This post originally appeared on the Children of the Nations’ Website here.

Reudy is grateful for a chance to have a professional coach and attend school. He is pictured here with his younger sister, who attends COTN's school in Los Robles.

Reudy Cuevas Matos grew up in the village of Los Robles, Dominican Republic, where a large clearing strewn with garbage served as the only baseball field. He spent his days playing there with his friends, but he says, “We didn’t have a coach, and I didn’t know how to bat or pitch. We just played with friends.”

Even though they had no coach to teach them, many children in Los Robles aspired to become baseball players. With few examples of other careers in their village, and limited access to education, this was often their only hope and dream of a better life.

This has all changed for 20-year-old Reudy since he entered Children of the Nations’ (COTN) I Love Baseball program three years ago. He learned to bat and pitch, but most importantly, he started school and learned the value of education. ”You go to school for your future,” he explains. ”If you go to baseball and you don’t make a team, you don’t have a future.  But with education, you have a future.” Reudy wants to be an engineer when he finishes school.

Players in COTN's I Love Baseball Program get a chance to train with wonderful coaches. They also get to attend school, to ensure that if baseball doesn't work out for them, they still have a future.

Making sure children are in school and encouraging them to have goals outside professional baseball is an important element of the I Love Baseball program. ”It has been a great challenge in our program, because many children want to leave school and just practice baseball,” explains Ruddy Suero, who directs the I Love Baseball program. “We want to change this. For us this is a good goal, because in our culture people think that baseball is the most important activity. But less than 5 percent of our professional baseball players have finished high school.”

Reudy plays outfield, and loves going to practice and being able to learn from a coach for the first time. ”Our coach is a very good person,” he says. ”I’ve never had a coach like that before.” He also enjoys the devotionals they have before every practice. Every time we have practice the coach starts with a devotional,” he explains. ”He talks to us about how to behave, he tells us that we should go to school, and if you’re not a Christian, he helps us to realize how important it is to know God.”

One of the most exciting parts of being a part of COTN for Reudy was getting to meet his sponsors, Perry and Janet Thompson, who traveled to the Dominican Republic in 2009 to visit him. Reudy will never forget the day he got to meet them, and proudly shows a photo album full of pictures they have sent him. “I was very happy to meet them,” he says, “and I hope to see them again soon. I love them so much.”

Sponsorship has had an impact not only on Reudy, but on his whole family as well. All seven of his brothers and sisters go to COTN’s school in Los Robles, and his oldest sister, Yermina, is now in university and also works as a secretary at COTN’s office in Barahona, Dominican Republic.

Reudy has seen a transformation not only in his family, but in his whole community as well. When asked if his community has changed since COTN came, his whole face lights up. ”So much,” he says, shaking his head in amazement. ”Now we have education, we have food, we have clothes.” Looking down at his pair of shoes donated and delivered by the COTN partner Luis Sneaks he adds, “we even have shoes now.  Everything is different.”

You can provide education and quality coaching for a young ballplayer like Reudy.  Sponsor a ballplayer today!

by Cassia Burke, COTN–USA Staff Writer