Soccer is not our sport...

Sunday, June 29^th, 2009

The days are flying by now; we’re just trying to catch our breath between the days. Today started with breakfast at Mister Donut, a place that quickly becomes a staple for the groups in El Salvador. From there we walked to the local church where Mario and Juan Carlos are pastors.

The church was packed; you could hear the Salvadorans affectionately commenting that the “gringos” were taking over the church. (There are two other American mission teams staying in Zacamil as well). One of the other teams with AY Missions did a dramatic skit to start the service off. It was nice to have the other team there because some of them are musicians, which meant that the songs were sang in Spanish and English. It certainly made us feel like a part of the service. Mario gave a beautiful sermon and the service ended with plenty of time to socialize with the community.

Despite the fact that we were able to sleep in this morning, the effects from laboring in the fields the day before were very evident at lunch. After everyone had eaten, and we were waiting on transportation back to the apartments, I happened to look across the tables to see every single head down, sleeping. What a beautiful thing to see! How many high school students in America would offer up everything they have, exhausting themselves, to serve others?

AY Mission planned a cookout for Zacamil at 4, so in the few hours between lunch and the event, we were hard at work getting all the last minute details sorted out for the soccer tournament we planned along with ISC. Drew was the point man for the event and he did a great job assigning jobs and getting everything done. Before long it was 7:00, and the teams were ready to play. We had 6 teams total (3 teams from Zacamil, 2 from Santa Ana, and our team).

In our defense, no one on our team currently plays soccer. Our athletes range from wrestling to lacrosse, with all sorts of sports in between… however soccer is not one of them. And the Salvadorans have been playing since they were very young. That being said, they totally killed us. It was a lot of fun, and we had a cheering section from the community chanting “Grin-Gos, Grin-Gos!” and “Estados Unidos!” Our guys showed great sportsmanship, showing a lot of encouragement to each other, congratulating the other teams on good plays, and keeping good spirits, loss after loss. That’s what it’s all about. It was a long exhausting day, and tomorrow morning starts the 3 day Athletic Leadership Retreat. We can’t wait to see how it all plays out.