Baseball Clinic

So this past week I had the opportunity to help out with a baseball clinic here in Peru. Every January, a group of 9 men from the United States come to Lima, Peru to teach kids basic techniques about baseball as well as share the gospel with them. One of the coaches was a former pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, another coach is currently playing AA baseball for the Los Angeles, Angels; and the other seven are coaches (or former coaches) for college level baseball. It was an amazing opportunity for kids from the ages of 10-18 to learn baseball techniques from professional players and coaches. Plus the clinic was entirely free. The coaches taught two sessions everyday from Monday through Thursday. All in all, close to 300 kids participated. At the end of every session, one of the coaches would present their testimony, another would present a bible story, and an opportunity would be given for each of kids to accept Christ into their lives. Usually half of the kids would raise their hand to let us know that they wanted to accept Christ into their lives. We found out a couple of the Peruvian translators told the kids who didn’t raise their hands; “Raise your hands. Why wouldn’t you want to accept Christ in your lives?” With kids it is always hard to find out who actually wants to accept Jesus into to their lives, who is only doing it to please you, or who is feeling pressured into doing it. The next few times, we assured them of the importance of only making the decision if they honestly were making it out of their own free will. At the end of each session, several of the kids talked to the coaches about Christ and had many good questions about the Bible, Heaven and what it meant to follow Christ. Even though not every kid who raised his or her hand was genuinely making a decision for Christ, it was evident that several of them wanted to give their lives to Christ. The fact that nine coaches would go halfway around the world to teach baseball to a group of kids in a far away country touched the hearts of the Peruvian people. The kids as well as their parent felt honored to be taught by coaches from the United States, especially the two who played in the major leagues. It was evident that they looked up to these coaches. The coaches did not even mind when all the kids wanted them to sign something of theirs, no matter how unrelated to baseball the object was.