Summer 2023 MiLO - Blog 11

 

Summer MiLO Blog 11 No Matter How Small The Victory, It’s Always Sweet! The Apostle John states that “our faith” is the victory that overcomes the world. The original Greek terms translated as “our faith” in 1 John 5:4, refer to putting our trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ or believing in the gospel’s message. Anyone who believes in Jesus for salvation and trusts in Christ’s atoning work on the cross—His death and resurrection—shares in His victory over sin, death, and the forces of evil at work in the world. Through faith, we believe in Jesus Christ and are born of God, Galatians 2:16. Through faith, we surrender our wills to His. Our faith is the key to victory. The only way to overcome the world is through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 17:33.  We Christians will still battle with sin and darkness because we live in a fallen world. John makes it clear that life here on earth can be challenging: “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:16-17  Through life we have these small victories over things that come across our paths of life that temp us to sin and take away our focus on Jesus. But through Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit we can have victory over those and we need to celebrate even the small ones. On the last day of every baseball camp we have a Baseball Olympics, where the campers are separated into teams and our coaches take them through a series of races and games competing against each other for ultimate goal of being the camp Olympic Champion.

Baseball Olympics

To reach that goal the team has to compete in a series of competitions to earn points and to watch those teams get excited when they win just one of the competitions, is always heartwarming or even when one of them accomplished something they had never done or weren’t expected to do.

Camp Celebration

One such example, was this young boy who came to camp only on the final day so no one knew his caliber of play. He proceeds to hit a home run over the fence during home run derby. The smile on his face said it all and I just wish we would have had a picture to capture the moment. However, that smile is etched in my heart and I’ll never forget the shock on his teams faces and the looks of surprise each of us had at the moment he hit it and the cheers that followed. We need to celebrate those small victories to help us clear the hurdles that will try and defeat us next.

Mighty Owners and Winners of the 2023 Baseball Olympics

Mighty Storks

Mighty Bears

Mighty Astros

What a wonderful and joyous time we had with those 34 campers and at the end of the day they asked us if we would come back! We assured them that if God would allow we would be back to celebrate victories together! Our prayer is that the seeds of the gospel that were casted would land on fertile soil and the ultimate victory in Jesus would come to fruition. Only God knows, and as long as He allows we will continue to come and plant those seeds.

Thank you for your support and blessed to have you behind us, as we walk where He calls us!  HE DID IT! For us!  So Let’s Do IT! For others!  Have a wonderful God filled day! David