Seawolves Game

As you all already know, yesterday we took a trip to the Erie Seawolves baseball stadium to watch a game against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It was a great game with players on bases almost every inning. Most of the game the teams were tied 1 to 1. They even ended up going into extra innings. At the top of the 13th, the Fisher Cats scored a run. Everyone started giving up. Even some of the crowd started packing up. At the bottom of the 13th, the Seawolves were up to bat. Before we knew it, the bases were loaded. The crowd was on the edge of their seat. The entire game was riding on the next batter. The ball was pitched, the bat swung. The ball soared into the air. The crowd went wild, a grand slam! The game was won! 

Now, as exciting as all that was, the reason I’m writing this and, probably, the reason you’re reading it, is to hear about the kids and their time at the game. We got there early and enjoyed a picnic provided by the park. We ate our fill of hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, chips, popcorn, and what picnic would be complete without watermelon? As we ate, we could look out on the field as the players were practicing and preparing for the game. A couple of our kids were even given baseballs from the players! The rest of our time there consisted of watching the game and taking countless trips to the snack bar, the souvenir shop, and, of course, the dip n’ dots stand. They even got to go on the field for different games throughout the ball game. The kids talked and cheered, laughed and chanted (some of them made up on the spot). All in all, it was a lot of fun! 

Even with all of those fun things that happened, there are two specific moments that I loved. One of these moments was with one of our little girls in the youngest group. She had won a hat and was given another (as were the rest of us). We were giving away the extra hats to other people in the stands and she asked if she could have one for her brother who wasn’t at the camp. We said yes and gave her the hat. Soon after, we ran out of hats to give, but there was a little boy sitting a few rows in front of us who didn’t get one. We asked her if we could have the hat back, expecting her to say no. But, after thinking quietly for a few seconds, she said okay and that her brother could have one of her other hats. She proceeded to take the sought after hat down to the boy herself. Not saying a word, she went up to him, handed him the hat, and walked back to her seat, expecting nothing in return. 

The other beautiful moment that we had on this trip was with one of our older girls, we’ll call her Daisy. Daisy happened to be one of the campers who was given a ball by a player before the game. Throughout the game, balls were flying into the stands all the time. But none had come to our section, until this one. We heard the bat make contact with the ball and saw it fly up towards our heads. It was coming down, just a few rows in front of us. Daisy saw it and ran to get it. At the same time, an older man who was sitting near there also got up to get the ball. Daisy, being young and fast, beat the man to it by a long shot. The older man sat back down, disappointed. Daisy, without any prompting from anyone, walked over to the man and handed him the ball she had just worked so hard to get. 

These are the types of moments we love at Cobham, moments where our kids show kindness to each other, as well as complete strangers, without any of the normal encouragement from us. This is what we are striving to instill in our children every moment that they spend at our camp, kindness and selflessness. Christ-likeness.