Tuesday Update

Today at practice we were joined by a local 17 year old boy named Alex who heard about our team being here to practice in the paper and on TV (more on that later). Alex showed up in full baseball gear ready to practice, and it was fun to have him with us. I think everyone was struck at how respectful he was of all of the players and coaches and the obvious passion he has for the game.

After practice Dan and I went to the airport to pick up our final team member, Landon Anspach. Landon has been back at Taylor working on his senior seminar class for his major. It's good to have all 27 of the guys here and working out together and sharing this experience.

After a couple of hours of free time on the beach the team had class at the school with Dr. Jenkinson. He will hold three more class sessions before the second test of the class which will take place on Sunday afternoon.

From the class the guys had to hustle over to our first clinic of the trip. We had 60+ kids come out and they were all very enthusiastic and looking forward to not only working with the players on improving their game but also getting a chance to hang out with some college baseball players.

After we were done with the clinic, Nathan Hillery spoke to the the group of kids and shared his personal testimony with them. Nate spent the summer with an Athletes in Action Baseball team in the New York League so he had done this type of thing before during that experience. He did a great job of explaining his spirituatl journey and what he has done to make his faith his own.

For dinner, Randy and Carolyn took the team out to a Fish Fry on the beach. It's a local restaurant that had a lot of character and it was nice to get out away from the tourist area and spend some time out in the country with the people here.

At our meeting tonight we heard from Juniors Ethan Houts, Brody Rathman, and freshman Luke Hofsommer on their 3 "H's"......another great time together as a team.

One of the biggest surprises so far on this trip has been how welcoming and excited the people are to have us here. We've been here 2 1/2 days and already we have been on the front page of the local sports page, mentioned on the local news, and had a film crew come and take footage of our practice and do an interview with me on the field.

It's very humbling to have them so excited to have us, and it provides a great platform for us to fulfil our mission here and share the love of Christ with these people.

Thanks again for all of your prayers.....things are going really well and we are doing our best to accommodate the MANY requests that we are getting for the guys to come to the local schools/leagues/teams to either do work projects/clinics/or speak to the kids.