CLAYTON: I think the first memories I have are just playing catch in the front yard,
playing with neighbors, playing with friends, playing with my dad.
Just anything – I remember those times.
Not so much games or not so much certain memories in certain games.
I can’t even really remember that far back.
I remember I was in Zebulon, North Carolina in AA and got the call, into the manager’s
office like everybody else, and they said, “Hey, don’t call anybody, because the
guy that’s getting sent down and released doesn’t know yet, and so we don’t want
him to find out through somebody else.”
I was like, “Okay, I won’t,” and I immediately got on the phone, I was like, “All right,
I got to tell everybody.”
ELLEN: I was back at home.
I guess I was home for summer, and I was with all of Clayton and I’s high school friends.
I was in one big room with all of them, and the first thing Clayton says is “You can’t
tell anyone.”
So I’m dying.
He tells me that he is going to be playing for the Los Angeles Dodges in two days, and
I needed to find a way out there, and he was going to keep me posted on who all I could
tell.
CLAYTON: I show up in L.A. and there’s 20 people there.
My mom was there, some of my friends were there, her family was there, and it’s just
like – I mean, that’s pretty cool, that people cared that much to get out there that
fast.
ELLEN: It was surreal.
I mean, it was incredible that I saw Clayton play as a high schooler, coming up, and it’s
just been incredible to see this journey.
CLAYTON: I’m not going to even go through the day, how nervous I was.
I couldn’t even eat or breathe, and Joe Torre’s our manager.
It’s just – it was a pretty unforgettable day.
ELLEN: The thing is, Clayton and I never intended to start a charity or to start a foundation
at our age.
I think it was always a dream, but for us, Kershaw’s Challenge began with a very basic
need that needed to be met.
CLAYTON: By the time that we had been dating, she had been thinking about it, and she had
told me that it’s something that’s really been put on her heart.
ELLEN: The Lord kept knocking on this door, and He kept just putting a discomfort in my
heart until I was ready to answer the call.
CLAYTON: And she’s been so involved in my passion, which is baseball, and I knew that
if we were ever to get married, that’s her passion.
And so literally three weeks after we get married, I’m on a plane over there.
ELLEN: The first time you hold a Zambian orphan, your entire life will be changed, because
it becomes so personal and so real, and that overwhelming blanket of poverty is in this
one child, and you realize that if you can only make a difference in this one person’s
life, that maybe is what the Lord has called you to for your entire existence.
CLAYTON: I guess I should start with Hope.
She’s HIV positive, double orphan.
She was in bad shape, and Ellen took her immediately to the nurse and got her looked at.
From that trip on, we started sponsoring Hope.
ELLEN: Sponsorship can only take them so far, but until these kids have a place to go home
to at night, they need to feel the love of a family and the love of parents and to feel
like they’re a part of something.
So for us, it was kind of just an easy decision to make.
Clayton decided he was going to Strikeout to Serve, and so for every strikeout, he wanted
to donate money towards building Hope’s home.
And for us, it was actually the coolest season that he started that.
People can call it coincidence, but we have no doubt in our mind that the Lord was up
to something incredible that Clayton went to lead the National League in strikeouts
that first season that he was Striking Out to Serve.
The orphanage is complete, and just to even say that is surreal, because a year ago when
Clayton and I went and we talked to an architect and we went over blueprints, and a vision
of ours back then had become a little bit more tangible in the sense that we were standing
on the land, but to go back is going to be absolutely incredible to see probably 12 kids
at that point, calling this place their home, and calling each other brothers and sisters
and having parents that are living there.
CLAYTON: These people, if they have their basic needs met, food and shelter, they are
the happiest culture in the world because they have Jesus.
People get the wrong idea about Christianity sometimes, and a lot of people have preconceived
notions about what that means and what that looks like and how your life is supposed to
be shaped.
I think more than anything, if I were to just come up to somebody that had no idea about
the faith, I’d say it’s simple.
Jesus saved us, and Jesus is the only answer.
This man-God took us and saved us, and that’s it.
He’s our Savior, and everything is for Him, everything good in this world comes from Him,
and you can believe that or you don’t, but that’s it.