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!
