Baseball Season

Baseball season ended last week and I'm still recovering. Who would've thought that running 5 teams in a baseball league could be so tiring. Since Memorial Weekend I felt I was working 12 hours a day, I almost thought I was a Scientology staff member again. When Jeff and I decided to run the Urban Impact Baseball program I must admit that we did it more out of duty rather than something we felt called to do. We were being good employees. I must admit that for the first few months (March/April)I felt like I was going through the motion of running a program. Then something hit me. I was at the ballfield and I noticed that one of the mothers was at the field with a bunch of kids playing ball. This mother, I must admit, was someone who I steered clear of due to built in prejudices. She was what we would call in my suburbia world, "White trash". She had all the traits and character of that.

The holy spirit somehow softened my heart and prejudices and allowed me to see this woman as someone who God's loves and created. From this point on I was able to not only have a relationship with her but with others also whose lives and experiences are so much different from the one I have.

Before I go I've got an interesting story of a young man I've gotten to know through baseball. This young man comes to our office every afternoon during the school year to work on his school work. I know he comes from a broken family, his mom is a custodian and his dad is in prison. He has no relationship with his father. His mother does the best she can but I'm sure she has her demons. He has 2 older brothers and an older sister. This young man would help me with the snack stand throughout the season. If we made a decent amount of money I would try and pay him. The last night of baseball he came early to help set up and stayed late to help put everything away. I was able to give him a nice bit of money for helping. He asked if I could drive him to a store. I did thinking he would buy some candy or some other junk a 7th grader buys. He comes back in the car and I asked what he bought. He pulls out some socks and deodorant. I was dumbfounded, I didn't grow up with a lot of extras but I never had to worry about sock or deodorant or any other staples. Once again it showed how wide the divide between what these kids have and experience versus what I have and have experienced.