Little League training and God (Part 1)

This weekend me and another missionary from Poznan drove to Kutno, Poland to participate in part 1 of Little League coaches' training. Kutno is this pretty small city, sort of in the middle of nowhere between Poznan and Warsaw. Thanks to Stan "the man" Musial and another Polish American Little League has this seriously unreal baseball complex complete with incredibly manicured fields, grandstands, the main field has an announcer's box, dormitories, etc etc. The place is so much nicer than anything I've seen for kids...ever!

The oddity of it all, though, was realizing that Jack and I were (1) the only Americans there -- maybe the only Americans that have ever gone through their training and (2) that we were sitting talking about baseball, the American past-time, in Polish...with all Poles...with these unbelievably knowledgeable Polish baseball coaches, in the midst of the biggest/best kids' ballpark I'd ever seen...in Kutno, Poland. Just bizarre. I can't explain it to you. You just don't expect to go half way around the world only to end up in some room with strange people watching the 2001 World Series and then going out and playing ball with people who hadn't ever touched a baseball [in their lives] until one day prior. Bizarre!

God's amazing that way. Kyle Lake was going to preach about how we need to take notice of the blessings God brings us in all of the little things that make up our lives the day that he died in the baptistry of University Church in Waco, TX. One of the things he told people is that he would wake up everyday and say "Surprise me, Lord"...just wanting to be ready for whatever it was God would throw his way.

That's the way I felt in Kutno. Sunday morning I walked up to the top of the "stadium" and sat there reading a few psalms outloud. I looked out over this big piece of America that had somehow been placed in the middle of small-town Poland and just thought about how God has worked in my life. I thanked Him for the blessing of life...for the big things, the small things, the strange things. Sometimes I forget to look for those blessings and I just see work, cultural struggles, ministry road blocks...I just see baseball fields. I'm trying to learn to read between the lines and see how God is working in all of those things.