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Diary From The Dominican: Day 5

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 2, 2008

The Cambridge Christian baseball team is in the Dominican Republic this week on a weeklong trip through SCORE International, an organization that for the past 23 years has taken players overseas on short-term mission trips. The Lancers arrived in the Dominican Republic on Monday and will return home Sunday.

Several Lancers players will be writing daily diary entries for TBO.com during their trip to relay their experiences. Junior Logan McDougall wrote about his experiences Saturday, which included the Lancers' final game of their trip.

Over the past few days I have been playing my heart out in the Dominican Republic, not for me, not for the people in the stands, but for my teammates and God. Today, I had the honor of pitching the very last game in Boca Chica at the SCORE International sports complex. I threw 5-(plus) innings with eight strikeouts, holding the very well put together Rico Carde-coached Dominican baseball team to two runs.

Andrew Widell later came in at the end of the top of the sixth to finish out the inning, although we were under time limit and finished out the game tied at 2 in the sixth. Out of all the teams that came to play in the Dominican, Cambridge Christian had the best overall record at 6-1-1.

Now, the laundry around here is crazy. Within one week I managed to lose my baseball pants, my shirt, and some swim trunks, but this is pretty much something that is expected of me. When I got to the field this morning I wanted to win over the hearts of the Dominican kids to Christ with my pitching and my generosity even if the clothes I was giving right off my back were someone else's that I had to borrow! I not only gave away those clothes but ended up giving away my favorite baseball cleats.

I prayed and had a great feeling of the outcome of the day. Matthew 5:16 says "Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven." But in God's word it also says no matter what the outcome is of what you do, it happens for a reason and a plan - God's plan. So if whatever you're doing for Him turns out good or bad, always raise his name up because just like me every thing I did out there on that field, even though it was a tie, was for Him.

Out of all the people I watched throughout the whole week, the one I kept my eye on the most was [pitching coach] Sam Marsonek and what he said. One night he gave His testimony of how he came to Christ, and he said when he came down to the Dominican Republic a few years ago he said that he had an influence on all these less fortunate kids down here in this third-world country. So over the past few days I checked him out and saw what was up, because how does someone that does not even speak the same language as all these people have an influence on so many less fortunate kids.

And sure enough with the little Spanish that he knew, he was able to change not only the pitching mechanics of hundreds of Dominican kids, but also the hearts of thousands of people in not only Boca Chica, but in all the surrounding cities of Santo Domingo. What he said not only influenced me, but now having seen unbelievable integrity, gives me the strength now to return back to Tampa to let my light shine to all the people that I influenced here and will influence back home.

One thing that I will always remember and will look forward to on the next few trips down to the Dominican is the smiling faces of the Dominican kids when you take a few days to make their day and change their life.

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