one last time as an Illinois team.

Our team wrapped up our year with 8 wins, 6 losses, and two ties while playing a mix of softball and wiffleball.  

We handed out 436 Gospels of John during our season and had 60 men make a profession of faith in the Lord.  

Our team enjoyed a nice ride home and one last meal before arriving back home.

Thank you to everyone who supported the team this season with either finances or prayer.  It is a blessing to do this and I am more excited than ever to do this again next season!

I will be traveling to New Mexico in a little over a week for our last softball Crusade of the year.  I will be sending out some updates about that in the coming days.  

Thank you again for your love and support in 2023.  Prison ministry is a special thing and I’m thankful that God has provided for us this season!

Season Finale at FCI Terre Haute on 9/23/23

Dear Friends and Family,

This is usually part of the update email where I talk about the way the day went on our last prison visit.  I usually have an update on how the games went, what fun things happened during our meals, what our speakers preached on, and how many Gospels we handed out.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those stories from our trip to Danville CC on 9/9.  

We got up early and prayed together as a team.  We left on time and had some really good conversations in our van and during our breakfast time at Chick-fil-A.  When we arrived at the prison, we were met in the parking lot by a staff member who let us know that the prison was on lockdown because of staffing issues.  

This isn’t the first time that we have been turned away at the front door.  Over the years and even this year, there have been times that our teams have traveled all the way to a location only to be turned away because of a number of reasons.  The staff member was very apologetic about our situation.  We prayed for the inmates who were no doubt bummed out about having their event get canceled and the staff members who have had to navigate the staffing situations all year long.  On the way home, we enjoyed some good discussions about our family, our churches, and some lively discussions about the NFL!  

This Saturday, Lord willing, we are going to FCI Terre Haute.  This will be our first visit since 2014 and will be our last visit of 2023.  

Here are some specific ways you can pray for our upcoming visit:

• Pray that this door stays open

• Pray that God is preparing the hearts of the inmates and that He draws these men closer to Him

• Pray for our guys as we make the trip.  Pray for safety as we travel

• Pray for our speakers.  Tommy Dault and Brent Gerber will be sharing their testimonies.  Kris Mettlemann and Ray Koonce will be sharing the Gospel

Thank you for supporting the ministry this season!  We are looking forward to serving the Lord at Terre Haute on Saturday!

Thanks,

Gib

"Have Wiffleball Bat, Will Travel"- 8/26/23 Graham CC and Vandalia CC Updates

When we started putting our Illinois softball team together in 2011, I had several aspirations for what it might look like.  I dreamed what it would be like for us to share the Gospel on prison yards across Illinois.  I also looked forward to playing softball and using a game I love to talk about the Lord.  I was excited to see who might be on our team.  

There were also a few things that would come along with that, that I didn’t expect!

I didn’t know that the scariest part of prison would be the food.  

Disclaimer-  If you are reading this and you are a prison official and we have been to your facility, I promise I am not talking about your food!  I’m talking about the other prisons’ food.  All of the food at your facility has been delightful!

I had such happy thoughts on what it might look like to have a bus to travel together on.  This probably works out most of the time but our experience involved a lot of time on the side of the road!

The other thing that I really didn’t plan on was, what it would look like when we can’t play softball.  We have played some basketball, volleyball, and even dodgeball but the sport we have played the most is wiffleball.  When we have a rain delay or a field that is underwater, we play wiffleball.  If you had told me that when we started the team, I probably would have had a tough time imagining what that would look like!  

Of course, our trip to Graham and Vandalia would include lots and lots of wiffleball!  

Last Saturday our team met early and prayed before departing for Litchfield.  As we headed closer and closer to Litchfield, we drove through more and more rain and ominous weather.  Once we were in Litchfield, we picked up our teammates Luke Freeze and Hunter Stewart who drove up from SIUE where they attend school.  

Luke grew up overseas while his mom and dad served as missionaries in Cambodia.  When Luke would come back home, I had the opportunity to be his Youth Group leader and watch him grow up.  It was fun to have him on this trip!

We enjoyed breakfast at the local Jack in the Box.  After breakfast, we loaded up back in the vehicles and headed to Graham CC.  Once we got to Graham, they let us know that the fields were too wet to play ball on so we would have to move to the gym. We quickly moved into wiffleball mode.  The first game was close but the inmate team had two big innings and won game one by a pretty ugly margin.  

In between games, Ray Koonce shared his testimony of how God worked in his life and his marriage.  After Ray was done speaking, Josh Frederick shared the Gospel with the men.  

We played game two and came back with a vengeance and won big.  We circled up with the guys in the gym and prayed with them before piling back in the van and heading up the road to Vandalia CC.  

During our time at Graham we had handed out 62 Gospels of John and had 9 men make decisions to follow the Lord.  

We arrived at Vandalia, and, of course, they let us know that the field was indeed too wet to play softball.  Our game of choice again would be, more wiffleball!  

We made our way to the Vandalia gym.  One cool thing about this gym was that it was huge, and we played a legit wiffleball game that felt a little closer to a baseball/softball game.  

We won our first game and then broke for ministry time.  First year missionary athlete Hunter Stewart shared his testimony.  Hunter is by far the youngest regular player we have on our team and it has been a joy to see him use his passion for the game to share the Gospel with the men in the prison yard.  It has also been nice to have him use his youthful energy to play in so many games!

After Hunter shared his testimony, I shared the Gospel with the men in the gym.  After I got done speaking, I talked to a guy who filled out a response card who indicated that he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and said that he thought he needed to do something with the Lord.  One thing I will often ask guys is if they died today, and God were to ask them why He should let them into Heaven, what would they tell Him.  The guy said that he had done some good things and hopefully God would look favorably upon that.  We talked about how there aren't any good things we can do that would restore our relationship with God.   It is only what Jesus did on the cross and that we have to have our faith in Him.  He told me he felt like he needed to get some things cleaned up in his life before he could ever have that kind of relationship with Jesus.  I got to talk to him a little longer and I told him that Jesus wants to have a relationship right where he was at.  I told him that God doesn’t play games like that with us and that there is no amount of cleaning up to do to believe in the Lord.  I told him to read the tract and the Gospel we handed out and to write us with any questions he may have.  I believe his name is Josh, so please keep him in prayer and pray that God brings others into his life that will speak truth into his life.  

There are several other guys like Josh in prison (and outside of prison for that matter!) who struggle with believing that God wants to save sinners regardless of what they have done.   Please pray that God sends others to share the Gospel with these guys and that God draws these men to Him.  

We finished the day by playing two short games against two other teams.  We won the first game but tied the last game before running out of time.

We circled up with the Vandalia guys one more time and prayed with them.  We often use this time to remind the guys that we see that they need to make a decision of whether or not they are going to follow the Lord.  

Overall during our time at Vandalia, we handed out 45 Gospels and saw 9 men indicated that they wanted to follow Jesus Christ as Lord.  

We packed up and headed back to Litchfield for some Chicago style pizza and some good team time of teasing each other and telling stories of trips and Crusades from years gone by!

Our next prison visit is Danville CC this Saturday.  We have had three consecutive dates that haven’t been canceled.  Please pray that God keeps this door open so we can share the Gospel.  Please pray for Kris Mettlemann and Kyle Krall as they share the Gospel and for Brent Gerber and Josh Frederick as they share their testimonies.  

Thank you for praying for and supporting our season!  This has been quite the season and probably the busiest end of the season that I have ever been part of!

Me and Luke Freeze

Hunter Stewart and Luke Freeze