Sept 10 Burruss CTC, Forsyth, GA

Another early morning road trip. We started again before dawn. It was a little closer...just under 3 hours. The one thing I like about these trips so far is we stop at fast food joints for breakfast on the way and it's FREE. Mmmm...Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit! Or should I say biscuits! For those of you that really know me...I can hear you laughing now.  This was a very unique visit for the Saints. It was the first time the guys were allowed to bring their wives. Barb couldn't go but we had about 8 that did. They were told to wear long sleeve shirts and pants. No jewelry or perfume. Very conservative. I thought I was back in the Middle East on a deployment again. Of course security took longer this time with the extra people but it wasn't to bad. This field had a basketball court about 280ft in straight away CF, a super short porch in RF about 220ft and LF just kept going with a hill about 300+ft. It was so funny to see the guys playing LF when we hit. All you could see was half there bodies because they were playing down the hill. They knew we could launch the ball. I figured I could hit a HR but was told later that you had to clear the fence and 2nd light pole down the line for it to be a HR. Everything else was a single. I felt like I was 10yrs old again playing wiffle ball making up the rules as we went along.   Needless to say I got BIG eyes going for the fence and kept flying out...typical.  This facility housed offenders sentenced as adults between 13-17 years of age and At Risk Youth offenders between 17-21 years of age but also had some old lifers as well. The first game we played the older guys and won and after that they let the youngsters play. Something really cool that happened playing the kids was this one kid who you could tell never picked a bat up in his life swung and missed the first 3 pitches. All the inmates told him to stand up there until he made contact. No lie, he must have missed 30+ balls in a row but everyone from the inmates to the wives to us were cheering for him every time. Finally we let him get to first. After the games we got to have a picnic with the inmates and ate some hot dogs, chips and cokes. FREE again...SWEET! We were able to spread out and sit with them and just talk in a personal atmosphere.  As I talked to these kids I was thinking Collett is going to be 15 yrs old and could be in a place like this. Makes you think how really grateful we are to have the children we do. I couldn't imagine having a son or daughter in a place like that before they could even drive. I believe when it was all said and done we had another 30 or so men give their lives to Christ. Only about a 10 day hour day that day. Our last mission will be our Crusade the 6-10th of October traveling throughout GA and parts of FL.

Until next time, I'll be carrying my cross....are you ready to do the same?
C4

http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/FacilityMap/html/burrus_corr_trn_cntr.html

Aug 27 Wheeler C.F. Alamo, GA

Well my morning started by waking up at 0400 to meet the bus at the church and leave at 0500. It was a good 3 hour ride so most of the guys slept. I was picturing what is was going to be like. I kept thinking...I'm gonna go hug one of these guys and he's gonna bite off my ear off just for fun. I watched to much OZ on HBO back in the day. We pulled up to rolls and rolls of barbed-wire fences. It took about 15 minutes for us to make it through security. This field in particular did not play well for a left hand hitter that's for sure. It was like 425ft to RF then got smaller to about 300ft in LF with about a 25ft barbed-wire fence.  We got some real bombers on our team. I think we put 5 out but they were 325ft plus shots. We travel to these facilities each year and it amazed me how the inmates remembered the guys on our team names and the still remembered where guys had hit HRs. Whenever an inmate fills out a card they are put on a birthday list for life. I couldn't believe how many guys told us, "You know I got your birthday card this year...it was the only one I got." They are very appreciative of what we do. Reality hit when I talk to one kid about 23. You're not supposed to ask what they're in for but if they share then it's ok. This guy was getting ready to get out for the 3rd time and before he got out he heard that his 12yr old sister had gotten raped. Before he got out he found out the guys name. You know where this is going. As soon has he got out, he tracked this guy down and waited for him to get out of his car right in the middle of downtown in broad daylight and executed him on the spot. He didn't care about the witnesses. He said the only thing he would change was not tracking him to his house and doing it there. By the end of the day we had played 3 games going 2-0-1 (There timed games which is why the tie), preached 4x to more than 550 inmates, and watched 30 men ask Jesus into their lives.  I got home around 2100. A nice 17 hour day. It was a roller coaster of emotions by God definitely showed up and made it all worth it.

Until next time, I'll be carrying my cross....are you ready to do the same?
C4

http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/FacilityMap/html/wheeler_corr_facility.html

Welcome !

Hey Everyone,

I've created a blog where you can go to read about my experiences with the Saints Prison Ministry which combines softball and witnessing to inmates mostly in the state of Georgia. I'll be back with a post from my first encounter which was back on 27 August.

Enjoy!
C4