Ministry Update

 
It is hard to believe but we are completely done with the regular season and this weekend starts the playoffs. The Reds, after getting embarrassed a week ago, bounced back and beat the Giants 10-6 this past Saturday to claim third place in the oldest category. So the official “brackets” for the playoffs are: 7-9 year old division (1) Indians of Candelaria vs (4) Pirates of Nuevo Amanacer and (2) Tigers of Santa Matilde vs (3) Padres of Quitanca; 10-11 year old division (1) Athletics of Quitanca vs (4) Cardinals of Santa Matilde and (2) Braves of Candelaria vs (3) Rangers of Nuevo Amanacer ; 12-13 year old division (1) Red Sox of Quitanca vs (4) Giants of Nuevo Amanacer and (2) Yankees of Santa Matilde vs (3) Reds of Candelaria. Everybody is very excited to see what will happen and we expect to have some great, intense games over the next couple of weeks.

It seemed like just the other day we were having our kick off event and with a snap of a finger over twelve weeks have past and we are almost done with our first season. To be honest it does not seem that long ago when I was daily fielding calls on something going wrong with the fields and being put it in situations where I would not know what to do with everyone speaking English, much less when everything is in Spanish! Yet, God has been good and even though it has been a whirlwind it has been a big blessing to the communities. We are excited to share that we might have a huge answer to prayer in being able to have Nicaraguan leadership for the actual league itself! The two coaches from Quitanca, Ivan and Walberto, are two men who have a passion for baseball and kids. For over 10 years they have worked with kids four to five times a week without receiving a single penny, but just doing it to help kids do something productive. It was quite random how we came into contact with these two, which makes one believe it was God. The pastor of the church in Nuevo Amanacer, Pastor Bismark, invited Ivan to a dinner we were having with the pastors and prospective coaches back in June when Stan was here. There was limited contact with him until November when we realized that we were not going to have enough teams between our churches to fill the 12 spots in the league. I met with Ivan a couple of days before I left for the States for 8 weeks. He was more than excited to have a team participate in our league. When I got back from the States, I realized the plan of having two Candelarian teams in the oldest and youngest division was not going to be possible due to lack of faithfulness in coaches and players. When I went to Quitanca to be at one of their practices Ivan and Walberto almost begged me to have teams in the oldest and youngest categories and little did they know that I was actually going to ask if they could put together two more teams. Ever since then it has been a great growing relationship between them and us. I cannot tell you how many times they have expressed their gratitude and thankfulness for what we have done for them and their kids. Their presence, along with the people from Quitanca, have been refreshing and we are excited to have them be apart of our ministry. The idea is to allow them to “run” the league for our second season that will be from the beginning of July to the end of September. We share this as a praise report, but also ask for continued prayers in this area as well.

 

Ivan leading his team in a pregame prayer

Walberto is looking pretty intense, but this was the best picture I had!

To close this update I feel compelled to share what God has been teaching and showing me through His word and surprisingly my kids that can so easily frustrate me. I do not have any children so I do not have any sort of sense the love and care that a father would have for a child. The closest thing that I have experienced to that feeling up until this moment is the relationships I have with the kids on the team that I personally coach. All but two of them have been coming to practices since last March and I sincerely do love them. I value that they came to practices weekly when there were no sights of games or uniforms, the exact things that I had promised to them. Yet even though I love and care for them, they can frustrate the living mess out of me. Especially when they continue to do things that I have been teaching them not to do be it in baseball or how they treat one another. Sometimes it feels like I am speaking to a wall. A couple of days ago I had to kick two players off my team the week of the playoffs due to their continual lack of respect towards me. One was my second best player. I did not want to do it, but I gave them chance after chance after chance and they refused to change their attitudes. What hurt the most is I tried to console them with love that was not received and they continually back talked me and verbally disrespected me. It hurt to take them off my team, but it hurts even more to know what their lives will look like five years from now. It just speaks to the culture and the up bringing that kids have here where they are constantly yelled at and degraded and unfortunately the kids often times take the personalities of their parents. Knowing that, I extended an inordinate amount of grace to them but it became that every practice and every game there was at least one if not multiple instances when they would raise their voice at me or completely ignore me when I told them to do something. So I had to do what I did not want to do. 

There are three other full time missionaries that live here and every Thursday morning we have devotion and worship time together. For the past three weeks we have been going through Malachi, which has taught me more than I could imagine on who God is and what His heart is like. For much if not all my life I have viewed the Old Testament God as being different than the New Testament God. The Old Testament God was on a rampage and destroying anything and everything in His path, while the New Testament God was all about grace and love. The truth of the matter is that there are plenty of harsh “punishments” listed in the New Testament for believers and unbelievers, but we like to skip over those parts and make our own warm fuzzy feeling watered down Gospel. Also the Old Testament seems to be only about how stupid the Israelites are, God saves and restores them but then they revert back to their old ways and neglect Him. It is easy to look and say the Israelites were dumb but, the Israelites are such a perfect picture of how humans are. Malachi begins with him calling out the Israelites for their sacrifices. Instead of sacrificing their best cattle (something that was going to genuinely cost them) they were sacrificing their sick and crippled cattle (something that they would probably have killed anyway). Let me tell you, God was not happy about this. In Malachi 2:3 He says, “I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile.” Talk about going from 0-100 real quick. How can the Israelites been so stupid in their sacrifices? The funny thing is although I am forever grateful to have been born under the new covenant that abolishes the need to offer sacrifices to cleanse me of my sins, there is still a sacrifice to be given and that is my heart, it’s my life. O how are sacrifices are so similar to those of the Israelites. We neglect to give God our best, the very definition of a sacrifice is giving up something that costs you! Yet we continually give God our “sick and crippled” selves and expect that it does not matter to God. Is God not the same? Jesus Himself says in Luke 14:26 & 27, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own self—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Ummm, that whole sacrificing your best cattle thing is sounding a lot better. God desires all of our hearts, but why? It is what stems his anger towards the Israelites throughout the Old Testament; His passionate, all-consuming, all-covering, radical love for us. Of course He is a jealous God because He understands that we will never be complete, we will never experience full joy outside of His love. That is why He passionately seeks us, waits on us, calls us into deeper because He loves us so much. I almost daily tell my kids, “I will not tell you to do something that will hurt you or make you worse. Trust me and do what I say.” O how frustrated I get when they continually do the things that I tell them not to do. I ask myself, why do they do things that make them worse? I can just see God bopping me on my head and passionately saying, “Jeff why do you continue to do the things you do? Why do you continue to neglect my teachings? Why do you not surrender this part of your life to me? Don’t you know that I will not do something to hurt you or make you worse? I love you and want the best for you!” The “anger” we see from God in the Old Testament I believe comes out of frustration and sadness from people that He radically loves and wants the best for, but continue to make the same mistakes and refuse to walk in the ways of the Lord. In Hebrews it says, “…the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.” Like I said when I have kids of my own I will understand more of how God’s love is for us and understand better of what it means to discipline out of a place of love. But the even more beautiful part of the story is that we are not only God’s sons and daughters, but we as a church are His bride. John Piper in a preaching he did on Malachi 2 sheds some light on God’s heart for His chosen people, “He is the God of Israel. The fellowship may be broken. There may be exile and separation. There may be anger and tears. But when the whole story is told, the sum of the matter is Isaiah 54:4-8: ‘Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.’ God will never nullify His marriage to the elect. Christ will never forsake His bride, the church. He is a covenant maker and a covenant keeper.” Praise be to God. Please keep me and this ministry in your prayers. Thanks and God bless.