Photo of the Week...2.14-2.20

I remember the smell of freshly cut grass.  I remember the feel of the stadium lights shining down on me.  I remember the emotions filling me up as I put my arms around my teammates for the last time.  Taking in each face, each moment on the field, each touch of a soccer ball I felt on my well-worn cleats. I don't remember every game I ever played.  I don't remember how many goals I scored or how many girls I kept from scoring.  I don't remember every field I played on or how many miles I traveled.  What I do remember are the people that poured into me.  The people that shaped me into the person I am today. The relationships and bonds that formed as the result of a game.  

A group of men, living in all parts of the U.S., traveled this week to the Dominican to honor a friend, a mentor and a brother who lost his battle with cancer.  I never met Tommy Carter Barnes but this week I saw his legacy lived out through the lives he poured into.  These men worked from early morning to early evening demonstrating batting stances, proper throwing technique, and teachings on waiting for the right pitch.  They hugged and high-fived and fist-bumped a group of Dominican boys eager to learn, not only to be great baseball players, but also to be Godly men of integrity, discipline and character.  This group of North Americans have committed themselves, not just to the group of young boys in our baseball academy but have also committed to our four, full-time baseball coaches as well.

For families, and especially young men in this country, good, male role models are hard to come by.  That doesn’t mean they don't exist, it’s just not the cultural norm.  But on a baseball field lined with apartment complexes and broken down buildings, four men reminded me of how important investing in others really is.

Gamaliel, Rojas, Franklin and Jose Luis have become fathers, brothers and mentors to 210 young men desperately seeking someone to believe in them.  I have seen their dedication as they walk past my house every morning around 8:30 and don't pass by again until sometime after 5:00.  They always walk by with baseball players in tow who are asking questions, playing practical jokes on each other, laughing and practicing their swing in the middle of the street.  I had the unique opportunity this week to watch these four in action.  They don’t just show up at the field and do their “job” and hurry home.  They sit with the kids, share their lives with the kids and above all, they are building lasting relationships with them that these kids might not have elsewhere.

Each of the four men have their own stories; some growing up in the church, others growing up on the wrong side of the tracks.  But the common denominators between these men are the transformations that Christ did in each of them and a group of men from the United States who have committed to pouring into their lives so that they can pour into the lives of others using baseball as a catalyst.

Photo of the Week - 6/26-7/3

 

you might find it strange that my photo of the week is a photo of one of our staff.  you might find it stranger that it isn't of an adorable kid in one of our ministry communities.  but this moment, this picture impacted me so greatly this week that i couldn't help but make this photo, my photo of the week.

***

you could hear a pin drop.  and in a country as loud as ours, that's saying something.  you know when you can tell something big is coming, whether you know what it is or not, something in you just knows?  all your senses hone in on what is taking place before you.  you are acutely aware of how people are positioned, where they are looking, who is drawing the attention.  you wait in anticipation for "the event" to occur, not yet knowing what exactly it is going to be.   i was waiting, expectedly.

the young men that surrounded me, somewhere around two hundred of them, were fidgety.  some of them knew it was coming too.  others didn't want the words to be spoken.  still others were waiting for the charge.  to be part of something bigger than any of them even knew possible.  because in reality, nobody ever really expected anything of them anyway.

i could hear it in Will's voice.  he wasn't going to shy away from this conversation.  he knew this was the moment.  he knew a week like this was his platform.  God's platform.  Will knew that if he wasn't bold, if he wasn't real, if he didn't hit them where it hurt, then all of this they'd been doing would have been wasted on deaf ears.

he started to talk about fathers.  risky subject.  maybe you or i have a pretty good picture of a dad because we grew up with amazing ones.  but these boys don't have that good fortune.  a majority of the fathers here are the furthest thing from what a father is supposed to be.  and when i say majority, i'm not exaggerating a statistic so you'll be blown away; the cold, hard truth is good examples are few and far between.  they abuse their children, beat their wives, drink incessantly.   and that's if they are around.  most "fathers" are but a vapor in the wind.  you only speak of them when signing official papers or are enlisting in school and the school officials need to know your father's name.  do you know a couple dads like that?  i know twenty; and they all live on the same street.

so when Will brought up their fathers, for most of them it was like opening a wound they would rather just put a bandaid on.  but Will wasn't having it.  he knows that if something doesn't change, 99% of the kids sitting in that room would grow up to be just like their fathers.  abusive.  deadbeats.  criminals.

Will asked them to raise their hands if their fathers drank a lot.  more than half the hands in that place shot to the roof.  the others raised their hands, not physically, but with a disgraceful expression.  "how many of your fathers hit your mom?"  less hands went up this time but their expressions went from disgrace and shame to hurt and angry.  "how many of your fathers hit you?"  only the hands of the younger boys stayed up.  the older ones know you don't let others see that kind of truth.  "do you want to be like your dads?  do you want to follow in his footsteps?  do you want to abuse your kids and beat your wives and get drunk every night?"  i could hear the quiet sound of influence passing over the crowd.  the sound of sniffing and tear-wiping began too.

something incredible happens when a person is empowered.  when they realize they have expectation.  it ignites something in them.  they suddenly feel like who they are now doesn't have to be who they will always be.  change is a powerful thing.

there was this moment when i could barely see through my own tears and i watched as Will's eyes welled up too.   i realized THIS is God's redemption plan for this island.  maybe the young men who are here, listening, will change the course of an entire community.  maybe looking back ten years from now we could track a new generation of husbands and fathers to this very room.  maybe, all it took was one guy from louisville, kentucky to charge these boys to be Men of God.  and almost as if it were rehearsed, when Will asked this room full of broken boys if they wanted to be Men of God they chanted back at him, "Hombres de Dios," with fists raised in the air.  not because they were expected to or they would win a prize if they did it really loud but because the flame was lit and the torch was passed and for a room full of boys, the buck was stopping here.