Charlie Ashman Won't Let Me!

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

Back when there were still public phone booths, I made one of the most important calls of my life from a pay phone on Martha’s Vineyard in September 1987. Deanna and I were vacationing there with our 3-month-old daughter Bethany, having rented an efficiency apartment in Edgartown for a few days.

Our plans were to spend a few days exploring Martha’s Vineyard before driving to Springfield, MA, where I had an interview to become a teaching assistant at Springfield College while pursuing my master’s degree in Recreation Management. However, two life-altering events had occurred since I had scheduled my interview, actually three if you count Bethany’s birth.

The first one was on June 6, 1987, the day that I ministered in prison for the very first time. Taking a ragtag team of Christian softball players into Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, NJ, I had seen how effective sports evangelism could be. That Saturday afternoon, our team had played two games, shared the gospel with dozens of inmates, and saw eight of them make professions of faith in Jesus Christ.

The second critical event involved a small book I had read called “The Apples in a Seed”. It was the autobiography of Charlie Ashman, a pioneer in the Christian camp movement. When others saw nothing but abandoned cranberry bogs in Hammonton, NJ, God gave Charlie the vision to see a future camp for children called Camp Ha-lu-wa-sa, short for “Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

The theme of Charlie’s book was that some people bite into an apple and see a few seeds, but others see the potential orchards that those seeds represent.

Well, I finished reading Charlie’s book in Edgartown and realized that I would never know what God had in store for The South Jersey Saints, which was the original name of our prison ministry softball team, unless I took a baby step of faith and let things play out according to God’s master plan.

And so, after informing Deanna of my decision, I climbed into that phone booth, called Springfield College, and cancelled my appointment. When the head of the department asked me why I was turning down the opportunity to enroll as a teaching assistant, I simply replied, “Charlie Ashman won’t let me”. Actually, what I meant was that the Holy Spirit was compelling me to “cast my bread upon the water” and see what God would do with this ever-deepening burden He had planted in my heart to combine my love for Christ and my love for sports for the purpose of reaching the lost.

Thirty-eight years later, I am still going behind bars to spread God’s message of love, hope, and forgiveness to lost and lonely prisoners… and more than 30,000 of them have trusted Jesus as their Savior.

“Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.” Ecclesiastes 11:1 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President