Pick up games vs organized games 1/10/12

You will have to bare with me as I am currently writing this a day behind.  We woke up very late, as we did not have to go to a sugar cane village until 11:00.  When we got there they had a softball field that the sugar cane company uses for what I can only assume is a company softball team.  We goofed around with the kids for a minute but naturally we gravitated towards the ball field.  We played Americanos vs Dominicanos with our pitching staff in the field and our fielders (myself included) pitching. The kids playing were mostly 14-18 years old so it was a pretty good game that was taken really lightly by both sides as it was a pick up game.  When we weren't in the field, as well as those of us that weren't playing in the game, put on a little make shift clinic for the younger kids. There were kids that were barely old enough to speak Spanish at all let alone English, that were throwing the ball with perfect form and were bringing the heat for their age. After the game Kiko brought everyone together and gave a message. Truth be told he was preaching the gospel pretty hard, from what I could understand. I would like to think I understood 85% of his message but it's probably less than that.

I'll talk more about his lesson later on. We ate lunch and had a little down time before we went back in to Santo Domingo to play the local FCA chapter. I didn't know the FCA went down this far but I guess looking at it I don't know why they wouldn't. They were pretty good. We ended up beating them 4-0 though due to great pitching on our part and great hitting too.  I sat for the first half of the game like expected but when Scott went in to pitch I took Goldsmith's place at second. Scott asked coach to keep me in after he was done pitching instead of him going back out as planned because his arm wasn't feeling good. Truth be told none of ours are, suddenly starting throwing probably wasn't good for them but we've got a little time till the two-a-days start again and we need to start throwing.

Something that really bothered me during the game was this massive group of kids that would ask for whatever they saw us with. It wasn't a "hey could I have one of those" or "would it be alright if I could get that from you", they would say "hey you, give me the glove" or "hey my friend gimme the hat". At first I thought that it might just be the language barrier but it turned out the kids could speak pretty good English.  I gave some of my seeds away anyway even though I didn't feel good about doing it. I also gave away both jerseys and the hat that SCORE gave us but I gave them away after the game.  I kept telling the kids "despues al partido" which means after the game but none of them listened to me and would come back asking in 5 mins. There was one kid that never said "gimme gimme gimme" though so I found him and told him in Spanish, "because you never said gimme gimme gimme," and I gave him a bag of seeds. Hopefully I not only gave him seeds but also planted a seed inside his head.

After the game, Kiko gave the same message as before. He would start by pulling out a baseball or a tennis ball and saying "what is this" obviously in Spanish. The kids would say what it was and he would ask who wanted it. When a bunch of kids would raise their hands he would tell them "then take it" one kid would be the fastest and get the ball. After everyone sat down Kiko asked everyone how the kid got the ball.  Typical answers were that he took it, or that he grabbed it, but Kiko kept asking until someone said that he received it. He made it clear that that was how the kid got the ball, because Kiko allowed him to receive it. He then related that to our relationship with Christ. When he talked to the group that had gathered, you could tell how passionate he was. He gave everyone an opportunity to come to Christ, and one by one a bunch of people stepped forward.  After we prayed we all gave away our stuff, I felt better about giving it away after the game without a huge crowd asking for everything.

When we got back after dinner we went to the SCORE hotel in Boca Chica to meet up with everyone involved with a SCORE ministry down here. After making Wes a mannequin and some worship music we heard a message by a former fireman.  He compared being a Christian to being a fireman overall it was a pretty good message there was a touristy market after the message and I resisted buying a butterfly knife. Tomorrow we get to go to a Dominican ball game and I have no idea what to expect.