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On this weekend we had all 42 inside men who had been approved for the weekend there, with no last-minute changes in the roster. Typical of almost all weekends, Thursday evening starts with the inside men not sure what to expect, but the evening is informal with an outside team member acting as a "host" for one of the inside men, sharing cookies, drinks, a sub sandwich, and visiting with them. Ultimately, we all introduce ourselves and the weekend team leader gives a talk, explaining what goes on during the weekend. Essentially, Thursday is an ice breaker and it went really well.

Every weekend has its own dynamics as did this one, with a general progression through Friday in the inside men's involvement and energy. By the end of Friday afternoon everyone was sharing in the music breaks with our music team, listening intently to the talks, and most sharing in their family table discussions. At the start of our team-building meetings, Bruce Davis made a comment that he had played the drums in elementary school, so he was conscripted to be the music team's drummer. I don't know what happened to our regular drummer! Bruce finally got to show off his skills Saturday evening during the cheesecake song. No question about it, all of the inside men were looking forward to Saturday when they arrived in the morning.

While there is a group dynamic for the larger group during the weekend, every table of six inside men and three volunteer team members has its own dynamics. This is driven mostly by the inside men's personal and family circumstances, their length of incarceration, ages, and the weight of what they were convicted of. At my table, the youngest man was 37 and the other five were mid-50s to mid-60s. Our young man and one other inside man did not engage in the table discussions unless spoken to directly, but both were willing helpers with taking notes on the table discussions and drawing the table's posters after each discussion. Our oldest team member, Andrew, talked too much on Friday and some as well on Saturday, having trouble pulling his thoughts together and communicating them. The positive that came from this was two other inside men really engaged with him on Saturday, trying to help get his thoughts and comments focused on the table's discussion topic. The outcome was that at the Sunday closing's open mic Andrew was our one table member who got up to speak. His comments were from the heart, extremely well thought out, and expressed how much the weekend meant to him. It is clear how much God was helping Andrew and the other men at the table throughout the weekend.

Your brother in Christ,
Hale Whipkey