Coaching Hungarian baseball became a significant part of our ministry to youth in Hungary. When we arrived in summer of 2014, we immediately found out (to our surprise) that there was baseball here. Aaron and Matthew began playing and I was soon asked to coach. I wasn't sure how it would fit into our lives, or our schedule, but it has been a blessing and developed into a great ministry. I coached the Erd Giants (13-14 year old) in 2015 & 2016. I have also been involved in coaching two Hungarian national teams in the European Little League tournament in Poland, a U16 team from Erd that played in a league with teams from Austria, and international tournaments in Czech Republic and Croatia (2X). Aaron and Matthew won Hungarian national player of the year awards for 2015 in their age groups, and Matthew won again in 2016. In 2017, I coached the U16 Austrian league team and we had a very good season, finishing with a 12 - 2 record. We also played in the Varazdin, Croatia tournament once again, finishing in second place. For the next few years I coached in the men's NB1 league. NB1 is the top league in Hungary. In 2020, our team finished in third place. In 2021, we finished in second place.
As we played and coached baseball, we were able to share about Jesus and biblical principles through devotions, personal conversations, and team building sessions. We had several of our baseball players come to our H2O youth group. Several players from our club made decisions to follow Christ. And, I have been able to participate in a baptismal service for two of the players from our club.
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