On the bright side of all this, is that my volunteer application with Prayer for Prisoners International to the prisons down here was accepted! I now am allowed into all 56 prisons in the state of Florida. This is awesome! My coworker in the ministry for many years, Keith Smith, got me hooked up with this ministry. Keith will be coordinating some of the visits to various prisons and our first time going in will be at Putnam Correctional Institution on June 17th and then Zephyrhills Correctional Institution on the 18th. Just in time for one of the hardest holidays for incarcerated men, Father's Day. We will only have a short time at Putnam but we will have the whole morning at Zephyrhills! Many more opportunities to come so keep checking this blog and our Facebook page. Also since we are talking about Keith, my family and I were able to go to his wedding May 14th to Rachel Lynn Wemple. What a blessing it was seeing 2 Godly people who put God first both personally and in their relationship get hitched!
The ministry at Sumter County Jail has been going very well! I now go for 3 separate Bible studies on Thursday and a church service on Sunday. Every week people are getting saved and learning the Word! God is definitely working in there! On Thursdays, I do Bible studies in 3 different units minimum security men, minimum security women and maximum security men. Some of these men and women are going to be in for a while, but some are out the next day so you always give an opportunity to repent and receive the forgiveness that only Jesus can offer!
I was able to preach at the women's unit on Mother's day, which is incredibly hard as most are mothers. One of the things that I shared was that statistically 70% of their kids will end up in jail or prison because they are in jail. I think you could have heard a gecko walk it was so silent. There were many tears shed, but I said that they have a chance today to break that bondage to sin by giving their lives to Jesus and many did! Some of the women even get up at 4:30AM to do their morning devotions and have a prayer time! It is so cool to see Jesus change the hearts of men and women who have received Him!