The Week of Pain

This week, we were able to move back into the stadium down in Itoman for morning practice. Practice was normal as usually for the first couple days. Hamada san, our trainer from mainland, was down in Okinawa for only a few days. He put together a pretty tough running menu for all the players. Like always, the pitchers and hitters each trained in separate groups. The running was pretty intense! A lot of sprints in a long period of time. Afterwards, we finished the day doing a variety of ground exercises that tested out your core strength. It's more than just physical strength. It's a struggle between mind and body! The body wants to give up first because it's so tired, but, the mind must tell the body to press on. It's the same thing in ministry. The body wants to quit because of all the hardships involved in daily ministry and all the service required to maintain stability. If your mind is weak, you will give in to the flesh and quit so easily. 1 Corinthians 9:24; Hebrews 12:1.