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Richard
Sauter sharing the Gospel with an inmate in confinement during a recent
Gospel Express Ministries Crusade
Someone stopped me the other day and asked… “Hey, Dan! How
often do you go out there to that prison?”
He seemed surprised at my answer when I told him that I go to 5
different prisons 5 days a week and sometimes twice on Sunday. This
schedule doesn’t include prison crusades that Marilyn and I are involved
in through out the year. It is
a demanding schedule, but we are grateful to be used by God in “these
last days” in the Prisons of Florida and
Alabama
as the Lord leads and provides. The
following are some of the activities we have been able to take part in as
God continues to do amazing things in answer to our prayers, and of
course, yours!
Last September marked the 4th year that Marilyn took
part in a Kairos Weekend at the
Federal Prison for Women in
Tallahassee
. This four day event was not
only emotionally draining but physically exhausting as well. Picture
eight round tables with three volunteers and five inmates seated at each
one. Oh yes, and a box of Kleenex in the middle of each table. All of us
confessed our hurts, regrets, abuses, fears and failures. Walls of hatred
and resentment came down as we discovered our need for forgiving others as
well as forgiving ourselves. The interaction was intense and the tears
freely flowed. The purpose of
Kairos is to help inmates form a community of Christian believers with in
their confines so that they can build trusting relationships by supporting
each other in prayer groups, Bible studies and worship services. Our
goal is to show them the love of Christ.
Also
in the fall Marilyn and I facilitated a team of volunteers with
Gospel Express
Ministries where we spent three days at Gadsden C.F. in
Quincy
,
FL.
Most of the volunteers and members of the evangelistic teams were from out
of state. Chaplain
Dorothy Hilton
, the officers and prison staff were extremely accommodating and
attendance of inmates at the services was phenomenal. Praise
God there were over 20 salvations as well! It
was fun too when the whole team went into town (
Quincy
,
Florida
) to have dinner at a Salvadorian restaurant.
We all ate a sumptuous dinner of Pupusas and Salvadorian enchiladas
that we had highly recommended. One
of the volunteers, I won’t mention Chaplain Anna Miller’s name from
Alabama
, enjoyed the food so much that we accused her of licking her plate clean.
While we are on the subject of prison crusades, both of us recently
returned form
Montgomery
,
Alabama
where we joined with the We Care
Program in their annual crusade. Marilyn
went with a team of ladies to Julia Tutwiler Correctional Facility for
Women, while Dan went with a seven member team of men to Kilby C.F. which
is actually the reception center for newly incarcerated inmates.
Dan reported that the officers and prison staff all but rolled out
the “red carpet” for the team giving them a first class tour of the
facility. During the day the volunteers were free to go from dorm to dorm
interacting with the inmates. In
addition, they encouraged them to fill out commitment cards indicating
decisions they had made to accept Christ as Savior and Lord and writing
out prayer requests. Each
evening included a mini gospel concert with testimonies and a preaching
service in the chapel. Each service closed with the inmates turning in
their commitment cards. By the end of the week, Dan had received response
cards indicating 23 salvations. When Dan told the Chaplain that he
preached in Spanish in the
Florida
prisons, he invited him to do a “first time ever” worship service for
the Hispanic inmates. Dan
hadn’t brought his Spanish Bible with him so that evening we dashed out
to a Christian Bookstore to buy one and to purchase some Spanish CDs for
worship. As a result, 18 of
the 20 Hispanic inmates incarcerated at Kilby C.F. (a prison with over
1600 inmates) came to the service and 3 of them made decisions for Christ.
Back in
Tallahassee
we’ve returned to our day to day routine of filling requests and
shipping Spanish Bibles to inmates and visiting prisons to collect
completed Spanish Correspondence Bible studies that are then sent to
Mexico
to be graded. Last year with
your support we were able to purchase and ship over 300 Spanish Bibles to
Florida
prisons. Also we are pleased to report that there are currently 37
prisoners enrolled in the correspondence courses.
The Bible Correspondence courses are in Spanish and our dear friend
and co-worker, Sinikka Doherty, runs the School out of
Mexico City
.
So far the New Year has seen a fruitful harvest of souls with 50
salvations. This week 10 female inmates came to Christ at the women’s
prison in Quincy in the English service, five men in the Spanish service
at Liberty C.I. and one inmate received Christ at Wakulla C.I. This
is quite remarkable when you realize that the whole of last year…115 men
and women made a profession of faith in Jesus…a
record for this ministry! We
are not bragging, as a matter of fact, we are amazed and stand in awe at
what the Father is doing “drawing men onto Himself through the
foolishness of preaching.” We
love the Lord and we seek to bring others into that loving relationship
with Him through the Holy Spirit. Pray
for us as the schedule gets hectic; Dan returns to teaching Experiencing
God at Wakulla C.I. and Marilyn, the Life
Principles Course at Gadsden C.F.
Thank you for letting us represent you in
the Prisons of
North Florida
.
Crusade Volunteers at
Gadsden C.F.
WE
ARE GRATEFUL TO OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST, THAT WE CAN
REPRESENT YOU IN THE PRISONS OF NORTH FLORIDA!
Women
inmates listening to the Gospel Express Team preach at Gadsden C.F.
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