School is out... for the most part

The Universities are pretty much done with classes for Christmas break. Some teams are still practicing but the majority have ended for the semester. We ended our prayer walk yesterday at UMAD praying for the team and the coach. It's a Methodist school but have gone far away from Christian values so we were praying that they might come back to those values. It's a pretty powerful time to pray as a team. It's also a huge part of the reason we're down here.

I spent time the other day with one of my buddies from the basketball team. She's the girl that I've mentioned before that wrote to me before I got down here, curious about how Jesus played a role in her life and in basketball. We've spent a lot of time together. She's working on an application video to become an Au Pair in the States. It has to be in English so I was helping her with the language part and then we'll record it on Monday. She still has some interesting views on life that are strongly influenced by Buddhism. Please pray that we'll get to have a lot more talks and that she comes to know Christ.

Today, Katie and I went to see the world's smallest volcano. It just happens to a half hour walk from our house. I'll get pictures up soon. It's super tiny. It's called Cuexcomate (good luck pronouncing it). As we were asking for directions on the street I just had to ask for the tiny volcano instead of trying to butcher it's name. Tonight we're going to walk up to La Paz that gives us a sweet view of the city. Also, super close to our house. Pictures to come... when I actually have them.

I'm super excited to be home for the holidays!! I hope you're all doing great!!!!

Prayer Walks

These last few days and again later this week, our AIA team is dedicating time to spend in prayer on each campus (UDLAP, UMAD, and Tec de Monterray). We're praying for the campuses in general, athletes, specific prayer requests we've seen in the teams, coaches, and administration. It's been awesome to come together as a team and pray corporately for all these things.

Last night we had a 'Posada," which is a Mexican Christmas tradition, with the Tec girls. We started by singing a traditional song (the lyrics are in a picture that will be in the photobucket soon). We divided into 2 groups. One group stayed inside the house by the front door while the rest of us went to the other side of the door, outside, with the door closed. One group sings a certain part of the song, then the other group answers with their part of the song. The video is also in the photobucket. Next, we had 2 piñatas. Things got crazy. A couple girls got hit with the stick, others were tackled... it was nuts. All I got to show for it was a couple pieces of chile candy. Not my best effort.

After the piñatas, we had a gift exchange with just slippers. I got some sweet giant, pink, fuzzy boots. So fitting. To wrap up the night, we had tamales with dessert. It was a ton of fun.

Today during practice, Coach wanted to have practice in one of the classrooms to give Jolita and I time to do our talk and also for the girls to come up with a vision statement for their team. We did a summary of all the things we've talked about as a team this year so far, and then went into the theme of Christmas. We showed the Digital Nativity Story on Youtube (if you haven't seen it, watch it), and the girls loved it. We then got to share the Gospel with them and tell them about our testimonies (the condensed versions) and how God is the reason that we're even in Mexico and working with these teams. It's amazing that we're able to share our faith on a campus in the middle of practice!

I've got a big prayer request for you... The basketball team at UMAD has a new coach as of this year. He's really hard to read and to figure out. He's the kind of coach where the players are trying to do the right things out of fear of how he's going to react. With good reason too. His approach thus far has been to clean house. He's kicked 3 girls off the team within a matter of 2 weeks for no apparent reason. One girl, he humiliated in front of the team, kicking her off and taking away her scholarship for indecent conduct in her personal life. Another girl he bought her ticket back to Ecuador where she's from and took away her scholarship... for no reason. The most recent booting was one of the captains. They had recently played the last placed team (UMAD is in first place) and lost by 2. The coach blamed the loss on this player (even though she had a good game) and kicked her off the team. Administration is turning a blind eye because the team has a great record. The girls are being treated horribly and are being motivated by fear. Please pray for a transformation in the coach's life and for the girls to have hope to hold onto that's not driven by fear.

I hope everything is awesome where you are! Happy Christmas season! We've had Christmas music on for the last couple weeks at our house and we have a tree decal on our wall as kind of a weak attempt at a Christmas tree. It'll most def stay up all year round! Love you all!

Pictures

P.S. There are more pictures... I'm adding to the collection all the time. Just a fun fact.

http://s1184.photobucket.com/albums/z327/marnieAIA/

It's December and I'm still getting sunburnt

I'm still amazed at how it's probably close to snowing at home and here, I'm still wearing shorts and tanktops during the day.

The other day Katie and I played on a city team the other day with one of our teammates from the team we were on last time we were down here. We traveled to a gym about 30 minutes from here. It was so great to play together :) It was a really close game but we managed to pull it out with a final score of 75-7. I'm just really excited to play in a game. They play in a bunch of different tournaments so we'll get to play with them pretty often. The women on this team were so nice. They majority of them have been playing together for 10 years.

Yesterday morning, Katie and I woke up at the crack of dawn to go coach a 12-14 year old boys basketball team. Our old teammate and her boyfriend coach this team but asked us to come and plan a practice like we would have in the states. He said he wants us to work them to the point of puking... basically just be brutal. It was so much fun. There were about 18 of them and all had great attitudes. We warned them before we started that it wasn't going to be an easy practice and they were all okay with that. I give them major props because Katie and I stepped in for a 2 minute 3-man weave because there was only 1 boy that didn't have a group. After those 2 minutes, my legs were pretty close to not being attached to my body, so for them to go through the whole practice encouraging each other and without whining was pretty impressive. Lalo, the coach had told us before hand that some of the parents had gotten upset because of the amount of running that he made them do (which was hardly any). He was excited to have us run them... lots. After we finished, they acted like any other group of 12-14 year olds would do when they're about to talk to girls, they huddled in a circle and giggled while trying to figure out what to say to us and whether or not to say it in English or Spanish. They decided on "Gracias" and gave each of us a hug. Adorable to say the least.

After the practice we watched UMAD girls play. They're currently in 1st and were playing the last placed team. Well, they lost to the last place team. They came out of the locker room crying because the coach had called one girl out saying the loss was her fault then kicked her off the team. This girl is one of their best players, a captain, and needs her scholarship to stay in school. This team needs a lot of prayer because they play out of fear of how their coach is going to react to everything. He needs a lot of prayer as well. He's kicked off several players already for no apparent reason and bought a ticket for one of them to go back to Ecuador where she's from. The girls can't respect him, he doesn't respect them (and it's extremely apparent). It's one of those situations where the gym is silent during a time-out because no one knows how to react to his yelling at the girls or the ref or throwing his chair. Please keep UMAD in your prayers.

Tomorrow night the Tec girls, Jolita and I are having a team party before everyone leaves for vacation. We're going to share the Christmas story with them and to tell them that the reason we're here is so that they can know the truth about who Christ is and how they can know him too. Please pray that it's received and they're excited about it.

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