THE DAY BEFORE & DAY 1- PRISON TOUR

Thanks for taking the time to READ!!

I am EXCITED because The Gideon Crew and I are making 15 stops in Prisons in Illinois & St. Louis. We have joined with Prison Fellowship & Operation Starting Line for their Black History Program. So, I decided to blog about the experience and share with you for the next 7 days.

PREPARATION DAY
 We traveled to Mattison, Illinois to leave our car at the church. We were picked up by Mary and traveled to East St. Louis. We ran right into the storm, it was snowing hard then starting raining ice. We saw cars, semi-trucks off in the ditches, and police helping those stuck on the highway. It took a
 3.5 hour trip 6 hours to get to the hotel. St. Louis closed their airports and majority of the town we were staying in closed at 6pm (movies, Walmart, restaurants,etc...). We found a TGI Friday's open for dinner we ate there, checked into the hotel and THANKED GOD FOR SAFE TRAVELS.

DAY ONE: Mennard & Veinna Correctional
I woke up early and went to the exercise room to do about 30 minutes before time to go, grabbed some breakfast after the workout and went back to the room. We learned that our 9am program at Mennard was canceled because the prison was on lockdown. So, we got extra chill time (I was able to do my homework). So now our departure time wasn't until 10am. Then, we got a call from Chaplain David from the prison we are schedule to go to on the 26th, who said they were on lockdown. An officer was attack with a broomstick and his arm was broke. The enemy began forming his weapons, but we know they can be formed but they won't prosper. So, he prayed with us, then Mary E. (PF Director) called and believed God would be making some moves before we arrived.

MENNARD:
We arrived at Mennard and we got through security with no problems really smooth. We had the program in the annex room of the gym. There were 33 men that attended, because many go to work on the outside. However, we had a great time, the choir sang 2 songs and had great harmony. I am introducing my new single on the ears of the inmates, "For the Love" a remake of the Isley Brothers song, and so far I have gotten 2 thumbs up!!

VIENNA:
We arrived at Vienna, the officer checks us in as we wait to go back, he reads Charleston shirt "GOD OVER EVERYTHING". This begins a conversation about the Lord, and he shares his testimony and his evangelism tool he use to witness to the guys inside about the thieves on the cross. So, after about 10 minutes we go back to the chapel to find the sound system they guaranteed they had, guess what? it was a tape player. I said, "I didn't know they still made tapes". The State of Illinois the inmates listen to tapes, in Michigan its MP3's. So, we had to scramble for a cd player, found one it didn't work, and one of the inmates located a DVD player from the school. Thank You Jesus, it worked! 200 men came out to the program on fire, they had great participation. Jacob presented the invitation to Christ and 15 men came to the Lord. We went to Walmart to pick up a portable cd player, just in case and went to O'Charley's for dinner.