They Let Me Out!

We had a fantastic time at prison this past weekend! It was a lot of work, but it def paid off by having about 670 decisions for salvation!! There was also over 1700 decisions for rededication!!!

I started working on Thursday afternoon. There were quite a few platform guests coming in from around the US, so my sis and I got them from the airport to the hotel. We made several trips and then we loaded up our car, with people, to head to the church. We had several training sessions at the church before spiritual enrichment(a time to prepare your heart for the weekend) started. My hubby's band lead worship and my powerpoint went off without a hitch! After that, we meet with our prison coordinator to see what the prison rules were for the weekend. I went to my drivers meeting because I was scheduled to transport two platform guests (one a jazz singer/harmonica player, the other a very powerful speaker who was into drugs and prostitution before giving her heart to Christ) into at least 4 different prisons that weekend. At about 11:30, we finally called it a night and four of us (me, my mom, my sis, and PJ) shared a hotel room.

I was up bright and early on Friday since my platform guests and I had to leave the hotel by 6:15. We headed to a huge prison in Chillicothe(about an hour South of Columbus) where they have three prison yards. We were able to visit two of them and we had a wonderful response from the men inmates. About 50 raised their hands wanting to know more information about our Lord...it was so wonderful!

Then we stopped by the hotel for lunch before heading out to two prisons near downtown Columbus. One was a woman's prison and the other was a medical prison. The inmates in both prisons were so happy to see and hear my platform guests...and quite a few responded to the call to know more about Christ.

We got back to the hotel in time for me to get in a short nap before heading to church for the Friday night banquet. We had some very yummy food before seeing several of the platform guests do their thing...like juggle bowling balls! We had some awesome worship time before heading back to the hotel for a swim.

I slept much better that night (prob cause I was so tired from the day's activities), and was up by 6am to get my platforms guests to a prison in Lancaster(about 50 minutes Southeast of Columbus). Since we were there so early in the morning, not all the inmates were up to hear the musician and speaker, so we didn't get much of a response from them...about 30 showed an interest in getting more information. But even if only one person showed an interest, it would have been worth it!!!

After lunch, we headed to Marysville, Ohio (about 55 minutes North of Columbus) to another woman's prison. This prison has over 1900 inmates and they were very happy to see the entertainers I was transporting! We had a huge response from the ladies and I even got to talk to an inmate for 30 minutes...she was so happy that our prison group came in to see her!

It was a very long weekend, but like I said, it was well worth it. It was incredible seeing all the inmates wanting more information about our God!!! I never expected to see such a response from them! I def want to be a part of another prison weekend since this was def a life changing event for me!