September 5th, 2010: Anapa, Russia
Today is a fairly light day. We had a team session this morning and talked about what types of clothing we need to put on. How clothing hides us, we find meaning and identity in what we wear and what it identifies us with. We talked about how our jersey is a powerful symbol of legacy, history, pride and expectations. We also talked about how a jersey can be a distraction for athletes in that they find their identity in the wrong thing. We as Christian athletes need to be clothed in white and washed in the blood of Christ. Our undergarments are those from Christ while we put our jersey on top but should the outerwear be stripped away our real identity cannot be. It was a great discussion.
This afternoon we will go watch the finals of the Russian Beach National Championship before we depart for Krasnodar & Mykop (spelling?). The team will split into to groups of 11 and undertake different ministry opportunities.
The group going to Krasnodar will play a match tonight and again tomorrow. Potential to work at a church in the mountains. On Tuesday the group will visit a Russian prison and play a match with the guards and soccer with the inmates.
The group going to Mykop will work with a couple local churches and their youth groups running clinics and scrimmaging with local youth. They will also go to an orphanage and help out there for an afternoon. They play a match on Tuesday afternoon/evening and then return to Krasnodar to join the first group.
Both groups will head to Moscow on Wednesday morning at 6am for the final leg of the trip.
The trip feels like it is building momentum. Just like a snowball running down a hill the speed and magnitude of each day grows and the excitement of the matches, toughness of the matches and the ministry opportunities grow and grow. God is good.
Go Spartans!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment