One of my teammates said I jumped a foot off of the ground when it happened. By the time the ball landed softly in left field in the federal prison in Safford, AZ, Joe was standing on first with his first Saints hit. Sharing that moment with him was a thrill and I will always cherish that moment on a prison softball field in Safford, Arizona. It’s hard to top that moment. On top of being Joe’s dad and teammate, I’m glad that we share a bond in the Lord and that we are brothers in Christ before anything else. It was such a blessing to take Gospel to the inmates in Arizona with my son!
We began the trip with the three Illinois members of the trip meeting up at the Peoria, IL airport. Jon Isbell from our Illinois team met us there and we flew to Chicago and then to Phoenix. We arrived in Phoenix and met up with our teammates. We spent a little time together as the rest of our team arrived from eight different states: (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Georgia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois). I’m not sure if I have ever been on a trip that had that many states represented but it was fun to have that many guys coming from several different directions!
Once everyone arrived, it was lunchtime so we stopped at a local Chick-fil-A for lunch. Most of us only see each other on these trips so it was fun to have a few minutes to reconnect with everyone. Once we got done with lunch, we started the drive to Tombstone where we would spend the evening. During our ride down we played some games like who is the best 80’s rock star or which cut of meat is best. Once we arrived in Tombstone, we spent a little bit of time touring the town. Tombstone is famous for the wild west stories of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. We saw a brief re-enactment show at the Oriental Theater telling the story of Doc Holliday. We toured the town and had dinner that night before going back to the hotel.
I was in charge of devotions on the trip and we went through 1 Peter. We discussed how Peter’s audience was facing persecution and trials but despite those trial, Peter told his audience to remember four things:
- To live without losing hope
- To live without becoming bitter
- To live while trusting in their Lord
- To live while looking forward for His second coming
We spent some time discussing what personal suffering looked like for us as men but then we looked at 1 Peter 1:3-5:
1 Peter 1:3-5- 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
We can look at a passage like this and take comfort that we can have hope that God caused us to be born again and that we have a future that is imperishable in heaven and in the new kingdom. We do know that we are going to suffer at times but we can take comfort in knowing that this life isn’t all there is.
We spent some time discussing what this hope looks like when we share it in prison and how it affects our lives in our local churches.
We were all worn out from the travel and the time zone changes and went to bed after our devotion time.
The next morning, we woke up and made the drive to FCI Safford. We made it through security and were led by the staff to the softball field. When we arrived, it was warm but not too hot yet. We saw a pretty decent crowd at the softball field. Despite not having grass, the field was really nice and had actual below ground dugouts. There was a nice set of concrete bleachers behind home plate. This was my son Joe’s first game in a Saints uniform. He came in to pinch run early in the game and scored a run. He tripped on something about 10 feet from home and scored after falling down. It didn’t go according to the script but it worked and we will always remember that! We won the first game and went into ministry mode.
Mark Napier from the West Virginia team shared his testimony of how he came to know the Lord. He talked about how the Lord used a church to minister to him and his family in his childhood years. The West Virginia team started a few years ago and Mark has been with them since their beginning. After Mark shared his testimony, Jimmy Cochran shared the Gospel. Jimmy works for the ministry full-time and we have been on several trips together. Jimmy shared a clear message with the men.
Joe sat with me during the ministry time and we collected response cards together. We had a few good conversations with some men in the stands.
After we concluded our ministry time, we broke for lunch. On our way to eat some lunch we passed by the art room and saw some of the artwork that they were working on. We also passed the band room and I got to play a drumset for a few minutes.
The staff brought us to a classroom where we had some air-conditioning time. They brought in some Domino’s Pizza for lunch.
After lunch we came up with a plan to have a couple of guys go over to the pickleball court to play pickleball and share the Gospel with the men in that part of the yard. The rest of us returned to the softball field to play a second team. This was a shortened game but we won. Joe started the game and picked up a hit in his first at-bat. The next game was against the first team we played as they wanted a rematch. Unfortunately, we didn’t play as well and took a tough loss. There are several excuses we wanted to use for not playing well but everyone was ready to blame the pizza!
In order to get out of the sun, we moved to a pavilion area nearby the softball field for our ministry and closing time. Erik Meyer from New Jersey shared his testimony with the men. This is Erik’s first season with the Saints and has done a good job with fitting into the ministry and is a good teammate.
After Erik shared his testimony, Jim Jefferson shared the Gospel. JJ was on my first Saints Crusade back in 2011 and I have appreciated his friendship and sense of humor over the years. He does a good job sharing the Gospel and it was good to hear him preach to the men at Safford.
Overall on the day at FCI Safford, we handed out 143 Gospels and saw 21 men make professions of faith.
After we left Safford, we made a quick gas station stop to buy anything that would help rehydrate us and made the drive up to Tucson.
We got cleaned up at the hotel and had a dinner at a local chicken wing restaurant which was incredible!
We went back to the hotel and did our next night of devotions. We talked about how 1 Peter discourages us from becoming bitter. We used several illustrations of sports moments that made us bitter as fans. We then took a look at a couple of verses like 1 Peter 2:1 and 2 Peter 3:8-16 that tell us to put away malice and to turn away from evil. We also took a look at the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:16-24 and how we need to show things like patience and kindness and how we need to show that when we are going through trials.
All of us hit the bed early to get some rest after a busy first two days!
