Sorry for the late update and the lack of pictures. I'll need to steal some pictures from everyone since I don't have any of my own since we've been back. Here's a brief update of what we've been up to...
We got back and had a few days rest and preparation for camp season. We had one week of inner city camp an then team week with no camp. Inner city camp was interesting because its the most unorganized thing we do. The neighborhoods and churches involved just operate under different life principles than we're used to in middle class suburbia. It was a great week overall and I think it was good for everyone to get a taste of what some people live like. One campsite was across the street from homeless shelter and had some drug paraphenalia present along with the homeless people sleeping onthe benches next to our field. Quite the picture of a different life than we know.
Team week was a great recharging time after that. We camped out on the dunes of lake Michigan for two days and had a great time of games, worship, campfires, devo's, beachtime, mission clarification, etc. Most of us didn't want to go home! Later on in the week we celebrated the 4th. People really do it up here. We held our own "amazing race" down in Chicago on the 3rd (which is when they do all their festivities). The race was a blast! It was basically like the tv show in that we were split in 5 teams and were given a scavenger hunt list of things to do and video's/pictures to take in front of various places downtown. So all 30-something of us were running all over chicago for about 3 hours taking random pictures and making rediclous videos, using people on the street to complete out lists. We followed the race with devo's by the lake and then the city firework show.
This week we're back to camp. Half of us are down town again and the other half are in a wealthy suburb up north. Both camps are going well and the staff is loving it! Last night we all met up in the middle at the lake again and had small groups and worship. Both teams are also meeting to play games and have practice.
Next week we go straight up to Wisconsin for two more camps and the following week we're back in Wheaton for the last week of camp. Only two and a half weeks left until we disperse...it's gone so fast!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Final Days
Our time in Brazil has come to a close...yesterday was our final day in Rio, starting our flight home in the evening. We arrived home this morning about 5:30 a.m. after a total of 11 or 12 hours in the air.
Our last few days in Rio continued to be a great time. Our host church has blessed us continuously with their gift of hospitality. Our last night, we had a goodbye party at the beach to say thank-you for the time we've spent investing in their community. Below is a glimpse of what we have been up to the last few days.
Several more school visits...
A match for the boys against a pro team founded by Brazilian soccer legend Zico...and a night of soccer against teams from our host church. A great opportunity for our teams to model what it means to be sports ministers and cast a vision for some of the soccer lovers in their congregation.
A visit to a very poor community where the Eagles first visited last year. After their visit last year the church caught a vision to coninue to minister in this neighborhood. They have continued to minister to these kids every Saturday.
Our final day, we visited the famous Christ Redeemer statue in Rio before we went to the airport. The view is breathtaking as you can look down with a 360 degree view of the whole city of Rio. And of course, reflecting on the statue of Christ and all that means is a powerful time. We had our last team devo there before we loaded the bus and went to the airport.
So now we're back and having a day of rest, laundry, and recovery before the camp season begins. Thanks for taking the journey to Brazil with us and praying for us while we were gone! We'll keep this blog going throughout the summer as well with the local ministry updates...stay tuned!
Friday, June 13, 2008
Update 2...this is a long one!
The boys had an amazing week in Teresopolis! Teresopolis is a small city located in the mountains overlooking Rio. We stayed in an estate tucked in the mountains that was surrounded by rushing river and jungle-like vegetation. This beautiful setting was the backdrop for our weeklong men’s retreat. It was quite clear how starved we are of quality male fellowship and accountability. We were very thankful for that time and really felt God ministering to us through one another.
Each day we traveled through the mountains to center city Teresopolis where we had daily ministry opportunities. Our main church partner was Church of Christ (Igreja de Cristo). This church has a ministry in their city among underprivileged kids called, Project Grow, just like the girls. The leader of this project is a man named Pablo who was by our side throughout the week. Pablo gave up a lifelong dream of playing professional soccer to share the love of Jesus with kids in his community through soccer. Needless to say we learned a lot from him and were humble to be able to serve him for the week. Along with Pablo, was our translator Rebecca who did an amazing job of translating for us wherever we went.
We spent time visiting schools and had the opportunity share openly about our faith. Many of these kids lead a very tough life and daily battle the reality of life on the street.
Each night we visited a different church to worship with them and encourage them in sports ministry. Although, not our strength we shared a few songs along with several testimonies. The Brazilians were so warm and welcoming. We really enjoyed being involved in their passion filled style of worship.
We played 4 matches while in Teresopolis. The boys got a good taste of Brazilian futbol and really represented Christ well on the field. We played two teams that were a part of the professional club Varzea; losing the first 3-1 and winning the second 2-1. We also played two futsal matches, which is a small sided version of soccer played on a hard court with a smaller weighted ball. It was quite clear that we don’t have the experience with this that the Brazilians do. We played a professional team the beat us 12-1! We did however manage to beat the teenagers from Project Grow later in the week.
A visit to the National Training grounds of arguably the world’s best soccer team. The guys walked around in awe thinking about the legends who have trained and stayed there through the years.
There were countless stories of how we saw God at work during our week in Teresopolis. This is definitely the short newsy version, but I encourage you to ask the boys about the many exciting ways they saw God’s glory revealed. It was awesome to so many guys really take hold of sports ministry, boldly sharing their faith everywhere we went!
Each day we traveled through the mountains to center city Teresopolis where we had daily ministry opportunities. Our main church partner was Church of Christ (Igreja de Cristo). This church has a ministry in their city among underprivileged kids called, Project Grow, just like the girls. The leader of this project is a man named Pablo who was by our side throughout the week. Pablo gave up a lifelong dream of playing professional soccer to share the love of Jesus with kids in his community through soccer. Needless to say we learned a lot from him and were humble to be able to serve him for the week. Along with Pablo, was our translator Rebecca who did an amazing job of translating for us wherever we went.
We spent time visiting schools and had the opportunity share openly about our faith. Many of these kids lead a very tough life and daily battle the reality of life on the street.
Each night we visited a different church to worship with them and encourage them in sports ministry. Although, not our strength we shared a few songs along with several testimonies. The Brazilians were so warm and welcoming. We really enjoyed being involved in their passion filled style of worship.
We played 4 matches while in Teresopolis. The boys got a good taste of Brazilian futbol and really represented Christ well on the field. We played two teams that were a part of the professional club Varzea; losing the first 3-1 and winning the second 2-1. We also played two futsal matches, which is a small sided version of soccer played on a hard court with a smaller weighted ball. It was quite clear that we don’t have the experience with this that the Brazilians do. We played a professional team the beat us 12-1! We did however manage to beat the teenagers from Project Grow later in the week.
A visit to the National Training grounds of arguably the world’s best soccer team. The guys walked around in awe thinking about the legends who have trained and stayed there through the years.
There were countless stories of how we saw God at work during our week in Teresopolis. This is definitely the short newsy version, but I encourage you to ask the boys about the many exciting ways they saw God’s glory revealed. It was awesome to so many guys really take hold of sports ministry, boldly sharing their faith everywhere we went!
The girls finished off their week in Goiania with a few different activities. We had the opportunity to lead the children’s Sunday school class in the morning and then attend service at night with the same church. Between the classes and the evening service, the church body mingled and relaxed at our camp and we had a great time of fellowship.
We finished off the soccer portion on Goiania with one win and one loss. It was good competition and tough games but the girls did great. Ana had a chance to share after the game that we lost and it was a great chance to show Jesus to have the keeper share her testimony after losing by a few goals. After the other game Hannah had a chance to share and we had a good time of mingling with that team as well. Having such a small number of girls has been a challenge soccer wise. We’ve had some injuries and well as some illness that has taken some girls out of the playing rotation. Please pray for some lingering stomach issues and nagging injuries!
Our last day we thought we were going to spend more time at Project Grow but we got there and realized that nobody was there (as happens often on tour!). God obviously planned that mishap because we had a chance to go speak in classrooms at the local school. The neighborhood is quite poor and the children there are dealing with a lot of hopeless situations. We had the chance to split up and sing for them before we shared our testimonies. One classroom in particular had a really powerful time and was able to pray and share with the presence of the Holy Spirit and some breakthroughs happened for the kids there.
The final evening we attended an Atletis de Cristo meeting. This group could be compared to an FCA in America. There were a few professional athletes and some former athletes there and we had a great time of sharing and worshipping together.
We left Goiania with heavy hearts. We made some great friends there and had a really powerful time. Most of the girls were sad to leave that all behind. We knew God had more plans in Rio and wished we could bring all our new friends in Christ with us!
We finished off the soccer portion on Goiania with one win and one loss. It was good competition and tough games but the girls did great. Ana had a chance to share after the game that we lost and it was a great chance to show Jesus to have the keeper share her testimony after losing by a few goals. After the other game Hannah had a chance to share and we had a good time of mingling with that team as well. Having such a small number of girls has been a challenge soccer wise. We’ve had some injuries and well as some illness that has taken some girls out of the playing rotation. Please pray for some lingering stomach issues and nagging injuries!
Our last day we thought we were going to spend more time at Project Grow but we got there and realized that nobody was there (as happens often on tour!). God obviously planned that mishap because we had a chance to go speak in classrooms at the local school. The neighborhood is quite poor and the children there are dealing with a lot of hopeless situations. We had the chance to split up and sing for them before we shared our testimonies. One classroom in particular had a really powerful time and was able to pray and share with the presence of the Holy Spirit and some breakthroughs happened for the kids there.
The final evening we attended an Atletis de Cristo meeting. This group could be compared to an FCA in America. There were a few professional athletes and some former athletes there and we had a great time of sharing and worshipping together.
We left Goiania with heavy hearts. We made some great friends there and had a really powerful time. Most of the girls were sad to leave that all behind. We knew God had more plans in Rio and wished we could bring all our new friends in Christ with us!
We had quite the reunion when the boys and girls got back together in Rio. You would have thought that we were one big family seeing each other for the first time in over a year! The boys had bussed back from Terresoppolis and we girls had just gotten off the plane to be greeted by them at the airport. It’s been fun to experience ministry together since we’ve been in Rio. There seems to be a bond between brothers and sisters in Christ when you serve together that’s unmatched in any other area of life.
The boys really served us girls that first day in Rio. The girls had some LATE nights in Goiania and were starting to get sick and run down. The boys took over the clinic our first day and allowed the girls to stay home and rest during that first day. It allowed them to run clinics which they hadn’t done before, and it allowed the girls to have some rest and team bonding time over devo’s.
That night we spoke to a group of seminary students to hopefully cast a vision for sports ministry in their future churches. Seth and Mandy shared how sports ministry changed their lives and the students seemed to really enjoy listening and asked some great follow-up questions later. We pray that sports ministry will catch fire in more churches to help spread the gospel!
Yesterday we had two school visits. We went in the morning and run some “controlled chaos” there and got to share afterwards. Most of the children there seemed to have some background in the church but Anna’s testimony was a great example of how the relationship with Jesus is the important part of faith; not just going to church. After the school visit, the girls had practice and the boys had a game. The boys lost 1-0 but they did a great job displaying Christ despite some cheap play.
Today we have another clinic/school visit and then both teams have games late tonight. On some of the down time we have had some great times hanging out with the church members here and playing games at night. This group of young people is special and the Lord is doing great things through them!
Some prayer requests…we have had two girls with some stomach/fever issues for a few days now. They’ve seen a doctor and are under constant care but we are still praying for healing so they can join us the rest of this week! We miss having them around with us! Please don’t worry, they are not in danger and have already gotten much better. The fevers are down and they are feeling much better already…we’re just praying for the completion of it all! A few others have had some minor stomach issues as well (as is common overseas). They are persevering through the trips to the bathroom but we’d like that to be over for them! Please also pray for perseverance through the end of this week. We have long tiring days and would like to not grow weary doing the work God’s laid out for us. We will be traveling back to the U.S. on Tuesday and would appreciate your prayers for safe travel as well.
Looking forward to final Brazil update at the end of this week!
The boys really served us girls that first day in Rio. The girls had some LATE nights in Goiania and were starting to get sick and run down. The boys took over the clinic our first day and allowed the girls to stay home and rest during that first day. It allowed them to run clinics which they hadn’t done before, and it allowed the girls to have some rest and team bonding time over devo’s.
That night we spoke to a group of seminary students to hopefully cast a vision for sports ministry in their future churches. Seth and Mandy shared how sports ministry changed their lives and the students seemed to really enjoy listening and asked some great follow-up questions later. We pray that sports ministry will catch fire in more churches to help spread the gospel!
Yesterday we had two school visits. We went in the morning and run some “controlled chaos” there and got to share afterwards. Most of the children there seemed to have some background in the church but Anna’s testimony was a great example of how the relationship with Jesus is the important part of faith; not just going to church. After the school visit, the girls had practice and the boys had a game. The boys lost 1-0 but they did a great job displaying Christ despite some cheap play.
Today we have another clinic/school visit and then both teams have games late tonight. On some of the down time we have had some great times hanging out with the church members here and playing games at night. This group of young people is special and the Lord is doing great things through them!
Some prayer requests…we have had two girls with some stomach/fever issues for a few days now. They’ve seen a doctor and are under constant care but we are still praying for healing so they can join us the rest of this week! We miss having them around with us! Please don’t worry, they are not in danger and have already gotten much better. The fevers are down and they are feeling much better already…we’re just praying for the completion of it all! A few others have had some minor stomach issues as well (as is common overseas). They are persevering through the trips to the bathroom but we’d like that to be over for them! Please also pray for perseverance through the end of this week. We have long tiring days and would like to not grow weary doing the work God’s laid out for us. We will be traveling back to the U.S. on Tuesday and would appreciate your prayers for safe travel as well.
Looking forward to final Brazil update at the end of this week!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Brazil Update 1
First of all, let me apologize for the delay in this update. We have been pretty busy and have not had the option of finding the internet until today. It’s going to be hard to put all we’ve been doing into this short update. At this point, we only have pictures and stories from the girls group in Goiania. The boys are in Terresopolis and we look forward to hearing about their time when we get back together in Rio.
We have spent a lot of time working with Pastor Marlon and his “Project Grow” ministry. This ministry reaches poor families and works with them on multiple levels. They must attend school to be a part of the program, they learn trades to help them make a living, and they can participate on soccer teams. We had a chance to run their skills clinics, share our testimonies, and connect them with the local church.
This morning we split up and helped with two service projects. We went to a poor area that’s connected with the project grow ministry. One group helped dig trenches to build a proper water sewage system and one group helped build a brick wall to help protect a home. The people we helped were so grateful and are in so much need. Both women are widows with many children, struggling to get by. It was such a great time to show people the practical way to show the love of Jesus.
We have spent a lot of time working with Pastor Marlon and his “Project Grow” ministry. This ministry reaches poor families and works with them on multiple levels. They must attend school to be a part of the program, they learn trades to help them make a living, and they can participate on soccer teams. We had a chance to run their skills clinics, share our testimonies, and connect them with the local church.
So far we’ve had some success on the soccer field. We have had a few Brazilian girls playing with us to help round out our team. We were low on numbers and they’ve really helped out on the field. In addition to that, they are a pleasure to have around! Thais, Jennifer, and Isadora seem to be enjoying us as well. Although we can’t communicate that well so who knows! I guess part of our ministry here is to help show the love of Christ to them as well.
We’ve had two games; one futsal match (indoor soccer), and one outdoor game at night under the lights. The futsal environment was like nothing we’ve ever seen. Brazilians LOVE their soccer. The gym was really loud and was a fun atmosphere to play in. The girls did great considering futsal is kind of a new game for them. They won 12-6. Mandy had a chance to share her testimony after the game and the whole group sang songs in both English and Portuguese. The outdoor game went well too. We won 7-0 and Hannah had a chance to share her testimony during half time. It was in a very small town and it meant a lot that Americans actually showed up to play against them. Both games were played in front of a few hundred screaming fans! Hopefully we’ve helped the church there gain some credibility in that area.
We’ve had two games; one futsal match (indoor soccer), and one outdoor game at night under the lights. The futsal environment was like nothing we’ve ever seen. Brazilians LOVE their soccer. The gym was really loud and was a fun atmosphere to play in. The girls did great considering futsal is kind of a new game for them. They won 12-6. Mandy had a chance to share her testimony after the game and the whole group sang songs in both English and Portuguese. The outdoor game went well too. We won 7-0 and Hannah had a chance to share her testimony during half time. It was in a very small town and it meant a lot that Americans actually showed up to play against them. Both games were played in front of a few hundred screaming fans! Hopefully we’ve helped the church there gain some credibility in that area.
This morning we split up and helped with two service projects. We went to a poor area that’s connected with the project grow ministry. One group helped dig trenches to build a proper water sewage system and one group helped build a brick wall to help protect a home. The people we helped were so grateful and are in so much need. Both women are widows with many children, struggling to get by. It was such a great time to show people the practical way to show the love of Jesus.
Some other tidbits of information…we’ve been blessed to stay at a camp where the people there are such servants. They are feeding us well and even doing our laundry for us. Such a blessing because we are pretty dirty J We’ve had two great translators with us a lot of the time too. Junior and Leo come to most of our outings and help us get by the language barrier. We’ve had some great times as a team as well…
We're running low on battery and need to finish quick...more to come!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Pre-Tour Training Camp
Well, we are 5 hours from taking off at O'Hare! The past five days have been full of soccer training, classroom ministry sessions, games, and team activities. It's now time to put those things into practice overseas... 
Saturday morning we had our annual cross run. This is a sweet time of working hard together as a team physically, as well as preparing spiritually for the trip and the rest of the summer. The players and leaders carry two 40 pound crosses for a 4 mile run with stops for worship and reflection.
Sadly, I haven't taken pictures of the classroom sessions or other activities but some others have. When I get some of those pictures on my computer I will post another update...while you wait, please keep the teams in your prayers!
As with many divine plans...the enemy has been throwing challenge at us. As of Thursday, we were still missing 9 visa/passports. According to realistic measures, there was no way some of those passports should have come in on time...but they did. God was faithful and blessed us with some last minute miracles. As of today we are missing one but have finally gotten an update on it. He will be joining us three days late but will be able to come! More answers to prayer.
There have been other challenges as well and we are sure God has big plans so please pray against this opposition. We praise Him because we know we already have the victory in Him!
Until next time....
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Leadership Weekend
Well, this post is a little late but now that we're in the last few weeks it's time to get it out! Back in March we had a great weekend with the leaders for this summer. It was the first ever leadership retreat weekend. Some academy members from last year came as well to have a reunion aspect and it was a great time. It's great to see how much last summer meant to everyone and get excited for how much God's going to do this summer as well! Some pictures below give you an idea of what all went down...
we had a few brainstorming sessions for the summer and suggestions coming from last summer's experience...
we took a much needed break from the classroom and played some soccer tennis...
got some pizza downtown wheaton with this years leaders and last years visitors...
had some hotel down time as well as a time of sharing...
spent an evening at the mckinley's for dinner and games...
All in all it was a great weekend! We came away excited about what God's doing through the Eagles Summer Academy! Hopefully you catch that excitement too!
Things on our immediate agenda...things you can pray for :-)
we had a few brainstorming sessions for the summer and suggestions coming from last summer's experience...
we took a much needed break from the classroom and played some soccer tennis...
got some pizza downtown wheaton with this years leaders and last years visitors...
had some hotel down time as well as a time of sharing...
spent an evening at the mckinley's for dinner and games...
All in all it was a great weekend! We came away excited about what God's doing through the Eagles Summer Academy! Hopefully you catch that excitement too!
Things on our immediate agenda...things you can pray for :-)
- visa applications
- completed rosters
- camp logistics
- prayer/fasting times
Academy members arrive on Wednesday, May 28th! Get ready for a great summer!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)