Baseball. It’s America’s pastime. The dream of becoming a Major League player lives inside the hearts and minds of little boys and young men all over our country, and the sprawling suburban areas around Atlanta serve as one of our nation’s hotbeds for youth baseball.

But although the game is popular enough here to be called our national pastime, baseball is the lifeblood for the people of the Dominican Republic. It races through their veins and provides them with excitement and hope for the future.

There, children begin playing the sport from the time they can walk. Many see baseball as their only ticket out of extreme poverty. In the streets, kids play with tree limbs and bottle caps, dreaming of becoming the next David Ortiz or Albert Pujols.  

That is why the FCA baseball ministry here in Atlanta leads mission trips to the Dominican Republic. FCA baseball is the baseball-specific ministry for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and operates different initiatives and programs throughout the city of Atlanta, the state of Georgia and in the Dominican Republic.

The ministry’s mission and vision is to use the common bond and love for the game of baseball as a platform to impact the world for Jesus Christ through the influence of athletes and coaches. Our purpose behind these short-term missions is to serve the Dominican people by helping to provide for their physical needs and to provide spiritual healing through evangelism. We also want to equip and encourage local athletes and coaches to be missionaries.

In June of 2009, FCA Baseball led its first mission to the Dominican Republic. Our mission team last year consisted of 35 middle school-aged baseball players and their coaches. It was a very successful trip and we realized immediately that it was only the beginning of a long term mission. That trip was so powerful that I began laying out the long-term vision for FCA Baseball in the Dominican Republic and started planning for the 2010 mission on the plane trip home.

Interest in this mission from the baseball and softball communities all across Georgia has really blossomed, as the 2010 FCA baseball mission team was quite a bit larger than last year’s.  

This year’s team consisted of 101 baseball and softball players aged 13-18 along with 16 travel ball, middle school and high school coaches and 20 accompanying adults.  

We returned to the Dominican Republic last month to serve the needs of the Dominican people and share our Christian faith on baseball and softball fields, as well as in impoverished sugarcane villages and orphanages within a 90 mile radius of Santo Domingo, the capitol city.  

Over the course of 10 days this summer, the team was able to provide enough food to feed five different impoverished villages for a week’s time and distributed 700 Bibles to the people in these villages.

It was clear to me that we’re beginning to make an unbelievable impact on the culture, and a lot of people in the Atlanta area are getting on board.

However, we knew based upon the results from last year’s trip that this mission was not only about serving the needs of the Dominican people, but also about what God wants to do in the hearts of those who are called to go with us.

Because of the solid leadership that was raised up for this trip, we were able to take this very large mission team and break it into six intimate small groups, which allowed us to effectively minister to each one of our team members every day as they in turn served and ministered to the Dominican people.

Although everyone who participated in this mission was eager to compete against the various Dominican teams in the villages across the island, it became obvious once we arrived that the games of baseball and softball were nothing more than a common bond used to assemble this mission team together and connect us with the Dominican people. 

Although our on-field performance against the very strong Dominican teams was good, the real “wins” for us came as we shared our faith and the Gospel several times each day after ball games — and as we provided food and served the poor and the outcast throughout the impoverished sugarcane villages, orphanages and on the fields of play.

This trip has truly blessed each member of the mission team by providing a very unique opportunity to see the world through a different set of lenses and to come home with a different perspective of life and what truly matters.

Jake Harris, a 15-year-old baseball player from Marietta and a repeat member of our mission team, shared his thoughts about an afternoon visit to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.  

“That was really a difficult time for me,” said Harris. “I just thought about how we take tiny stuff for granted and those kids are happy with basically nothing in their life. But we always want more and we’re always asking for more.”

The Emerich family from Dacula made this year’s trip an event for their entire family. Jennifer Emerich, along with her husband Bill, a long time travel baseball coach; their daughter Lindsay, a senior softball player with Providence Christian School; and their son Noah, a 14-year old travel baseball player with FCA team Loganville all travelled to the Dominican this year on their first mission trip.

“What a powerful trip that was,” said Jennifer. “There were some really big points in that trip that hit home on more than one occasion. We all came away with so much more than I ever imagined. I know that my family has been changed for the better forever.”  

Without a doubt, everyone who has been a part of this mission has been changed. The challenge now for everyone as they return home to the pressures of their daily lives and their hectic schedules is to hold on to the perspective of life that they have just experienced — to be intentional in all areas of their newly transformed lives and to live out what has been put upon their hearts while they were away.  

Imagine the impact that these coaches and athletes will now have on their players, their teammates, their families and in their communities as they intentionally live their lives unselfishly and with an attitude of gratitude. We are so blessed!