Jill Macioch 2024

Love pours out in many ways and today it was in the form of sports. It all started out for me while standing next to a group of boys playing makeshift baseball.  One of the players walked up and handed me the bat. That was my initiation to vertical baseball.  A group of us from church played with the boys, while another girl joined in. It was essentially vertical baseball in a very narrow area with the local church on one side. What was so exciting was how we communicated with each other through the joy of sports. The kids were so excited to have us participate throughout the afternoon. This was such a powerful moment for all of us. Well, I didn't get to sit down after baseball, I was recruited to play volleyball and football (soccer). The joy that we all felt was contagious and didn't stop there!

There was plenty of coloring, singing and fun dance movements going on in the church.  One of my special moments was befriending a 15 year old boy from the community that had also played baseball with us earlier. As some of our CGLC members were about to do a skit for the kids, I grabbed some coloring sheets and the Children's bible and sat down next to this boy.  Our communication was the same as during the sports with a lot of pointing and hand gestures.  While coloring, I opened the bible to the story of God's creation and then a picture of Jesus.  He wasn't very interested at the time, but after I started coloring again, he grabbed the bible and started looking at it again and then starting talking to the girl behind him about the bible.  It may be small, and I'm not sure if the seed was planted, but it made me smile to see him open up to us as a group, and being receptive to sharing this experience with him. God works in powerful ways, and even though communicating with the children was not easy, we were able to communicate through the love of sports and showing love for each other.