Multiplication

There's another college ministry in Puebla called "El Pozo" or "The Well" that is also known as "La Casa Verde" or the "Green House." We've gotten to know the staff there and have started some great relationships since we go every week and invite all our athletes to their weekly meeting. I hate it when ministries compete for people..... it doesn't make sense but it happens all the time. I digress. Anyway, they had a Thanksgiving party on Thanksgiving (obviously) and planned enough food for 120 students. 230 students came AND THE FOOD DIDN'T RUN OUT!!!! They weren't skimping on the portions either. On the contrary, they were filling up plates and the food ran out when the last person was served. Bread and fish anyone?? Isn't that nuts? I love that story.

This is a crazy full week and I'm starting to get a cold. It could be because it's 7 degrees in our house in the morning and at night and 300 degrees during the day. Or that I haven't gone to sleep before 12:30 yet this week. My plan is to just drink a TON of water and sleep. I heard a rumor that if you go to the doctor here, they give you a shot.... no matter what. My friend told me he went to the doctor for a sprained ankle and they gave him a shot in the butt. Why you ask? Great question but I'm not about to find out.

Today we went to jail. There's a baseball player at one of the universities and became a Christian within the last year. He's a really good friend of our team leaders, John and Natalie. They've been visiting him regularly but today we went with them to let our friend know that we're still supporting him. It was awesome! All the men in there were really polite and just excited to have people in there. They served us coffee and taught us how to play a board game that they play in there alot. At first, I didn't know what to excpect since there was a big group of white folk (of which 5 of the 6 were female) going into the all male jail, and now I can't wait to go back. Our friend was talking about how he's been reading the Bible a lot and, having a lot of time on his hands, has really been able digest and think about it. He said it's been giving him so much peace and his faith is really growing.

We went to 2 girls basketball games in the last 2 days against rivals. It's interesting to watch these games because I don't ever know who to cheer for since we work with girls from both teams. After the game yesterday I was walking outside by myself and just reflecting on what I've been doing the last 2 months and realized, I'm so incredibly thankful for my life right now and the friendships that I've made in such a short time. You know those moments when you such all the sudden get really happy? That's what happened yesterday.

On Friday, Katie and I are going to play on a club team in a city about 45 minutes from here. It'll hopefully become a regular thing. We're playing with one of the girls that was on our team when we came last time (crazy how those connections just pick right back up where they left off). Then on Saturday we're going to help with a little kids basketball camp and then playing in a softball game. I'll definitely keep you posted on how it goes.

I hope you're all doing great and enjoying ALMOST December, which means, almost Christmas. I'll be home for Christmas so I'll hopefully see you :)

Furniture.

Mexico, oh Mexico. We officially have the majority of our furniture in our house. We have a couch, a table with chairs, a shelf (that we put together ourselves. We say it has personality since we didn't do it right and it's kind of lopsided... but it holds stuff), and matresses. The matress store said they were going to deliver our stuff last Wednesday. They called last Wednesday and said they won't be here until this Wednesday. Last night (Saturday) they called and said our matresses will be there in a half hour. It's a good thing I wasn't time-oriented in the States otherwise this could be frustrating. Instead, it's just kind of funny. I put pictures up of the house and of lots of other stuff.

This was kind of an interesting week. Monday was a holiday in Mexico so we had the day off because the universities had it off too. Thursday was Thanksgiving and, of course, being on a team with nearly all Americans, we celebrated. There were about 45 of us at the house that I lived in before our apartment was ready. It was a lot of fun. Families from all over the place were there.

This last week, I gave another team talk on being competent. At the end we made team goals and how they're going to achieve them. They'll be taped up on the wall everyday for practice so they can remember what they're working towards and how they're going to work for it. Tomorrow we're going to talk about being prepared.

On Friday, Jolita (one of my co-workers from Lithuania) and I met with the captain of the volleyball team at UDLAP. She's starting to give some of the team talks because she wants to start taking more of a leadership role. Her team responds to her really well. We met with her in the morning before practice and had a short devo, reviewed her talk, and prayed with her. Her talk went really well!!

The Bible study with the soccer team, that I talked about in one of the earlier blogs, started on Wednesday. There was 1 girl from the UDLAP soccer team that went and it went well! It's kind of a weird time right now because finals are coming up next week and the week after, the soccer girls are leaving to Mexico City for a tournament next week, and the semester ends in the next couple weeks. Schedules are weird so it's hard for a lot of the athletes to fit anything else on their plate right now. We're praising for the one though!!! Next semester it should be easier for more to make it.

Please keep our other roommate, Erica, in your prayers. She's raising support and will hopefully be here in January if everything comes in. Also, her aunt is struggling with cancer right now. Please pray for healing and for comfort for her family.

Love you guys!

A home is where your heart is...

I really hope that saying is true, "A home is where your heart is" because right now, our heart is the ONLY thing in our new apartment. We've officially moved in, however, we don't have beds, couch, chairs, a table, dressers, or anything other type of essencial furniture that most homes have. However, we have walls, a ceiling, food, and bathrooms so all in all, we're doing pretty well. Our fridge showed up today. Things are funny here because they'll tell you a day that they're delivering your stuff but my next question is always, "What time will you bring it?" Their response, "Sometime between 9 am and 9 pm." Awesome. I forget that time and agendas don't exist here. I'm slowly learning. Our beds were supposed to come today but they called and said that they won't be here until next week. This is all just one big adventure. I'll put pictures up when we get everything set up. I'm super excited to be able to start inviting a lot of the girls over and have this be a safe place for them to come and just hang out and just be. That's part of my vision for this trip is to provide a place and friendship for these girls to retreat to. Please be praying for that.

One of the amazing parts about this apartment is that there's a fantastic view of 2 of the volcanoes; Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl (good luck). There's a 3rd volcano and it's called La Malinche but you can't see it from our house. There's a couple different stories that go with Popo and Izta. They're all sort of a Romeo and Juliet type stories. Izta was a princess and Popo was a warrior.

I gave a team talk today with the Tec basketball team and we wrote out team goals and how they're going to achieve those goals. It went well. We've been focusing a lot on values and really being intentional on figuring out what our values really are. Some of them have really put a lot of thought into it... some, not so much. I've been having some great conversations with a lot of girls. I'm going to start meeting with a couple of them 1-on-1 soon because some of them have English tests that they want to practice for. I'm looking at it as an open door to really get to know their heart. Little do they know that I don't even speak English very well but God will use that time.

Tomrorow we're going to spend Thanksgiving with a group of about 50 people and I'm in charge of cooking a ham. Again, little do these people know how lost I am in a kitchen. Pray that it's edible by the time I'm done with it. I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!! I'm gradually putting up pictures for you all to see! Love you all!

Global Leaders

This weekend there was a Global Leaders conference at my church that a couple people from my team went to. It consisted of 11 different people from around the U.S. of different professions such as pastors, psychologist, authors, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, CEOs and Founders of different groups. All in all, a pretty eclectic group. It was a video conference that was dubbed in Spanish so there were 4 of us in the very back where the audio people so kindly set us up with headphones so we could listen to it in Spanish. There was SO much information that if I would've listened to it in Spanish I would've walked away confused and frustrated.

These speakers touched on everything; humility, vulnernerability, wise leaders and workers compared to foolish ones, tough callings, taking a stand and having a daring and bold faith. There was so much to take in that these next couple days I'm going to try and process it all so we'll see how that goes. There's one story I have to share with you. The President of Compassion International, Wess Stafford, spoke. He was sharing about a Pastor that lives in Ethiopia and was preaching the Gospel EVERYWHERE he went. Having the predominant religion being Islam, governement officials wanted to stop him. They beat him numerous times, put him in jail a couple times, and did all kinds of horrific things to this man. It didn't, however, stop him. They were fed up so they were going to give him the death sentence by the electric chair... a minor overlook was that electric chairs didn't exist so they had to create one. In the plaza square, they were going to perform this execution. He put his hands through the wire loops and grabbed a hold of these wires hanging down from the tree (this was their version of the electric chair) then "BOOM," all the lights in the area went out but he was still alive. The officials were mad and confused and they put him back in jail while they tried to fix it. The next day they tried it again. Same thing happened. They got so frustrated with him that they just told him to get away. He walked away and as he was leaving he saw Wess on the hill. They stopped and talked and then the Pastor said he had to leave to go preach at a funeral. Wess told him he'd be praying for him along with thousands of other people back in the States. The Pastor said, I'll be praying for all of you too. Wess thought to himself, what exactly is he praying for for these Americans who on the surface have everything. So he asked. This is what got me... his response,

"Here in Ethiopia, we HAVE to depend on God to live to see the sunset at the end of the day. We're lucky if we have 1 Bible per church but we've torn it apart to hand it out page by page to the people of the church so they could memorize it, because if they got caught with it, they'd be in great danger. I hear in the U.S. most people have more than 1 Bible in their house... even people who don't believe. I even hear that sometimes people go all day or all week without reading the Bible or praying. How can that be possible?"

They put their lives in danger everyday and sometimes we make the choice to ignore God until it's convenient for us. My world was rocked by that story. I didn't tell it NEARLY as well as Mr. Stafford did but I hope you get the picture. For stories like this one, I'm going to be processing for a while. There were many more stories that were just as impactful.

On a different note, today we got a lot of stuff for our apartment/home and we're ready to move in on Monday!!!!! We bought a fridge and a couch so we're pretty much ready to go minus needing actual beds to sleep in :)

I hope you're all doing Fantastic! Happy soon to be Thanksgiving!

New home!

We have officially paid our deposit for our new apartment!! We're going to have a new home starting on Monday!! Thank you Jesus! It's so perfect... I'll add pictures of it when we move in and make it all homey.

Last night we had a team time over at one of the basketball player's house. This neighborhood is gorgeous! Everyone had to bring some kind of creative presentation of their basketball past. Most people made a Power Point, including myself since that's the extent of my creative ability. It was cool to see where they came from and most of them put pictures of their families and friends. One of the interesting and good parts about it was that there were about 4 or 5 girls that were crying during their presentation. Why is that a good part you ask? In my opinion, it was cool because they felt comfortable enough with their teammates to share about something they really care about. Some were crying because they showed pictures of someone close to them who had passed away and some were crying because they love and miss their families and friends and some were crying because they had found such amazing friendships on the team and it really meant a lot to them. All in all, it was a great night!

Today I was on my way to practice feeling super tired from the team time the night before and I was going early to meet some of the girls for breakfast. It was about 9:50 (practice started at 10) and we were still in the cafeteria talking. One of the girls texted the coach to see if we could have a team breakfast instead of practicing. In my head I was thinking, "fat chance man. Like he's going to let us eat breakfast instead of practice." Next thing I know, the whole team is coming into the cafeteria to have a team breakfast instead of practice. It's so different! It was really great to be able to hang out with the girls though. I feel like I'm getting to know some of them pretty well.

I've gotta tell this story that has nothing to do with anything but is just a fantastic story. Katie and I were walking down the busy street the other day when all of the sudden we hear a TON of honking. Keep in mind, honking is not by ANY means out of the ordinary, but we're talking a LOT of honking. We look up only to see 2 grown men wrestling on the sidewalk. Why all the honking then you ask? Well, these 2 men had apparently done something that they didn't like while driving and they got out of their cars, only to tackle each other and start fighting on the sidewalk. Their cars were in both lanes at the front of the intersection so while they're fighting, there's about 3 blocks worth of traffic that's being held up. Hence the honking. There were other men trying to break them up, security guards watching from afar doing, who knows what and Katie and I walking by in disbelief. Welcome to Mexico :)

I'm adding more pictures to the Photobucket link so if you want, you can look at them.

Thank you for the prayers and support!

Getting in the swing of things...

KATIE GOT HERE SAFE AND SOUND!!!!! Thank you for all the prayers. There's still one more, Erica, that is going to be down here in January so please keep her support raising in your prayers.

Today I gave my first real team talk. It went pretty well. The girls on the basketball team are the nicest group of girls in the world so they just sit quietly, participate, are respectful, and it's awesome :) There are some other teams where many of the players talk to each other throughout the team time or zone out but this group has been awesome. At the end of the talk (which part of it was on knowing each other and knowing how to communicate with each other), one of the girls said she had something to say but didn't want it to come across bad because it was directed toward 2 of her teammates. She told the 2 captains that they had so much talent and potential and are really great at motivating their teammates. But, when it came time for them to do what they're motivating their teammates to do, they're not doing it. She totally called them out, but did it in a good, constructive way. I'm not sure I could've done it in a way that wasn't offensive but she handled it beautifully. They took it well and took it to heart and it created a great team discussion.

There's going to be a Bible study starting with the soccer girls and we're also going to invite all the other teams we're working with to see if anyone is interested. 2 of the soccer girls were talking with one of my teammates last night and were still just as excited about getting started as the first night. That's a good sign since sometimes people will say, "yeah, that sounds great. Let's do it," but they're saying it just to humor you. It's good to know that they're still interested.

That's all I've got for now. Love you all!

Praise!!

This has been a great week! I've been practicing with the Tec team everyday this week and was able to go and watch them play last night and the dominated! We've been planning a social night for the team for next week. We were trying to figure out a way to get everyone together and have a good time but at the same time be purposeful in trying to know each other better. The captain and I were talking and she realized that she didn't know very much about a lot of her teammates so we decided to have do some kind of presentation of each person's basketball history. It could be from when they're little or just the last couple years of playing. It's going to be all kinds of ridiculous pictures and laughing. They also have the choice of sharing about some kind of Christmas tradition that they do with their family. It's important they know their teammates really well so I'm excited to see how it turns out.

I'm giving a team talk on Monday to the basketball team. The topic that I'm doing is "Valuing your teammates." It's about making your teammates better both on and off the court, learning about what they value, what they're good at and communicating to them how you recognize their strengths and vaules so it builds trust, and making yourself better so it ultimately will better your team. I'm a little bit nervous to give the talk because I'm not huge on public speaking (even if my audience is 12 people.) Please be praying for this since it's my first real talk with the teams and it's in Spanish.

I went to my first of the volleyball practices yesterday and got to meet the team and listened to my co-worker give the team talk. That's going to be a fun and challenging group of girls.

A big praise that happened yesterday... we had a dinner and movie night with the UDLAP soccer team over at our team leader's house. In Mexico, you never really know if anyone is going to show up to events (even if they say they will), or if they're going to bring other people, you just never know so we didn't know what to expect. The time came yesterday when we were supposed to have our team night and 4 girls had shown up. A little while later, about 10 more show. So now we have almost the whole team and we start eating dinner. Part way through dinner we start talking about movies and then Passion of the Christ comes up. I told them we should watch it sometime as a team because I've never seen it. Some of them said, "yes" and some said, "no." That led to talking about the Bible (especially Revelation, which, without fail, brings up a lot of questions). The girls were asking questions about Genesis, the parables, Icthus fish, and the metaphores in the Bible. About 5 of them talked about how they've read it before but don't really understand it or just like the stories in it but nothing else. Some said they've never read it before... with that, I asked them if they want to go through it together. All of them that I was talking to (about 5 girls) said they want to!!! There might be a Bible study starting with the soccer team!! Praise Jesus!!! At the beginning of the night we didn't even know if anyone was coming... by the end of the night, we have a potential Bible study started and were able to play X-Box Kinect dance battles. It was a great night!!

My friend Katie got here safe and sound :) She'll be working with UDLAP soccer and UMAD basketball and I'm REALLY excited that she's here!

My most recent prayer request for myself has been that I don't want to live the stereotypical "Christian life" that everyone has in their minds as boring, sheltered, secure. I'm praying that God helps me live the life that He wants me to live that He designed full of adventure, unknown, trials, faith, and mystery. I would love for you to pray that with me. I don't know if my mom wants you to because that might mean a heartattack for her because she's a worrier, but you can pray for her too.

I hope you're all GREAT! Thank you again for all the support and prayers!

Let the games begin....

I could've sworn that I still had the energy of a 12 year old and could run and jump and play for days on end.... that's until you throw me in a city that sits at 7,000 ft. elevation. It's getting easier though. I've officially completed 2 days of practice after both coaches were really adamant about making sure that I had been working out regularly and I wasn't going to pass out on their watch. I'm just fine during the workouts and the scrimmages, it's that blasted aftermath of the whole thing.

I digress... It has been so much fun being able to play agian... despite my whining. The girls at Tec de Monterrey are some of the nicest girls. They're going through a little streak where they're struggling to win so it's interesting just to hear some of their conversations on what they think the problem is or whether or not they care, etc. They don't have games until January becuase they basically have 2 different seasons. They go from August-November playing games, then from January-May hoping to make it to the Final 4 tournament. There are 3 different levels or divisons and your record of the previous season determines which divison you'll be in. 1st is the most competitive down to 3rd which is pretty weak. The girls team is in the 2nd division and, as of right now, have a 9-5 record. At least all of that is what I understood. It's all completely different down here so I'm learning step by step. I'll be working and practicing with this team 4 times a week and then be with the volleyball team on Fridays.

I was able to go to lunch with about half the team today after practice and get to know them a little bit better. They're a fun group. They're the kind of girls who while we're in the middle of lifting and there's music going on in the weight room, they're dancing in between sets and singing/trying to sing in English. It's going to be a ton of fun!

Our apartment will be ready November 21!!!!!!!!!!!! One of my other teammates will be here on Thursday to start working with us and will also be my roommate along with the third teammate who will be here in January. Please keep both of them in your prayers both for travel and for support raising.

Tonight we're going to the Casa Verde which is another college ministy in Cholula (about 20 minutes from Puebla). There they have a Young Life Club type set up with all college kids. There's worship, videos, skits, games, a talk, and dinner. There's always a pretty good turnout and we've been talking with the staff that works there about partnering ministries

Hi Friends

This week FLEW by! Being back in Puebla has been great. Wednesday was the Dia de los muertos or the Day of the Dead, so after the soccer game which UDLAP won 2-0, my friend and I went downtown to check out all the alters that were made. For those of you that aren't very familiar with Day of the Dead, familes of relatives that have passed away make alters in remembrance of them. It usually includes flowers, skulls, food, things that were symbolic of the person that passed away, pictures, a whole bunch of things. The families make a big meal for the dead so when they come back that night they'll have something to eat. It's a national holiday so most of the city is shut down. I learned alot about this holiday that I definitely didn't know before.

Starting on Monday, I'm going to be working with different teams. I'll be working with the basketball team at Tec de Monterrey, which is a private tech. university, and the volleyball team at UDLAP, which is the same school as the soccer team that I was working with. I'll start practicing with the basketball team on Monday so we'll see how it goes. Today was the first day that I've been able to play since I've been in Mexico so I'll let you know how it goes when I'm done.... if I'm still alive.

Please be praying for this next transition. I'm excited for it but prayers are definitely appreciated. Hope all is fantastic!!!!!!!!!

Back to Puebla

I know I just sent out my newsletter but I figured I would write on the Blog too... just for fun. These last 3 weeks have been crzay long days but amazing days at the same time. Going into an event like that not knowing what to do or what to expect was a new experience. Reflecting on all the things that God did and continues to do makes me smile. :) I mean, we went in there thinking we'd probably hang out at different places around town hoping to run into some of the athletes then God decides to let us have access to their dorms and cafeterias!!!

I couldn't have asked for a better team to learn from and get along with. They have so much experience with sport ministry and Chaplaincy that it was great just to feed off of their wisdom.

I was amazed at the impact that the Chapel and the relationships that we had made on the athletes. By the end of the games people were saying how thankful they were they had a safe refuge to go to talk and pray. Our numbers ranged from 5-30 people coming to Chapel. There were some days when we didn't have any music for worship so some of the Chaplains would just sing acapella (I was gracious enough to not take on the role of singing acapella. I'm just looking out for everyone else around me) or some nights the athletes would sing or play guitar and drums. We were a pretty eclectic group.

You'll see in some of the pictures some big blue, yellow, and pink anime looking mascots. Those are the mascots of the PanAm games. The blue is Gavo (named after the tequilla plant Agave), the yellow is Leo the lion, and the pink is Huichi. Just a fun fact.

I hope you're all doing great!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the prayers and support!