Days 3-4-5: Back to Back to Back

As I mentioned in my last post, we traveled out of Manila on Wednesday to play some games in another city. That city turned out to be Subic. As with games in Manila, we were connecting with local pastors in the area and traveling to various barangays (neighborhoods) to play.

This week's set up was unique in that our games on Wednesday and Thursday were basically back to backs. Once we finished a game early Wednesday evening in a barangay, we traveled to another facility to play another team right away. It's not an ideal set-up, especially physically, but we worked through it.

Wednesdays first game was a tight contest with a decent crowd. If my memory serves correctly, that was the game I shared about Christ with the audience at halftime. The second game was in a facility that seemed like a resort, and there wasn't much of a crowd. Sometimes that's the way it is though and we focus on ministering to the opposing team.

Thursday's schedule allowed us to sleep in and then travel to a beach around lunch. It was nice to relax, briefly swim, and bond more as a team. The Subic area is more of a resort area north of Manila. The ride there has amazing views and the beach was pretty nice though fairly empty. We played two games in the evening, starting with a fairly easy game in a barangay. On the way to the second context, we hit some brutal traffic and got there pretty late. The other team and the crowd were patient and once we got started we realized this would be a hard-fought but fun game. We pulled out a victory but most importantly got to share the Gospel with our biggest crowd yet. We can't understand the pastors when the share the Gospel after we have introduced ourselves, but those who know the language have said our set of pastors we've had with us this trip have been exceptionally good and giving a clear message about Jesus. We have observed that the pastors here are very unassuming, sincere, hard-working, and genuine in a way that not all pastors are in the States. I could learn something from them for sure.

This morning we played in a prison against some inmates. The court had a car on it that couldn't be moved, so we just played in two groups of 4 on 4. It was a cool time because we had a lot of down time while we waited and we were able to interact with a lot of the prisoners in a deeper way.

Tonight we play our final game. We are looking forward to it because it should be a good game, but also because it will be our last one. Us old guys are pushing the limits of our capabilities right now. But it's all good, cause it is for God's glory.