“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!
