Thursday's Report for the Vechta, Germany Baseball Camp for Jesus!

For those of you who are praying for Mike Garst and the Baseball Camps for Jesus in Vechta, Germany, I wanted to forward you this update because it is so exciting and such a blessing to hear how God is working. I am sending this out on Thursday evening so it is the middle of night in Germany and soon they will be rising to begin their Friday activities, and the Friday activities are so crucial and important. We want to be praying for a great closing day! Thank you so much to those who are reading these and praying! Be praying!

From Mike Garst:

Dear Faithful Prayer Warriors,

Thanks again for all your prayers. I’ve been praying and hoping that this camp in Vechta will, like the first two camps, be both the biggest and most fruitful Camp we’ve experienced at this site. Today was a significant day because we make as clear as possible what the gospel of Jesus Christ is and ask all the participants in the all-day camp (ages 9-19) to sign a book that we call the ‘Book of Life’ if they want to follow Jesus. We also distinguish between those who are doing it for the first time and those who want to reaffirm that decision. We do our best to make sure each participant knows what they are doing before we let them sign the book, but we also recognize that there are some who may take this decision more seriously than others and that this is just a first step toward becoming a fully devoted disciple of Jesus. Regardless, we praise God that 22 of the participants signed the “Book of Life” for the first time and 20 more reaffirmed that decision!!! Of the 22 who signed it for the first time, 19 of them are at this Camp for the first time.

Since we had 64 of the participants in the all-day camp there today, that means we had about 66% of them either sign for the first time or reaffirm that decision.

In the half-day junior camp, we also asked two of the three teams so far if they want to follow Jesus, and 10 of the 16 said they did. Again, at this age level, we are not sure what they understand, but we rejoice and praise God that they say they want to follow Jesus.

Praise God, we will also have a baptism on Saturday after the camp at one of the lakes not too far from Vechta! A young woman, who was 11 years old at the first camp and has been at all the Camps since then will be baptized by one of the Americans who has been mentoring her the last couple of years.

We were also blessed by a great day of weather today with a high of 77 degrees after having high temperatures of 90 and 82 the previous two days with lots of sunshine. Tomorrow’s forecast shows a high of 70 degrees, with no rain in the forecast. So we’ve had three baseball camps without any serious rain issues. But I feel for the farmers and homeowners in this area especially since they’ve had very little rain lately and the crops, gardens and lawns are not looking very good. So I’m praying for rain as soon as possible.

Please pray that even more hearts will be opened to the gospel tomorrow and that we can continue to share and show the love of Christ with everybody in the camp and with the parents and families that will be at the BBQ and closing ceremonies tomorrow.