During my last post I made a significant math/geography error. I mentioned that I had traveled over 5,000 miles between our trip to Danville CC to Colorado.
That wasn't correct.
That wasn't even close.
After double-checking my math, after pressing send on the last email, it turns out that was only around 2,500 round trip miles. Somehow my brain doubled the number. You can blame my mistake on the brain fog from the busy part of the season or you can blame it on the Limestone Community High School education...
Nevertheless and with all of that being said, on 8/24 we made our 2nd shortest trip of the year to Illinois River CC in Canton, IL!
We met up at the Bartonville Hardee's for breakfast and prayer. We then made the 35 minute drive to IL River Correctional.
We made it through security and made our way out to the prison yard softball field. We saw about 50 guys in the prison yard and they made up the three teams that we would see play. We played the first team and the game started out as a fairly competitive game but we eventually pulled away and won big.
We then had our ministry time. Rookie AJ Salmon shared his testimony of how he came to know the Lord and Kyle Krall shared the Gospel from John chapter 3.
After our ministry time, we started the 2nd game and got out to a big lead before breaking for lunch. Anytime we go to IL River, they bring lunch out to the prison yard and we have an opportunity to eat with the men in the yard. We enjoyed some cheeseburgers out in the yard. AJ and I sat with some guys at a picnic table during lunch. One of the things that one of them talked about was being seen as a bad person by their family and that they thought they were a good person. I knew what they meant by this but this is actually a message that I heard a couple of times from a few different men that day. We had an opportunity to tell them that there isn't anyone who is good and that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The result of our sin is being at odds with a perfect and holy God and that we all deserved His wrath. However, He sent His Son to take that wrath and that by putting our faith in Him, we can be saved. We had some good conversations about that over our lunch.
After our lunch was over, we finished the second game and won very easily. We broke again for our ministry time. Kris Mettelmann shared his testimony and I shared the Gospel from John 11 and 12.
We played one more game. It was a little closer, but we pulled out a victory.
After the last game was over, we huddled up with the men one more time and encouraged them to get things right with the Lord. We prayed with the guys and made our way back out of the prison.
We huddled up in the parking lot after we got out and talked about some of the conversations we had during the day. It is always cool to hear how God worked throughout the prison yard during the day.
We left the prison and made a quick stop at the local Casey's for some Gatorades, water, and snacks.
Overall on the day we handed out 57 Gospels and saw 10 men make professions of faith.
We are down to our last two visits of the IL season. Our next visit is Saturday, September 14th as we go to Centralia CC and Vandalia CC. Our last visit of the season will be to Robinson CC on September 28th.
I will be traveling to Arizona the first weekend of October as well as my son Joe for the Saints fall Crusade.
Please pray for these last few visits of 2024. It's been a long year, but I appreciate all of the prayer support and the encouragement along the way.
