The Bears had glimpses of greatness and were in control of the game but they grasped a defeat from the hands of victory once again...
I stayed up and watched the whole thing and then went to bed wondering yet again where do we place the blame for all of these years of mediocrity.
I still blame the ownership for firing Lovie Smith. That move set the team back decades.
I still blame Jay Cutler for being the most underwhelming yet statistically best quarterback in Bears history.
I don't blame Mitch Trubisky...but I blame Ryan Pace for drafting him over Patrick Mahomes!
I blame the guy who traded Greg Olsen to the Panthers. I don't remember who the GM was who traded him so I must have blocked out his name!
I blame Cody Parkey for somehow hitting several goalposts in one year.
I could go on and on about several other offensive linemen, kickers, offensive coordinators, quarterbacks, backup quarterbacks, receivers, and probably everyone else in the organization besides the announcer Jeff Joniak!
Yet as much as the Bears irritate me, I'm excited that it is finally football season. I wrote about this in my last post, but I love coming home from church on a Sunday afternoon, eating some pizza and wings, and falling asleep while watching a football game.
One of the things that also helped me fall asleep faster was recovering from a fun Saturday of playing softball and spending time with my Saints Prison Ministry brothers on the softball field at Danville CC!
This past Saturday, our team met up early in the morning to pack up our gear and pray together before making the trip to Danville. Once we finished praying, we loaded up in the van and headed towards the prison!
We stopped at Chick fil A and had a good breakfast as a team. We had a few visits where we skipped breakfast so it was nice to have fun talking about church stuff and of course, the upcoming Chicago Bears game.
We got back on the road to Danville. Saints veteran pitcher and good friend, Ray Koonce and I were in the front seat having a really good conversation about his grand-kids. We were in the middle of a really good talk when we noticed a "Welcome to Indiana" sign! We missed our exit and had to turn around and head back into Illinois. We were doing really good on time so we had time to turn around and make it to the prison on time with minimal kidding and harassment from those sitting in the backseat!
We arrived at Danville and made our way into the prison lobby. The officer in charge, told us that they had to alter some plans due to some staffing. He let us know that they came really, really close to having to cancel the day but they were able to pull enough logistics together to allow us to at least have a half day of ministry. There were four teams that wanted to play us so the plan we went with was to play 4 three inning games with a ministry time in between.
We made our way out to the prison yard, very quickly warmed up and then hit the ground running. We played the first two games and won in very convincing fashion.
In between games, AJ Salmon shared his testimony. AJ is in his second season with the team and he has made a huge impact on our team and in the prison yards.
Kris Mettelmann shared the Gospel. Kris has been with our team for the past four seasons and does a good job of clearly sharing the Gospel with the men that we see.
During the ministry time, I had a few moments to talk to a couple of guys and walk them through the Gospel. One guy professed to be a believer and the other guy was still searching. Please pray for these two guys.
We finished up the remainder of the day by playing the final two teams. To make things work, we had to cut our games down from three innings down to two.
After the game we huddled up on the pitchers mound, recognized the umpires, and handed out some MVP books. We were able to pray with the men and drive the Gospel home one more time with them.
Overall on the day, we handed out 147 Gospels of John and had 17 men make professions of faith.
We huddled up behind the van in the parking lot and prayed for the men we saw and that the Lord would work after we were gone.
We got out a little early and started our drive home. We stopped again in Champaign for a Buffalo Wild Wings lunch and spent some time watching the Illinois-Duke football game and the Cubs-Nationals game.
Thank you again for praying for our team this summer.
We have our Federal visit to Louisiana on 9/19-21. Our last Illinois visit is 9/27 as we visit Pittsfield WC and Jacksonville CC.
But wait, that's not all!
I also jumped in and joined the fall Crusade which was originally going to be Florida but is now going to be Louisiana! I will be on that trip from 10/1-10/5.
Please pray that the Lord works in a mighty way as we share the Gospel and play lots of softball the next few weekends!
It is a blessing to serve the Lord in this capacity. I'm looking forward to writing about about these upcoming trips!
