Prison Day - Tuesday 19th

7 o clock start this morning, not cool! made my sandwiches, out the door and on way to the prison with Greg, forgot my lunch! Always a good start to the day! Arived at the prison about half 8, and met up with Jo and Melissa, and met two new guys that I haven't met before called Cameroon and Stewart who work for local churches. Stewart was another Ipswich town fan who works with AIS which we had good laugh about. We then headed into the prison and was told that we had to do our football coaching in the missle of the courtyard, surrounded by a thousand inmates. Nice introduction to the prison! We then headed into the Hope Academy's cell, which I was later told that the Guards had kindly moved all of the football team into one cell to make it easy for everyone. Which then meant that AIS could introduce some rules to the cell to help them such as no swearing, no drugs etc. When I walked into the prison cell I was greeted by about 20 players and all were realy friendly and smiling and fully of happiness, that i didn't expect to see. Especially when no-else seemed happy when we walked across the courtyard to the cell. We started off by having a bible study for an hour and it was just amazing to see all the inmates particpiating and reading there bibles. They did most of the talking about God and what they've learnt through the bible. Their bible knowledge was even better than mine. They were quoting hundreds of bible verses exactly off the top of their head. It was just such a blessing to see. They all had a little folder containing the bible reading notes and was interesting to see how they tied all of it into football. We then founded out the meeting which most of the guards had to go to had finished so one of them said that they would take us up to the football pitch to train. We did mainly fitness training and defensive work. But was good to see and their footwork was really good as well. We then left at 12 and was on the way to Sunnyside school for football coaching, when got a text saying that I'd locked Mark in the flat all day. woopsy! So after a quick detour to let Mark out we headed to the school where the under 10 A and B team had a match each. The B team played first and although Sunnyside dominated the couldn't get a goal so it end 0-0. Then the A team were up, this game was alot more different, Sunnyside scored the open then the opponents pulled 1 back then Sunnyside scored another 2 so it was 3-1, but they pulled another back to make it 3-2 at hald time. The second half kicked off and Sunnyside scored another goal, with the other team pulling one back, Sunnyside then scored again but so did the other team. The final score was 5-4 to Sunnyside which kept up their unbeaten run. We then headed back to the flat, and had a dinner. Claire is now ill with flu like symptoms/ hope its not swine flu! Then retired to the flat for an ealry nite. Please pray for Claire as she has got a lot of work to do at school, and she is also pregant so she can't take anything to help either.

Speak soon

Jon x