Play For Hope

Almost didn't make it out of the country...

On Saturday night, our car was broken into while my team was at a 

hotel celebrating the end of the Kigali Hope Festival with other 

missionaries.  My backpack was stolen with the most valuable item

taken being my passport.  This was an awful turn of events as I was scheduled

to fly out of the country the very next day.  The US Embassy is closed on

Sundays so there seemed to be no other choice but to cancel my flight

and reschedule it to a date after I received a new passport.

Several pastors prayed for me on Saturday night and one volunteered

to take me to the police to file a report on Sunday morning and then

to take me to cancel the flight.  So we did all of this and I canceled my

Sunday 1:45 pm flight around 11 am Sunday.  Then the incredible 

happened.  The pastor I was with got a phone call immediately after

I canceled my flight from another pastor who said that a child had

just given him a passport that they found proclaimed to have found

around the stadium (where the festival was).  The pastor I was with is 

the coordinator of all Christian events that go on in the stadium so he is

the man to contact concerning an issue like this.  PRAISE GOD, IT WAS

MY PASSPORT!  How crazy is this, my backpack was still missing

but my passport was recovered.  God doesn't always supply everythingI

want but He always supplies all I need.  For me, the passport was a need

to leave Rwanda and God provided.  Logic cannot explain how my passport

was recovered when the rest of my stuff remained missing.   

So I was able to reschedule my flight and made it back to America.

Unfortunately, my cell phone and camcorder were also in my bag.  

My videos from the summer is on an external hard drive so losing

the camcorder is no problem.

However, I currently don't have a phone but this should be taken care

of soon.  God is still good!

One more day til I fly back to America...

We had our big soccer tournament on Wednesday and Thursday, and it

lived to expectation.  We had teams come from being behind 3-1 to winning

4-3, we had shootouts, we even had a coach ejected (WOW).  500 spectators

witnessed the events and we received praised from the top newspapers and 

radio stations in the country.  

Today, we held a soccer/basketball clinic for the first day of the two day Kigali

Hope Festival.  We had over a thousand kids and 10,000 spectators as we held

various drills in the national stadium.  We received praise from some of the top 

people in the country, including the number one soccer player in the country.

I mention this because for us, all this praise is mind-blowing.  We understand that

we're nobodys, just a group of 20-something yr olds trying to bring hope to 

kids through sports.  But yet people look at us like superstars.  So many people

came up to me during the day that I began to realize how known we have 

become over the summer.  

I know, we're not to focus on being praised and such, but at the same time

it can really just blow you away when you receive things you know you don't 

deserve.  I guess this is what Christians would call the good grace of God...

So it's Monday and I still haven't fully recovered from getting food poisoning on

Friday morning.  I'm physically weak from lack of food over the weekend.

My stomach is getting better and I will be able to eat real food

today (this weekend was spent eating only bread and bananas).  I am also suffering

from headaches particularly when I go outside.  Whenever I spend

a few minutes outside I become real sensitive to the bright sun and get a headache.

So the plan for today is to chill and drink plenty of fluids and eat solids to get my 

strength back up.  I will avoid the sun as much as possible and hope to be full strength

within a day or so.

The best part of this sickness has been the extensive time I've been able to spend

alone with God.  Crazy how He takes times like these to speak to us immensely.  

So we now have six more days before flying out early Sunday afternoon. 

Here's what we will be doing this week.

We will be holding a two day soccer tournament in Rwanda's national 

stadium (so the most important stadium in the country).  We have the

stadium for FREE and will only have to pay to paint lines on the field.  There

will be three divisions (young boys, girls, and older boys) and each division

will have four teams.  The semifinal matchups will be played on Wednesday

and the finals will be on Thursday.  Today and tomorrow will be spent on 

tourney prep.  

The neat thing about the tournament is that we will have a combination of

street kids, orphans, and school kids playing together to promote unity among

kids of different walks of life.  

Following the tournament, there will be THE Kigali Hope Festival held by the 

Luis Palau Association (an American evangelist org. that we are partnered with)

on Friday and Saturday, also in the stadium.  Our role will be running sport 

activities both days for the children.  Now this is crazy because we are expecting

thousands of kids both days.  Play For Hope will have help from other American

missionaries so we wont be alone but this should still be a chaotic two days.

The festival ends Saturday night and the team flys out on Sunday.  (We currently

have six team members but one will fly out this Thursday and another this

Friday.)

Almost survived Africa without sickness...

So something I ate yesterday morning gave me food poisoning.  I was in bed 

with a stomachache, headache, muscle soreness, fatigue, and a fever all day 

yesterday.  I am feeling better today but as I did not eat anything yesterday

I am trying to rehydrate myself and eat some small foods to regain my strength.

My team is out doing the good work today as I sit back and allow my body to get

ready for next week.