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| Teams "buddied" up with kids at the Kiwanis Miracle League for a day of baseball. Photo by: Faith Crane |
Multiple Walnut Creek Church teams spent day two of Mission to the City serving the Kiwanis Miracle League, an organization
devoted to giving children with special needs a place to enjoy America’s
greatest pastime.
Each member was “buddied” with a child and assisted in a
friendly game of baseball. Unlike your average little league, competition is
minimal. Every participant gets the opportunity to bat, run, and score; and
each game ends in a tie. Participants had varying degrees of functionality, so
members served by helping with coordination, running or standing alongside
children, helping participants to hold their bat or glove, and pushing children
bound to wheelchairs around each base.
Downtown Community Group leader Zachariah Saari enjoyed seeing all of
the encouragement just one game could bring to so many children.
“You could actually see kids light up and get super excited
about it,” he said. “The whole experience was really good because people cheered for each other. Everyone won; everyone got a hit, everyone got to
run through all the bases. It was really coordinated well to where everyone got
the best feeling of playing baseball.
“Some kids couldn’t communicate, so you had to try to point
at things, laugh, and smile, but everyone had a good idea how it worked," Zachariah said. “Some of the kids had been doing it for a long time.”
Travis Grandgeorge of Walnut Creek Downtown said the time spent with the children was a great way of living out the Gospel and investing in people that don’t know Christ by showing them that there are
people out there who will love them.
“My favorite part was just seeing how the kids reacted to
the game, to us being there,” Travis said. "And just all the encouragement
they showed each other, and even the encouragement we were able to show them,
and to see them absorb that.”
Follow what's happening during Mission to the City at m2tc.com.
By Noelle Thompson
Walnut Creek Downtown