Corban softball team scores a memorable hit in Mexico

Written by Tim Seiber, Corban College Assistant Director of Athletics

February 4, 2006

“I just fell in love with this little girl. I just love kids in general, but this one was so special. We bonded like there was one spirit between us. She was a complete joy,” remembered soph. Laura Santie.

VICENTE GUERRERO, Mexico - With only four returning players and 11 new faces joining her women’s softball team for the 2006 season, Corban head coach Tarrah Brown decided to take her Warrior ladies south for some preseason training.

The Corban diamond crew didn’t play much softball, but what happened south of the border in just a few days may have impacted lives far beyond the athletic arena.

A dozen Warrior players and their coaches spent a week in early January helping build three houses for families along a coastal region in northern Mexico known as Vicente Guerrero. While the team wasn’t on vacation, and did nothing to polish its playing skills, nobody came away feeling cheated.

“It definitely gave us a better perspective on life and on working together and being thankful for everything God provides,” said Warrior senior team leader Rachel Hiatt (Sublimity, Ore.).

In a matter of a few days, the players, along with a larger group of Northwest servants partnering with Helping Hands, International, built and painted two-room dwellings and provided furnishings and food for native people struggling to make a living in a poorer area of Baja, California.

Before moving into the new place one construction team built for a single mom and her two children, the family had lived in a one-room assortment of cardboard and scrap metal with a dirt floor, noted sophomore Megan Lamson (Medford, Ore.).

“We built a place double the size of her old house,” said Lamson. “Before they had to share one bed, and we were able to build them twin beds and some cabinets, put in a cement floor and give them two windows where before they didn’t have any. We also gave them a shower house and a new outhouse.”

“It’s a house that they can live in and be thankful for every day,” added Hiatt. “They have a home now, not just a cardboard box.”

“It’s cool because things that didn’t seem a big deal for us – like these houses – was something that could totally change her (the mother’s) life,” said Brown.  “I remember one of the women we built a house for. Every morning she’d come out and give us hugs. And she’d cook lunch for us when we knew she didn’t have much food, she was so thankful.”

Besides special touches like painting with bright colors and adding artistic designs like flowers to the façade, the Corban women developed special relationships with the untold number of children who would gather at the work sites to watch and play.

Activity with the many children included informal ball games, skits, hammering and painting, a piñata, and the ever-popular piggyback rides.

“It was like that at every (work) site,” noted Lamson. “The kids would just flock to us, and they loved piggy-back rides.”

“The kids were so cute and so awesome because you know they don’t get the kind of things we do. To get to show them that kind of attention was really awesome. You could tell you made a difference in their lives,” said Hiatt.

Relationships grew so strong that many team members were touched by powerful moments and people they will never forget.

“I just fell in love with this little girl,” remembered sophomore Laura Santie (Seattle, Wash.). “I just love kids in general, but this one was so special. We bonded like there was one spirit between us. She was a complete joy.”

So much so, that saying “good-bye” to her young acquaintance – as it was for many of the other players – didn’t come easy for Santie.

“We were both crying pretty hard,” noted Santie. “I was trying to be so strong. I told her I would see her in heaven if not sooner, and she said, ‘yeah, she would see me in heaven.’”

Though the leaving was filled with longing and sadness, Santie, who knew enough Spanish to serve as the interpreter at her building site, felt gratitude for her special Mexican friend of seven who gave such evidence of a precious faith in the Lord.

“One time I had a go work and came back and found that she had taken some pieces of wood and made a cross,” said Santie. “We talked about it and she said, ‘yes, I have him (Jesus) in my heart.”

“She was smart and beautiful and funny, and she knew what it was to be a Christian,” said Santie. “She was a gift from God just to be with her and talk with her.”

Brown came away pleased and more than ever glad her team and the coaches made the trip.