During the days of 23-26
April, 175 baseball coaches, some sports ministry leaders, and I were hosted by
the staff of FCA in the Dominican Republic. The little town of Boca Chica is
rich with baseball opportunities and is poor with prostitution and human
trafficking. Several major league baseball organizations have developmental
centers in Boca Chica as well as in other D.R. communities.
We were all there for the FCA
Baseball Coaching Clinic at the Terra Alta (The Highlands) facilities owned and
operated by the Rawlings Foundation. This is a beautiful and perfectly
maintained facility which also hosts a couple of MLB developmental centers.
Several sports ministries worked together in this clinic and it was wonderful
to see their unity and stunning lack of brand loyalty as they served the
Dominican coaches very well.
I was privileged to share
some devotional thoughts with the coaches on the first two mornings. I spoke
about being free to love God and to love Baseball from Galatians 5:1 and 13. I
also spoke about Baseball being a worthy expression of worship from Romans 12:1
and 2. I believe they were both challenged and encouraged. I was thrilled to
find that many of them have been using my devotional book, Corazon de un
Campeon (Heart of a Champion), individually and with the players
they serve.
On Thursday and Friday I was
thrilled to lead a discussion about principles of serving as a baseball
chaplain with about twenty of the assembled ministry leaders. We walked through
the major points of Transformando las Vidas en Deportes (Transforming
Lives in Sport), discussing them as directly applied to their service of
baseball teams, coaches, and players in Dominican Baseball. As usual, they were
excellent in sharing their experiences and insights with each other.
Many thanks are due to Mike
Shaheen and his FCA staff in the D.R. Thanks also to Fred Billings of AIM, Bill
Stothers of Baseball Chapel, staff from SCORE International, Go Ministries, and from MGB Ministries. This
was an All-Star team. For more info, click this link: http://fcadrbaseball.blogspot.com/
