Thursday May 21, 2015

            Our first full day in Lusaka, Zambia began with a lovely breakfast prepared for us by our hosts. Breakfast was followed by exploring our temporary home at the Flying Mission Base. We found massive avocado, papaya, banana, and lemon trees, a couple lizards, and met our neighbor Sue and her adorable dog Cassie. We then met with Eric, Elem, and Corie to discuss the details of the upcoming days, followed by a glorious 15 minutes of pushups and ab exercises. Since we had some free time before lunch and were already sweaty from Coach’s 15 minutes of fun, we all went for a run. We ran down the local road where we were cheerfully greeted by people in a nearby village, some of who joined us and came with us on our way back. We spent the next hour playing games, singing, and dancing with a group of local children.

 

  

            Then we came inside for a lunch of sloppy Joe’s, veggies, and chips. After lunch, we had some free time, so people took naps, read, journaled, and played multiple games of soccer golf/croquet. Now that we were all refreshed from our relaxing afternoon, we gathered at 3:30 to walk to a nearby soccer field where we would be hosting a soccer clinic. As we were walking over, we saw the kids waving and cheering at the fence. From what we could see, it was a large group, however, when they all came, there ended up being over 100 kids ages 1 to about 18. There are two organized teams of older boys in the area who trained with Coach Frey and a small group of us. We did some passing pattern drills that we train in our practices, a small-sided scrimmaging game that we call Arsenal, and then they played a full-field scrimmage with a few of us mixed in. The rest of the kids, which was about 80 of them, spent the afternoon with the majority of our team. There was a small-sided game of about 30 kids ages 6-12. As you could imagine, it was hard to be organized with so many kids running around everywhere, so the rest of the kids engaged in a variety of activities including some soccer, ring around the rosie, kids jumping and climbing all over us, sleeping, singing, dancing, follow the leader, duck-duck-goose, red light-green light, races, etc. In addition to soccer activities, we also shared the message of the Gospel. Kate got the opportunity to share with the kids how much God loves them and how God is the most important thing in our lives. It was awesome to see God’s love and joy through the smiles, laughs, and hugs of the kids we met.

            After we left the fields, it was about 6:00, so we went back, showered, and ate a dinner of chicken, rice, salad, fresh avocados, coleslaw, and lemon-oatmeal bars for dessert. After dinner, we met with Coach to share our thoughts on the book “To Chase a Dream” that we are reading as a team during our trip. And now it’s time for bed! We had a humbling first day experience, and we can’t wait to see what God has planned for the rest of our trip!

Shout-out to our girl Holly for holding down the fort at home. We love you and miss you a lot!!!

Love,

MWS