Dominican Republic Baseball Coaching Clinic

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/