Germany Missions Trip

Aurich Baseball Camp – Day 1

July 29

We had a great first day today. We have 10 teams this year, which is one more than last year. The teams this year are Mariners, Diamondbacks, Padres, Astros, Dodgers, Nationals, White Sox, Tigers, Longhorns, Aggies, and Pirates (service team). It’s expected that we will have about 150 people counting the German and American leaders. Our daily schedule is basically: stretching, baseball station, Bible study, baseball station, lunch & rest time, baseball station, Bible study, and baseball station. The camp is from 9:30 am-4 pm. The worship music and worship services start around 4:15-4:30 pm. I am on the Aggies (this is the only week I’ll be saying “Gig em Aggies” LOL). There are 12 people on my team. We have two people new to the baseball camp this year. The others have been to at least one camp before. Ben Segars is also on my team. Frauke Bekaan who visited Texas during June and July is the translator for my team. We also have a German team leader. My team has shown some good baseball skills, especially our two new girls for it being their first day. I think several on my team are Christians. During the Bible study today, we were talking about how God created everything and if we thought something like the big bang theory was possible. An analogy that was used is if a box of Legos were dumped out, would you get a car? During the second Bible study time, one of the girls on my team started a discussion about different ways that we see God’s creation. Some ways that people said are through science, looking at ourselves (humans), and nature. After the camp ended, there was a time of worship music and one of the youth from Maryland giving his testimony. We had great weather with lots of sun and in the 80s. In the afternoon right as our second Bible study time was starting, it began to rain. The rain ended when our Bible study did. We had clouds and cooler weather as we ended up the day with our last baseball station. It looks like we will have about the same weather for the next two days. Please be in prayer for continued good weather, for us continuing to build close relationships with our teams, for no serious injuries, and for the Bible study times. The German leader on my team is named Michael. He shared in Bible study that his girlfriend is not a Christian. He thought she would be able to attend the camp but something came up and she’s not able to. Please pray that he’ll be able to show her God’s love. Attached are three pictures from today: one during a baseball station, one from my team’s Bible morning Bible study, and one of my team doing our team cheer. 

Blessings,

Dabney

Day 2 – July 30

We had another great day today. The weather was cooler with more wind and clouds than yesterday. Most of you know how cool I can get so the big question was sweatshirt on? sweatshirt off? sweatshirt on? etc. 🙂 We had some rain again but really only during the Bible study periods. It sprinkled some in the afternoon but not enough to make us stop playing ball. We got two new players on my team. One I remember from the camp last year. We started our first scrimmage games today and had two very good games. My team played the teams of Mark Scarborough (Diamondbacks) and Michael Bass (Astros). Both teams were fun to play against. During our Bible study, we talked about the fall of man and how God is still close to us even though we disobeyed and drew away from him. During our second Bible study period, we had two different youth that talked about different ways they have seen God close to them in their lives. Tomorrow we will have two more scrimmage games and worship music/youth testimony time after the camp ends. Our tournament starts on Thursday. So far, one boy has broken a finger but I haven’t heard of any other big injuries. Please be in prayer for Michael who is the German team leader for my team. His girlfriend, Annika, isn’t a Christian. I also found out at the evening worship service that a youth named Jerry has a girlfriend named Sandra who isn’t a Christian. She was at the worship service with him this evening. Please pray that both of these young men can be examples and show Christ’s love to their girlfriends. I’ve attached a few pictures from today. 

Dabney

I am responsible as a Pirate for taking care of the new kids in all of the teams, explaining the rules at the baseball stations. Furthermore we look for exceptional behavior, such as sportsmanship, how they integrate the new kids, how they respect the other team members and how they open up themselves at the bible studies. Today I was so surprised that a whole team of the Tigers where talking about their religious belief, about how they grew up and how they experienced grief. All of them including the majority of non-Christians talked about the hardest moments of their life, when family members died or relatives were fighting against cancer. There were some participants who said the only time they experienced and still experience the Lord in their life only when they are at this Baseball camp. I was so puzzled that I couldn’t close the studies and the German team leader had to do that.

I talked about these experiences later with one of the German leaders and I think it’s again a sign for us to go on with emphasizing on our mission.

I heard from other Pirates today evening that similar things happened in other groups that a lot of the non-Christians started to think about their lives and their relationship to God. Let’s see what happens until Friday. HE is among us and something SPECIAL is happening here. I feel it.
Ludger