This is long and there might be some grammatical mistakes so please be gracious. We are in Saltillo and off to our clinic.
The Headline in Wednesday’s paper read: Monclova…Mostro poder de acero! Your basic translation of that headline is Monclova showed the power of iron! Of course, that was in reference to Monclova’s victory over the Ambassadors on Tuesday afternoon. Coach V made the decision to wait to tell our guys about the article until right before Wednesday’s game in our pre-game talk.
Because of this decision, we chose only to show the guys the newspaper articles about our clinics.
I wish each of you back home could see that in addition to broadcasting Monclova’s victory over the Ambassadors, the reporters in this city did a wonderful job describing how the Ambassadors came to Monclova to help their kids become better baseball players. The photos in the paper and the interviews of our players and coaches depicted a beautiful scene of two cultures coming together by a common love for baseball. Even though they mentioned that we came to Mexico because we love baseball they also described how we love God even more than baseball. The reporters stated that the Ambassadors are not just playing baseball but more importantly we are telling and showing others about the love of God. Thank the Lord that all have heard our message. I praise the Lord even more that some have not just heard our message but understood our message. The Bible is clear. Many people hear, but they do not understand. I hurt for the people that don’t understand the gospel. If you are reading this blog and you are a follower of Christ, I pray that hurt for the lost so badly that it leads you to action. Jesus has touched our lives and because of His forgiveness, we must not remain stationary. How are you putting your faith into action?
I know that there are a lot of news reports back home about violence in Mexico. The truth is that there are terrible things that happen in Mexico but it is truly no different than other places around the world. This week in Mexico, we have been experiencing people just like us. They love their country. They love their family. They love their home. And, they love baseball.
Even in the United States, there are places and people where violence, corruption and drug use are destroying lives. Everywhere in the world, the root cause of this problem is sin. You do realize that 2 Corinthians 5:20 say’s:
“We are therefore, Christ’s Ambassadors. It is as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.”
Since God has commissioned us to be the vessels that He uses to communicate freedom from sin, we have to go all over the world. The gospel is the only good news that can deliver mankind from the grip of sin. We have to go deliver this message and it is amazing to see how God can use our abilities with baseball as a platform to communicate the love of Christ. Baseball draws a crowd and it is phenomenal how people will stop and listen to us after we play this game. This kind of thing just “winds my watch”.
OK, sorry for all of the preaching. It just comes out sometimes and I just can’t help it.
As I stated yesterday, after last year’s sweep in Mexico, the locals have been planning and recruiting for our return. It has been their goal to beat us and they accomplished that on Tuesday with a 6-4 victory in a hard fought baseball game. The team we battled on Tuesday was by far the best competition we have faced on an international stage. However, Wednesday’s game was supposed to be much more difficult. We were playing the Diablos (Devils). We were going to have the honor and opportunity to face the best baseball players in the state of Coahuila on Wednesday afternoon.
However, before our game, we still had a baseball clinic to conduct. We loaded up the bus and headed to the field for the clinic. The guys were pretty tired but God just seems to give us the energy we need every day.
When we pulled up at the clinic, we were just blown away at the 130 kids and their parents who were already on the field waiting for us to arrive. Our baseball clinic was 2 ½ hours of Rapido Spanglish Mayhem. It was a blast.
So many cool things happened at the clinic. One really cool element that I need to mention was a guy named Angel Batista. Angel was a Mexican League All Star from the Dominican Republic. He played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the Big Leagues and was in his late 20’s. He played for the Diablos and had read in the paper about our baseball clinics. He showed up to see what we were doing. All he knew about us was that we were doing clinics for kids and he was playing us that afternoon. He was so impacted by our message and our team, he jumped in and helped us translate at the clinic. Angel is a Christian. He said, “I have never seen anything like this before. Using baseball as a platform to talk about Jesus is the most incredible thing he had ever seen.” In his past, baseball and faith in Christ have always been two separate things. From now on, things will be different for him.
After the clinic we got some quick lunch at small taco place. Then we were off to Monclova’s Major League field and store. They opened the store for us and we got a tour of their field and work out facility. It was really cool.
After an hour rest at the hotel, we were off to the game.
After our warm up, Coach V called everyone out to Center field. It was almost game time and we all knew we were about to face Angel Batista and his crew of Mexican All-Stars on the Diablos. I wish I could really communicate what a big deal this was in Monclova Mexico. Five of the guys on this team are local superstars. This was a big time experience.
Coach V, told everyone to take a knee at center field. After everyone got settled, the pre-game speech commenced. In my humble opinion, Coach V’s pregame pep talk is hands down, the best I have ever heard. In summary, his challenge was to play this game hard. Hustle at all times and leave everything on the field. He reminded the guys of the spiritual impact that was taking place right before their eyes. He also reminded them that each one of them could flat out play this game. The bottom line is that he fired up the Ambassadors and challenged them to go win a ball game.
After Coach V’s speech, Aaron Cornell took the middle of the circle and rallied the Ambassadors. From that point on, the team was focused and the fight was on.
Aaron Cornell lead off with a hit up the middle followed by Chris Hinkley’s bunt down the line. Before we could blink, the Ambassadors were up 3-0 in the top half of the 1st inning and we captured all the momentum.
AC, then took the mound and we had the opportunity to see if these guys could hit the baseball. Well, the answer to the question is, Yes they can. One of the Mexican All-Stars, Sergio Villarreal hit a 3 run bomb that was just smoked over the left field fence. However, Aaron kept giving them fits with his pitching. Brian Holt behind the plate, the Hinckley’s in the middle and Kolby Baxter at third also contributed to some solid defense.
In addition to some solid defense, we continued to swing the bat really well. We were up 6-3 going into the 5th inning. Because these guys could swing so well, we really needed a few more runs. We had two outs with runners on the corners and Cisco was coming to the plate. The pitcher we were facing was really tough. He had a slider that looked like it was coming straight at you then would come in hard for a strike. Cisco got a head in the count, then he smoked Cesar Hernandez’s fastball over the right field fence for a 3 run home run. This put us up 9-3 and that is how the game ended. It was amazing.
The Ambassadors came to Mexico and earned the respect of people both on and off the field. After the game, we shared the gospel with the Diablos and all those in the stands and it was incredible to see many come to faith in Christ.
One of the leaders of the church in Monclova told us, “I have never seen this kind of impact for Christ in our city.” She was so grateful that we came to tell people about Jesus.
After sharing the gospel, the Diablos started taking off their jerseys and trading jersey’s with the Ambassadors. In Spanish, Diablos means Devils. Well, we came to Mexico this week and literally kicked the Devil’s rear. After that, we took their shirts and God turned them into Ambassadors. It was so cool to see all those Diablos wearing Ambassador jerseys. I wish all of you could have been there.
After trading jersey’s, the head coach for the head coach for the Diablos began rattling off a bunch of Spanish to Coach V. David grabbed Cristobal Lopez, the Hispanic pastor at Council Road, to find out what he was saying.
The Coach told Coach V, “It was an honor to play a team who played the game with such incredible discipline. In Mexico, we don’t have competition like the Ambassadors. Thank you so much for coming.”
God is really good.
We woke up early this morning and now we are in Saltillo. We are looking forward to another day of impactful ministry both on and off the baseball field. We have a clinic at 11:00 a.m. and then we will play a game later this afternoon. Before we left Monclova we stopped to buy papers. They had more articles about our clinics yesterday and did another great job of talking about the Lord.
However, because of our victory yesterday the headline about the game was a lot different.
It read: “Embajadores le pego a Diablos!” and Le Pego we did.
Posted on
Thu, July 29, 2010
by Chris Wall