No one is too busy to tell you how busy they are, and that most certainly includes me as well! It has been an interesting season of life. Our Saints season is winding down, I was recently installed as an elder in my church, and I am leading our church’s youth group Sunday School class. It is also marching band season and we are enjoying traveling to see our youngest son and the Marching Limestone Rockets compete across Central Illinois! While things are crazy busy, it has been fun and a privilege to serve in these very different yet fulfilling ministries.
We just recently started a study of 1 Peter in our youth group Sunday School class. One of my favorite things about the way 1 Peter starts out is that it is almost like a halftime speech. The Christians in the letter are going through persecution but Peter reminds them to keep going and to keep being faithful.
This was a good thing to remember going into our visit on Saturday. While we weren’t being persecuted by Romans, things didn’t quite go according to plan. We were short a couple of guys, we essentially skipped breakfast and lunch, and we were on a time crunch all day trying to go between facilities and beat the clock for shift change at the end of the day.
God was faithful and provided for our team all day. We had safe travel, were allowed into both facilities, and were allowed to share the Gospel. I also appreciated our team's faithfulness to the ministry. They gutted through a tough day of travel and having to roll with the punches with a couple of guys missing.
This past Saturday we met at 4:15 am so that we could load up the van and pray before making the three hour drive south to Centralia. In order to save some time, we decided to skip our morning breakfast stop and enjoy a breakfast of donuts, bananas, and beef jerky. We arrived on time at the prison. After some initial confusion, the staff at the front gate verified that we were supposed to be there and got us in contact with our guide for the day.
We played two games against two different teams. Being short on players, we had to sign up a few guys from the prison to play with us on our team. We won the first game in pretty convincing fashion.
In between games, Hunter Stewart shared his testimony. Hunter is the youngest guy on our team and I appreciate his heart for the ministry. After Hunter shared his testimony, Josh Frederick shared the Gospel. Josh shared about how Jesus healed the paralytic lowered through the roof. Josh brought up that the paralytic’s biggest problem wasn't the fact that he was paralyzed, it was that he was a sinner in need of a Savior.
After our ministry time, we sprung back into our second game. We won the second game but maybe not quite as easily as the first.
We circled up after the game quickly because we were on the clock to get to our next prison. We have out an award book to the MVP of the inmate team and some award books to the umpires.
Overall during our time at Centralia CC, we handed out 28 Gospels of John and saw 7 men make a profession of faith.
After we got out of Centralia, we loaded up and started driving to Vandalia CC. We skipped our traditional meal stop for lunch to make up some travel time. We arrived at Vandalia on time and got checked in. The chaplain met us at the front gate and led us to the field. We borrowed some players again to help fill out our team and we got out to a good lead in game 1 but had trouble putting the game away. We lost a shortened 4 inning game in game 1.
In between games, Brent Gerber shared his testimony. Brent has been on our team since we started in 2012 and has been an important part of our team throughout the years.
After Brent shared his testimony, Robert Cook shared the Gospel. I missed part of Rob’s presentation because I was talking to an inmate by our bench but I appreciate Rob’s enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel and talking with the guys in the yard.
We played the second game and couldn’t quite score enough runs as we lost another short 4 inning game. It stinks to lose but it was fun watching the prison celebrate a win.
Overall on the day at Vandalia CC , we handed out 85 Gospels of John and saw 13 men make a profession of faith.
By the time we got out of Vandalia, we were all pretty beat up and we hadn’t really had a true meal all day. We started our drive home with our courses set on one of our favorite team restaurants, D’arcy’s Pint. D’arcy’s is famous for their horseshoe sandwiches. They were actually featured on the show “Man vs. Food” before. It was nice to share a meal as a team before finishing our drive home.
We are a little over a week away from our final Illinois visit of the season. I appreciate the encouragement and prayer support our team has received all season.
