Youth Ministry And Philanthropy: An Interview With Jeremy Affeldt

By Beth Davies-Stofka

Jeremy Affeldt, relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, had an outstanding 2009 season, posting a miniscule 1.73 ERA, holding batters to a .197 average, and maintaining a 28-inning scoreless streak from May 8 to July 24. His role in the Giants' unanticipated bid for the National League Wild Card earned him a nomination for the league's MVP award, and fans voted him This Year in Baseball's "Setup Man of the Year." Affeldt was, by any reckoning, major league baseball's best relief pitcher in 2009.

Affeldt's dazzling success on the mound was matched by the nomination he received for the prestigious Jefferson Award for Public Service . Nominated for his work with the anti-slavery Not For Sale Campaign, Affeldt also donates much of his time and energy to the Christian charities Feed the Hunger and Living Waters International, and probably some other charities too. Affeldt isn't one to talk about himself. But give him the opportunity to talk about young people or about Jesus, and the floodgates open. We sat down at the start of spring training to discuss faith and philanthropy.

I'd like to begin by asking, how did you get involved with the Not For Sale Campaign?

Well, that was kind of interesting. I was talking with Mike King, who runs a youth ministry in Kansas City called Youthfront , and through that the Feed the Hunger campaign. We send food to Africa, and we've been sending it to Haiti recently. Young people help out. They package the meals, and it's about 20 cents a meal, so they raise money too. It's youth-oriented, helping young people to be aware of global poverty issues.

That has been my heart's pride, that young people, especially this new generation of people 14 or 15 years old to about 26, are really coming to understand a little bit more about global poverty and slavery. So we do a lot of stuff with young people in that area.

I told Mike I'd read an article about human trafficking. I didn't really realize it was that big of an issue. I knew a bit about the prostitution stuff, but probably a lot of people think prostitution is a voluntary act, you know? And so, I was oblivious to some of it, and he suggested I get together with a guy named Dave Batstone and his group Not for Sale , a phenomenal group that just started out but was already really advanced. And so I Googled it that night.

Now, I'd just signed with the Giants about two weeks prior, and I'm Googling Not For Sale and all of a sudden my wife said, do you see where he (Dave Batstone) lives? And I see Half Moon Bay, and I see he's a professor at the University of San Francisco, and I was like, man, that is crazy. I found his University of San Francisco email, and I thought, there's no way this is going to get to him, but I'll just take a flying leap here. I told him who I was and told him I was very interested in his organization and in seeing what he's doing in this area. And he got back to me not too long after. I don't even know if it was a full day! He's a baseball fan, and he thought someone was playing a joke on him. [laughing]

When my wife and I went to San Francisco for FanFest, we were able to meet with him and his wife for dinner. As we sat down that night in San Francisco and just talked, I fell in love with his passion, I fell in love with what he was doing, and I got involved and learned more about it. And the more I did with them, the more I just loved doing it. For instance, we helped build a hospital over in Thailand for some girls we rescued, and then I started doing Free2Play with him, which is the athletes' area of his site.

And that's when I started donating $100.00 for every strike out for the rest of the season.

Tell me about your wife. I know she's got to be important to you and to this ministry.

My wife has such a good love for people. She's a very tenderhearted person. But sometimes, you know, I'm playing baseball, and I'm trying to start this organization, and I've got a 2 ½-year-old son, and I've got another child on the way, and I try so hard not to lose her in this. I've seen her with people who are hurting, and she is so good at listening; she has so much compassion and she's got a big heart. She really likes the details, and she's come up with some good marketing strategies.

So many people think that because of what I do, I must be the one they want to talk to. Well, I'm the one who has the media at my disposal because of baseball. So I want to encourage her, and to tell people and make sure they know that my voice is her voice.

How much did you donate last season?

I don't know, I think I did 56 strikeouts last season? Anyway, it was close to $6000, and we did some with the hospital and stuff, and we're going to do more for them this year, obviously.

Are you going to do the same thing, donating a certain amount of money per strike out?

Yeah, I'll probably up that a little bit per strikeout, but there are a lot of other things we want to do with Free2Play -- like buying sports equipment for the kids after we rescue them, and kind of get them to start dreaming again. We try to do some of those things so that those who want to play sports, can play sports. I want to afford that opportunity to them. Some of these kids that we rescue, they have awesome talents, and they have been squandered by the people who are slaving them out, and they don't have the ability to use their talents. So we want to stir that dream up in them again. I'd love to build a facility that would help do that. And I want to build wells. They always need wells. So I want to work on that aspect as well this year.

Gee, what is that like? That must be heartbreaking to meet kids who don't dream.

You hear some of the stories. That they miss the opportunity to dream. Man, when I was a kid, I dreamed of being a pro athlete, and that's what I did, you know. But these kids are in the environment where right at the git-go they get sold off by their parents, or maybe kidnapped and sold, and they don't have any control over the situation. So to me, it's just a devastating act. I mean, I know they say it's inhumane, but it's worse than that. It's hard to believe that people who have a heartbeat, and have blood pumping through their veins can actually take human beings and sell them, you know, like a product.

I think it's hard to get people to understand because we think it couldn't happen today.

Yeah, I mean, there's more slavery now than when it was legalized. One of my favorite movies is The Usual Suspects , when he's talking about how the greatest thing that Satan ever did was convince people he doesn't exist. I think that's similar to the attitude that some of these people have, you know, to convince people that slavery never happens. It's so weird to me. You talk to people, and they say, slavery's still out there? Slavery's a billion dollar-a-year industry! Eighteen thousand slaves are traded in the U.S. every year !

I've watched Dave do several presentations. You should see people's faces, man, the terror that comes over their faces. The Not For Sale Campaign is so successful because once awareness is raised, it's actually inhumane for you not to participate in some way, shape, or form. You're not going to hear about slavery from someone and then walk up to them and say, "Good luck with that." It's impossible. It's impossible! I told Dave, this is an unbelievable opportunity to get your voice out, especially in this generation.

I've studied this generation a lot. It's a relational generation, this new generation of young people. They're really, really relational. When you show them something and create passion in them for it, they will actually do stuff. You start talking to these young people about their generation getting killed off, and they will want to do something. You start telling them, "People your age are getting sold. People will pay a price for you, and you're going to be doing what they bought you for," and I've seen these kids. They get angry. And that's a positive passion. That's zeal. To me, it's not a form of anger like a destructive anger. I think it's a zealous anger, like, "You know what? We can't allow this to happen."

That's the voice, that's the movement that's going to cause this thing to change. Whether it be global poverty, lack of clean drinking water, whether it be slavery, anything, you start telling this generation that this is what's taking place outside of the United States of America, and get them to have awareness of that, they'll go over there, they'll start raising money, and they'll work. The fact is that they'll want to work to become great at what they do, and become so successful that they'll be able to help their neighbor. And then that love for neighbor will actually start to ooze out of them.

So is that what you see happening when you go into the Bay Area classrooms? What is it like for students to hear about slavery? Is it a kind of emotional explosion?

All the way around, this whole issue, this whole injustice issue is really reaching into the souls of young people. It's tugging at them. And I am really, really excited to see what it does.

For one thing, they lock in. Kids who you think would not be paying attention to you when you're talking about something, just literally stare at you. They're not causing a scene, they're not talking, they're not in the back giggling. I mean, with a lot of stuff, after about 20 minutes adolescents are like, okay, what's next, but you can speak for an hour about issues of injustice and human rights, and you can literally hear a pin drop. It's amazing.

They're just so intensified on this because I think they finally say, "Where do I have a voice? I don't ever get a voice. People say I don't understand, people say I'm not old enough, I don't have enough experience, what do I know?" People say this about nearly every issue that comes up that a young person wants to speak into. And they just shut them down, telling them, "You don't have any idea of the world, so you don't have a voice in this." With this one, they are saying, "No, you obviously don't understand. This is my generation getting killed off. This is my generation getting sold off . This is my generation's voice that's getting muffled and sold and killed. I do have a voice in this. I do have the right to speak my mind on this."

Dave's got kids who are in Little League or in the Junior Soccer League who have said, "I'll put in 25 cents for every goal that I score on my Junior Soccer team." So he gives a dollar. But think about it: think about how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of kids play soccer out there. Let's just say, for argument's sake, every one of them commits 25 cents a goal. One hundred thousand kids, each scores one goal, that's $25,000.00! And it's feasible for a 12-year-old kid or a 10-year-old kid to say, I can do chores, or something, but I'll raise a buck. I'll get a dollar from somewhere.

The ability to create in these kids the feeling of "I want to achieve something, not only for myself, but for somebody else who does not have," that scenario is not there right now in the world on a social scale. But, you're creating kids now who will always think that way, so now we've got awesome things happening. Their success is for them and for somebody else.

And someone else knows they were rescued because someone helped provide, and the way they provided was by setting goals, dreaming dreams, and becoming somebody great. So now that kid, who's been rescued, now he wants to do that, and he definitely wants to save somebody because he was saved. So now you create this whole coup against people who are inhumane. Because they'll start revolting against anyone who will let slavery happen. Instead of participating in it, we'll figure out a way to ruin them.

The more people I can make aware of this the better because when you think about all the slaves every year brought into the U.S. -- I mean, this is a country people run to for freedom -- 18,000 people a year are not getting that same deal, and you multiply that over ten years and that's almost 200,000 people and it gets worse and worse, and 18,000 is only a guesstimate. It could be much worse than that.

You said you got into this because of an existing passion for youth ministry, which means that for you, working for human rights must come down to Jesus.

I've had this passion for young people. How can we get young people to understand who Jesus is? I read a study that said only 4% of young people who attend church during high school continue to attend church after leaving high school. So 96% just say, okay, I did that, I'm out. They have no reason to stay.

In my opinion they would stay if they really understood God -- the way he is, as a lover of human souls who sent his Son to die -- and the joy of Jesus. If you read about the character of God and who he is and what he is about, if you read Psalm 91, or read Psalms at all, if you reflect on David's adoration for God and you think about that, if he is all that, then why don't I want that? I mean, no one's going to leave that.

I believe that kids are not realizing who God is, and who Jesus is, in his full form. So for me, how do I help with that? I've spent years reading and asking God, and I really believe that he gave me the opportunity to reflect the love of Jesus in an awesome way where there's actually fulfillment -- where a young person says, if this, what I feel right now, is Jesus, then this is what I want.

And I truly believe that this is it, man. Jesus said, "I have come to set the captives free! The slaves will be free! I have come to heal the broken hearts." I mean, if you look at it you'll see he said all those things. He said, "I have come. I am the river of life, I am the bread of life, I'm food for your hunger, I'm your shelter, those who find their dwelling in me I will protect." He cares about shelter, he cares about food, he cares about water, he cares about those who have broken hearts and those who are enslaved in something they're not supposed to be in. So for me, what better opportunity?

I have two girls in Uganda right now who work for me, and they have sent me pictures of the well that we put in with Living Water International . They busted that well, and these kids are standing under it. They're washing themselves in it. This is clean water and they are rejoicing . I've never seen anything like this. Ninety percent of the diseases in their village will leave now, because they have good clean drinking water. The joy that's on these kids' faces for just water -- the same water that's in my toilet bowl -- those kids are actually rejoicing in it.

This is awesome! You know, I'll sit at a restaurant where I have the opportunity to say, "I don't like this water, can I have a different kind?" And we're talking about kids that are just like, "I just want water that is not dirty," you know, or these kids that are like, "I just want to wake up one day, and not be a slave. I just want to wake up one day, and know that I'm not needing my chains taken off and told to go have sex with this guy because I gotta pay my debt that some guy says I have." Right? You know, "I'm tired of going in these fields, and working hard tirelessly every day, and what do I get? I get put right back where I'm at, I get hooked to the floor, and I get a thing of bread thrown in front of me as my food."

When I tell people, they feel that devastation. But to release a kid from that, or to take part in releasing them from that, and to see the joy, that's the love of Jesus. Period. Not standing on a soap box, not holding up a sign saying that without Christ you're going to rot in hell for eternity -- I don't believe Jesus did it like that. He didn't walk through the villages and say you'd better accept me or rot in hell. All he did is redeem people, man. He had a relationship with them. He loved on them. And then when he spoke, because he'd earned the right to have a voice in their life, he said, "The opportunity is to love God. To love God with all your heart, soul, and mind."

Two commandments! Love your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love others as yourself. Those are the two commandments that God gave us. But we're not doing any of that! You can't love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind if you don't believe in that God. And we continue not to love our neighbors as ourselves. We don't do that. Because are you telling me you want to be enslaved? Are you telling me that you want to not have food and have to eat dirt like some of these kids are eating just to be able to feed their appetite? Are you telling me you would want to drink the same water that you bathed in, only 20 feet from the latrine? We wouldn't want to do that!

So the idea is to love your neighbor as yourself. The idea is that I have a right to decide who I'm going to have sex with and not have sex with, and I have a right to not be told that this is what I have to do to pay a debt, you know, I have a right to choose what job I want to do, I have a right to choose my destiny and my path in life. I have that right and people are taking that away from me solely because my mom or dad might have sold me, or maybe they died because of some of these other scenarios like bad drinking water or lack of food or HIV. And so I get snatched up by these groups and thrown into a truck and sold into child soldier slavery where I gotta shoot people because some dude told me to shoot people.

A lot of these scenarios are taking place. They all work together. What better for a young person to say, "Hey, I have an opportunity to help make a dent in this scenario, and to feel the joy of releasing some captive or seeing a well that has been broken open ," and a 14-, 15-, 18-, 22-year-old man or woman gets to say, "I helped with that." And it's the joy they see these people have, that this is life, and now that young person says, "I feel fulfilled!" This is such a good thing ! And what they may not know -- some of them do, some of them don't, hopefully they all will -- that is the love of Jesus! That's what he did! So now they say, if that's Jesus, I want more of that Jesus. As they go through life, they start seeing opportunities, and it's not a "dos and don'ts" thing, it's a respect for what he did for you. That's how he loved you, he earned that voice in your life.

I don't care if you're a Christian or a non-Christian, I think when you do humanitarian things you show the love of Jesus, whether you know it or not. When you help someone, the joy that they feel, and the fulfillment that you get from that will tell you that there's something inside of you that craves Jesus because of the way it fulfills you, the way that your body is no longer spiritually hungry. Because that cup of love is fabulous. It's full. When you do something for somebody else, it'll show you that you need Jesus. And those who have him, want more of him. You know? Because they're like, this is awesome.

I feel good when I go to bed at night. I lay my head down on my pillow, I feel great. I'm enjoying life so much. I just helped someone get rescued from slavery today, or I just helped a village of 1500 people get good drinking water. I just helped build an orphanage that will help kids and give them positive opportunities to learn and to be leaders and put shelter over their heads. I just sent 200,000 meals to a village in Uganda and fed them for a year, or whatever! You know? You had that opportunity to do it. And when you know that you've done it, man, that's just an awesome feeling.

Beth Davies-Stofka teaches courses on comparative religion and the philosophy of religion. She has also been an online columnist and critic and contributes regularly to the Patheos site.

Youth Ministry and Philanthropy: An Interview with Jeremy Affeldt