Final Report on the Baseball Camps for Jesus!

This will be the final blog post this year regarding the Baseball Camps for Jesus in Germany led by Mike Garst. I will conclude this post with Mike’s latest and final report from the Vechta Baseball Camp, but I also wanted to give a final overview of the bigger picture as well.

Mike Garst, age 73, left the United States to fly to Germany on Thursday, July 2nd, and he returned to the United States on Sunday, August 9th. During his time in Germany, his primary purpose was to lead three Baseball Camps for Jesus in three different locations.

The first camp was in Aurich, Germany. He has been doing this camp in Aurich for a number of years, and as a result of the fruit of the labor from previous years, they had 125 participants in the camp and 45 leaders comprised of people from Germany and the United States. At the Aurich camp this year, there were seven baptisms.

The second camp was in Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Germany. This is a bit of a newer location. There were 55 participants and 25 leaders from Germany and the United States. It was such a blessing that there were roughly 25 young people who said they wanted to follow Jesus as fully devoted disciples of Jesus.

The third camp was in Vechta, Germany. Mike started this camp eleven years ago. There were 90 participants at this camp and 40 leaders from Germany and the United States. At this camp, there were 23 participants who declared for the first time that they wanted to follow Jesus, and there were 14 who affirmed their commitments from previous years to follow Jesus as His disciples.

I hope you will take a moment to pause, reflect, pray, and give thanks to God for the labor put into these baseball camps and the lives that have been impacted, not only this year, but throughout the years since Mike Garst first started going some 24 years ago.

There is a story from the last camp that is so important to the overall picture and to the overall desire that Mike has for these camps. There was a young woman who started coming to the Vechta Baseball Camps eleven years ago when she was ten years old. That was the very first baseball camp at Vechta. There is a woman from the United States who has stayed in contact with this young woman over the past two years. Usually, they have a weekly call. This year, the 21-year-old young woman was baptized by the woman who has been encouraging her in the faith on Saturday after the conclusion of the camp.

One of the reasons why I share this story is because one of the greatest prayer requests of all the prayer requests comes into play now that the camps are over. We need to pray that there will be leaders from the camps who are compelled by the love of God to stay connected with young people from the camps and encourage them in their journey of faith!

I know that Mike Garst has stayed in touch with two young women, Julia and Madeline. I met both of these young women at the camp when I was in Germany with Mike. Madeline actually went on a mission trip with us to Costa Rica, and she has visited us in the United States. Their lives have been filled with ups and downs, spiritual struggles, and questions. Mike has stayed connected and stayed faithful to these friendships. He continues to do his best to encourage them toward faith in Jesus.

We pray that the leaders will have this kind of faithfulness and love!

Now here is Mike’s final email update:

Dear Faithful Prayer Warriors,

Thanks again for all your prayers for the Vechta Baseball Camp that ended Friday evening with perfect weather for baseball, as well as the barbeque and final ceremonies. We had one more person from the all-day camp sign the “Book of Life” for the first time which raised that number to 23. Plus, we had three more from the junior half-day camp say they wanted to follow Jesus, which put that number at 14. Then there were 20 who reaffirmed their commitment to Jesus from previous camps. So, 57 of the 90 participants in the camp said they either wanted to follow Jesus for the first time or to reaffirm that decision.

We also had great weather for the baptism Saturday at a lake not too far from Vechta. The young woman who was baptized has been having weekly calls over the last two years with the American leader who baptized her. As part of those calls, they read the Bible together, which led to a discussion on baptism.

Please continue to pray that all the American and German leaders would do their part to stay connected to as many of the participants as possible over this next year, including reading the Bible together, so they can encourage them to grow in their relationship with God or grow closer to making the decision to put all their trust in God.

All the Americans flew back to the USA yesterday and got to their homes late in the evening.

I am in the process of writing a summary report for all three camps using the input I get from the other Americans and German leaders at the camps. I’ll include some photos and hope to get that out in the next couple of weeks.

In Christ’s ever-increasing glory,

Mike

Thank you so much for praying over these weeks and now as God puts it on your heart, I would ask for you to pray that there will be adult leaders who stay connected with the young people who participated in these camps!