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It usually takes me a few days to start these update blog posts. It takes a few days to get back to work, recover from achy muscles, and get a few naps in the recliner.
So I’m not actually writing this right after the trip.
I’m writing a couple of days after Chuck Norris passed away.
To the best of my knowledge, Chuck didn’t get around to reading my blog.
If only I had started writing this on the way home...
If he had hung on a couple of weeks longer, he may have enjoyed finding my blog and seeing that a team of volunteer prison minister softball players would fly into the hometown of his famous character, Sergeant Cordell Walker or simply Walker Texas Ranger.
Instead of defeating terrorists with roundhouse kicks and Taurus PT92’s while wearing denim shirts and Chisos No. 1 cowboy boots, we were trying to defeat long TSA lines and the long drive from Dallas to Texarkana!
Our team arrived from Georgia, New Jersey, Florida, Wisconsin, and of course, Illinois. We made our way through the big Dallas airport and met half the team in our rental van for the weekend. We enjoyed a brief lunch at a local Carl’s Jr before making the rest of the trip to Texarkana.
We made it to our hotel and unloaded all of our gear before heading to dinner. We went to a local diner and enjoyed some good diner food as a team. We also celebrated the birthday of my good friend, Jim Jefferson, who got to spend his 44th birthday on a Saints trip!
After our meal, we went back to the hotel and had a team devotion time. Bruce Buri led our devotion time and did a really good study on how to study harder Old Testament law passages. After our devotions, we prayed together as a team before getting some rest.
The next morning, we got up and packed our stuff back up for the day ahead of us. It was fun to put the softball uniform on for the first time in 2026!
After so many years of traveling for Saints trips, I have become rather burnt out on hotel food, but this hotel had really good biscuits and gravy. It was fun to eat breakfast and hang out with my teammates before loading up and starting the day.
We arrived at Texarkana and started the trip through security and eventually onto the field. We had a few moments on the field to throw and stretch before the other team arrived. It was actually a little cooler out when we took the field.
You can blame it on the temperature or it being our first game of the year but we came out of the gate a little sluggish and took a tough loss in game 1.
In between games, Warren Miller shared his testimony and Jim Jefferson shared the Gospel. Warren and JJ were on my very first trip to Ohio back in 2011. That 2011 Ohio trip was special, but we have had the opportunity to serve together in other parts of the country. It has been good to reconnect with them over the years.
After Warren and JJ spoke we played another game but were still pretty flat on the softball field and took another loss. We broke for lunch and the staff bought us some Pizza Hut. We enjoyed some Pizza Hut and some hang out time as a team. After all of the travel hustle, this was our first time to sit down and really get some team time in.
After lunch we came back out and saw a lot of the same crowd. We came out and played a little bit better but we still came up short on the field.
In between the 3rd and 4th game, Rodney Stewart from the Georgia team shared his testimony and Hugh Dwyer from the Northeast team shared the Gospel. Both Rodney and Hugh have served in the ministry for several years. At the end of Hugh’s message, we had a few impromptu moments where we could pray for the men who had wayward kids. Both Rodney and Hugh have done such a good job of communicating and relating to the men they see over the years. .
We huddled back up for a 4th game and, low and behold, we pulled out a game 4 win!
We circled up on the pitcher’s mound to say goodbye to the men we saw and to pray with them one more time. Rodney Stewart talked to the men one more time about how Jesus came and died and rose again for them.
Overall on the day we handed out 241 Gospels of John and saw 18 men make professions of faith in the Lord.
Afterwards, we got back to the van and discussed the day and prayed together as a team. After a quick gas station stop, we made our way from Texarkana back to the Dallas Fort Worth area.
We got back to our hotel and got cleaned up for a team dinner. We went to a local Cajun food place and enjoyed another solid team meal together.
While the softball was sort of sluggish, it was good to get our first prison day of the year under our belts and spend time as brothers in the Lord on the field, breaking bread, and in the cars. While the ministry is about sharing the Gospel with men in prison, this is a much needed ministry for me in terms of being encouraged and challenged by my Saints brothers.
