June 27 Thoughts from Chris

Thoughts from Chris Hill after the first day of Baseball Camp...

First Day of Camp.

Today was the first day of Mission Croatia 2012 and we hit the ground running.  It was great to get out early and put in some good ol fashion manual labor.  The air was crisp and clear and made for easy working, if you call pushing dirt around easy.  But as it says in Corinthians, "in all you do, work as if you are working for the Lord."  Dalton, Robert, Rusty and myself worked to dig out and form the area for the stage that needed to be cemented so the "Rock" can do his thing when he gets here.  

To be honest, from all indications I had a thought that we would have 5 or 6 kids show up for camp today.

Camp was to begin at 4:00 and at 3:30 there were already kids showing up.  As soon as I saw this dad and his two boys that early  I said, "Thank you Lord."  I knew he was going to send the right kids and the right number of kids for us to work with.  As we started setting up the stations, I'd look over my shoulder and there were 2-3 more, then 5, then 8, then from out of the weeds, came a group of about 10 kids, and I told Dalton," today's going to be a good day."

We ended up having 25 kids and about 10 parents stay and watch, which is a big key for our dreams to grow the baseball program here in Sisak.

We worked on playing catch, ground balls, and fly balls, and played a scrimmage game with kids and throughout it all, we saw a lot of smiles.  Most of the kids looked like they had played a little baseball, or at least seen it played, which was great. Their enthusiasm was endless and they were very receptive and eager to learn. In particular, I could not take my eyes off the the only two girls that were there.  Hannah, who was a very tall, beautiful 12 year old with a great swing, and Matea, a 9 yr old wearing crocs.  Maybe it's because I'm a father of 2 girls, but it melted my heart to see these two girls having so much fun learning to play this game. Their smiles are burned into my heart even as I write this.

We asked them who was coming back tomorrow and they ALL raised their hands.  We will also have the Bears from Zagreb tomorrow which will make for a fun day. 

After talking with the kids, we prayed with them, and as I do sometimes, I looked around during the prayer to see how many were listening and bowing their heads.  More than not were listening and as we said Amen, most joined in.  This is always a blessing to see the kids acknowledge our praying and it's our way of saying this is why we are here.

No matter what we think or plan, today was a reminder that God's plan is the most important plan and ours is really moot. Whether it's one or 100 hundred kids that come the rest of the week, it's going to be a blessed time at the Nest. I'm so thankful for being able to be here and use my useless knowledge of baseball to have an opportunity to share something with these kids.  

All in all, it was a great start to the camp.  I really wasn't expecting much but God always shows up bigger and better than I can ever imagine.

Can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow.