But the Bears…my beloved Chicago Bears have been bad for quite some time. Despite the high hopes of this season, they went into the Thursday night game with a last place 0-4 record.
I was dreading the inevitable dinner slot where I would be forced to watch my Bears in front of all my teammates who all had good teams to cheer for…
Thursday morning was another early morning and we were on the road before the sun came up. We traveled from our hotel in Roswell to Lea County Correctional Center in Hobbs, NM. Before reaching the prison, we stopped at a McDonald’s for a quick breakfast. During our breakfast time, we played the daily puzzle game “Immaculate Grid” from www.baseballreference.com . We had a fun time trying to think of players from years gone by to fill up the puzzle.
Once we were done with breakfast, we made the short drive to the prison. Once we arrived, we saw a big banner with our logo on it welcoming us to the prison.
We made our way to the field and met our first group of the day. Before we took the field, one of the men sung the National Anthem which was cool.
We won our first game pretty easily. During our ministry time, David Cogliano shared his testimony and Frank Zeidler shared the Gospel.
After our ministry time we enjoyed another really good cookout style lunch with the men in the yard.
After our lunch, a coordinator from the prison was able to use her phone and the sound system and conference call in a group of men who were “alumni”. The men on the phone did a total of 95 years served combined. They shared about having hope while in prison but they shared how that hope came from the Lord.
The Gospel is the most powerful thing that these men can hear, but that was special hearing the men who had spent time on the outside, genuinely care and encourage those who were still serving time.
I also got an opportunity to meet the prison chaplain during our lunch time. He was excited to share about the help they were getting from a local Bible college and how they were training up men in the on-site seminary. Once the enrolled men graduate from the seminary, they would be moved around to different prisons to plant churches inside other prisons in New Mexico.
When lunch was over, we had about an hour-long break in the prison gym during count. Some guys played basketball, some guys talked, and some guys took a nap! One of the cool things as a lifelong Chicago Bears fan was seeing a mural painted by the residents of former Bear Brian Urlacher. Urlacher spent his college years playing for the University of New Mexico.
After count cleared, we played two more groups. We won both of the games pretty easily. During both of the sharing times, Tom Carberry shared his testimony and Andy Solomon shared the Gospel.
Overall on the day, we handed out 169 Gospels of John and saw 13 men make professions of faith!
After we left the prison, we made the drive back to our hotel and then ventured out to the local Buffalo Wild Wings to enjoy a team dinner and watch the dreaded Chicago Bears game on Thursday Night Football.
Much to my surprise, the Bears played well and won in convincing fashion over the Washington Commanders.
After the game we went back to the hotel and had our team devotions. We went through James 1:1-11. We talked about how the tests that we go through and how James tells us to respond to them.
Our team once again went to bed quite tired and worn out but our Thursday in New Mexico was most certainly a blessed day to serve the Lord in prison.
