There are several people in my life who were faithful about sharing the Gospel with me. They modeled what it looked like to be a Christian man and encouraged me to persevere when times were tough. God was faithful in using those people in my life to help me grow and cultivate a desire to serve Him.
Faithfulness was our topic for our devotions this weekend in Louisiana. I had the responsibility on the trip to share the team devotions each evening. I used the book, "Remaining Faithful in Ministry" by the late John MacArthur for my devotions. In his book, MacArthur brings up those who had been faithful in his life and who modeled faithfulness for him. We looked at several passages about how God is faithful and how Jesus Christ is faithful. We looked at passages where we see other New Testament ministers such as the Apostle Paul and how he was faithful.
1 Corinthians 4:1-2 says:
1 Corinthians 4:1-2- This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
We talked about what a great responsibility we would all have this weekend as we shared the Gospel with the men in the prison yards. We talked about faithfulness in not making it about softball, but rather being bold with our faith as we talked to men in the yards. We also acknowledged that we spend way more time with our church families and our actual families than we do in the prison yard. We stressed to each other how it was important to be faithful as husbands and fathers and to be faithful servants in our local churches.
The trip started on Wednesday. This is usually the part where we talk about how my flight got cancelled and how I had to hitchhike my way to Louisiana, but my flight left Bloomington on time! I arrived in Atlanta with no problems. I met up with the rest of the team and we all made our flight to Alexandria, Louisiana with no major issues! (With the lack of transportation issues, this update is going to be shorter!)
We arrived on time, once again with no travel issues, and made our way to the hotel. We were able to watch some playoff baseball and enjoy a nice Louisiana style dinner as a team. We had our devotion time and got to bed at a really good time.
The next morning we got up, got breakfast, and made our way to USP Pollack. It is somewhat rare to go to a USP. I've only been to four in my Saints career. A USP is a higher level security Federal prison. One cool thing was that the warden at USP Pollack was the warden at another Federal prison that the Saints had visited a few years ago. He was familiar with what we did and made sure the day went well!
We walked through the compound and we had just made it into the yard where the softball field was. I was walking nearby the first base line of the softball field when we all heard a big explosion sound. We were ordered to take a knee while the officers got control of the situation. It turned out that there was a fight in an adjacent yard and that one of the officers in a tower threw a flashbang gernade to get control of the situation. I was praying that the Lord would let us continue our time in the prison as typically stuff like this can result in a lockdown and us having to leave early. The warden quickly assured us that we were good to continue and that everything was going to be fine.
Once we got settled in, we were able to start our game. We hit really well and held on to win game 1! In between games, Warren Miller shared his testimony and Jim Jefferson shared the Gospel. I would like to tell you how well they did with that but I didn't hear them. Damien Rodig from New Jersey and I made our way over to an adjacent yard to hand out Gospels of John. I was able to share a couple of mini sermons with a couple of different groups in the yard.
Damien and I handed out several Gospels and had several good conversations before working our way back to the softball field. We played a second team and they were a little tougher but we held on for the win. We circled up with the men in the yard and prayed with them before going to lunch. The prison team also took a moment to sing happy birthday to our pitcher/outfielder Bruce Buri!
We enjoyed some grilled chicken in the officer's cafeteria. This was a good break in the middle of the day to hang out as a team. After lunch, we went back out to the yard to start game 3.
We faced the All-Star team in game 3 but we came out swinging the bats well again and won again!
After the game, Rodney Stewart shared his testimony of how he came to know the Lord and Mark DiBenedetto shared the Gospel. Once again, Damien and I returned to the other yard to hand out more literature. We got into some good conversations and had opportunities to share the Gospel again. We did get into a long drawn out conversation with a guy who thought his faith could control the cloud patterns. I kept trying to steer the conversation back to the Gospel but we eventually had to leave and return to the fourth game. Please pray that this guy we talked to comes to know the Lord as Savior.
We got back to the softball field to play game 4. Once again, we kept on hitting and won game 4!
Afterwards we circled back up on the field and reminded them of the Gospel they heard preached and to pray for them.
Overall on the day at the USP we handed out 362 Gospels of John and saw 25 men make professions of faith.
We went back to the hotel to get cleaned up before heading out to get some Mexican food as a team. We managed to eat lots of chips and queso! I was able to watch the Cubs play their playoff game on Bruce Buri's phone while I ate my food. Before the meal was over, the restaurant staff sang Happy Birthday to Bruce!
We made it back to the hotel just in time to see the Cubs beat the Padres 3-1 which allowed them to advance to play the Brewers in the next round.
We huddled up and did devotions again and had a good time praying together as a team.
We had a good day as a team, the Cubs won, and there were no travel mishaps! God was good to us! Tomorrow we are heading back to Pollack but we will play their FCI team. Please keep our team in prayer!
