12-13-2008 WORSHIP SERVICE AT THE PRISON IN FAYETTE, MS

We had our first service at the prison in Fayette, Ms Saturday night December 13. The devil has been fighting to keep us out. I was approached 6 months ago about going in, but the door kept getting slammed. Ten days before the thirteenth, Chaplain Wiggleworth made it all happen in about 5 minutes, I had turned it over to the Lord the week before and thru up my hands.



Thank you Chaplain Wigglesworth, Warden Caho, Chaplain Turner and the staff at Fayette.



We had 8 people to go in that night, we first ate at Mr. Arthur Davis's restaurant in Lorman, The Country Store, best fried chicken in the South. If you don't believe me either ask him or try it yourself.



The service started at 6:10 and last for 3 hours, Amazing. We had 6 people had to cancel at the last minute, we went in with no singers, but the Lord provided a singing group and a young man that sang and played the guitar from within the facility. We even had Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, show up and tell about his engagement,the birth of Jesus and his marriage to Mary.



Arthur Davis and Richard Cruel are planning on going in on a regular basis and we plan on going once every other month to have a worship service with them.



The Lord now has us working in the prisons in Fayette, McComb, Columbia, Hattiesburg and Angie, La. Thank you Lord for using a poor old rag tag group like us to carry your gospel to our Jerusalem!

11-8-08 OUTREACH AT RAYBURN CORRECTIONAL CENTER

Everytime we do a Saturday Outreach at a prison, it seems to get better and better.

We want to thank the Warden, Chaplain and all the staff at Rayburn for the wonderful treatment we get from you. We were allowed to work all the lock down units on Friday night. We had 8 men go in and were joined by John and Walter, Inmate Chaplains. We talked and prayed with every one in the lock down that would allow us. AND most of them allowed us.

IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!

We had breakfast at Mike Monroe's house at 6 AM. Thank you Mike, Betty, Uncle Johnny and Aunt Jeannie. We arrived at the prison about 7:30 and took in about 25 volunteers from Mississippi and Louisiana, even our daughter Jacquelyn came with us. She got to ride on my bike since Cheryl was unable to go. Her first trip in the prison and I hit mud in the first yard we rode in and dumped my bike. The only thing hurt was my ego and the windshield.

We took the bikes on all the yards but Sun Unit. But we sent a team of Circuit Riders to have a worship service with singing, testimonies and preaching.

There were 2 worship services in the gym and had about 700 inmates come worship. The attendance gets better everytime. The inmates know us, love us and accept us, because a group goes in on a weekly basis and they know that we come for them and not for ourselves.

Everyone that wanted to sing or speak had the opportunity and we had the prison church choir sing and several of the inmates. There is a freedom that the Lord has given us that will raise the hair on your neck.

Thank you Lord for all the blessing you have given us at Rayburn Correctional. We do not keep records of people prayed with, talked with, or those that make decisions. The Lord keeps count and we are not there for numbers, we plant seeds, water, cultivate and participate in the harvest. But the Lord does the convicting and saving, we are the messengers.

We also served 1,000 hamburgers and chips, etc. to the inmates, infirmary and to the staff. Thank you to the mentoring group that helped cook and assemble the food and distribute it.

If you have not gone to a Saturday Outreach, you are missing a blessing. We also do the Saturday night worship service each month.

12-19-08 DEVOTION BY ARTHUR RHODES, INMATE CHAPLAIN AT RAYBURN CORRECTIONAL

WHO MAKES YOUR CHOICES

Joshua 24:15 "If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourself today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord."



There is not a day that goes by that we, human beings, do not make hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of choices. We make these choices either consciously or unconsciously, either willing or unwillingly. That is what is means to be human.



Genesis 2:15-17 "Then the Lord took the Man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God then commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.



There is no doubt God could have created mankind without a choice; he could have made us like the birds of the air or the fish of the sea, or the beast of the field. Had He done so, we would instinctively praise and worship and serve God, but we would not do it by choice, but by force.



One of the most amazing insight we can have of God is that it is His plan and purpose to bring about an Eternal Kingdom in which the people will praise and worship and serve Him because they chose to, not because they are forced to.



Acts 17:29-31 "Being then children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone or an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."



We have all heard the saying, "Time waits for no one." That is certainly a true statement, but, it has no significance unless you are in a hurry.



Here is a statement that, if you seriously think about it, will have meaning to you, no matter who you are--- "Tomorrow is not promised."



That's what Joshua was telling his people so long ago when he said, "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE."



Joshua had made his choice, he said, "AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD."



Of all the hundreds or thousands of choices you've made today, this ONE is the most important --- CHOOSE TODAY TO SERVE THE LORD!