It is freezing cold outside right now in Northern Indiana and we got our first legitimate snow overnight - and are expecting more this evening. It's times like this I like to daydream about summer, laying out at the beach while soaking in the hot sun. I like to imagine swimming, although as a guy in my 30's I don't do it with the same enthusiasm as when I was a kid. What I do find enjoyable these days is swimming in the ocean or Lake Michigan when the wind and/or boats are creating waves and choppy seas.
This summer I had the opportunity to travel to the Philippines on a missions trip. I documented the trip on this blog and detailed how we used basketball to share the gospel. One afternoon, when we had some free time, we visited a beach near Subic Bay. It was a super-humid day, as most are. I remember the water was warm and it also happened to be fairly windy so the waves were pretty good size.
A couple times as we were jumping into the waves, I would rise up out of the water to get my bearings and get knocked over by another one I didn't see coming. A couple times it almost knocked the wind out of me, but it was a lot of fun.
What does that have to do with music?
Well, shortly after returning home, I heard this song and it took me back to that day on the beach and getting momentarily bowled over by the water. And as this song pictures God's love unrelentingly coming at us, I thought about how God's love should affect my soul with the same force that those waves affected my body.
There is more to this special song as it exalts God and His love and then expresses how that strengthens us and gives us courage. I'm pretty sure any time I hear this song I'll think of the Philippines and likewise any time I get crushed by a wave, I'll think of this song.
One final note: if I'm ever unmoved by the lyrics "You are for us, You are not against us" - if that doesn't wreck my spirit at it's core - I will know I have some serious issues with my heart. What a truth: that we undeserving people have been graciously made His.
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.
Before I recount the events of Tuesday, I thought I would comment on one aspect of the Philippines that is ever-present wherever you go and whatever you do: the heat. Indiana is known for having hot and humid summers, especially in August. The PI is that same sort of climate only intensified, making air conditioning or "air-con" a wonderful blessing if it is available. I step out of my room each morning a little cold since we've been running the air-con all night on high. That feeling of coolness evaporates immediately upon opening the door. Even at 6:30 am, you start to sweat. So each vehicle we ride in, building we enter, and room we reside in with air-con is a sweet oasis of magical proportions. So Day 2 held the first of our basketball games. But in the morning we toured several ministry facilities around our home base. The Long's are the family who owns the compound we are staying in. Through an incredible confluence of events, they were given school dormitories that were no longer used and the vision developed to have this as a base for the numerous work teams and ministry teams that come through. The Long's also branched out and started an orphanage, a school, and an abused women's shelter, seeking to help the helpless in the neighborhood (baranguay) of about 5,000 they live in. It was neat to see and hear how God worked to bring about these opportunities but also eye-opening to encounter some of the evil that is at work in the world. After lunch we relaxed a bit before getting our stuff around for our 6:30 pm game. We left two plus hours ahead of time to make sure we arrived on time because of traffic (more on that in a later post). Before the game, we toured the garment shop that 2:5 Apparel runs to make their jerseys. 2:5 is the business run by my good friend and former teammate Daniel Bucher and his brother Ryan who are leading this trip. We knew we'd be facing the best team we'd play all week. They had several current and former PBA players on their squad. The PBA is their NBA and the players and teams are probably comparable to low NCAA D I teams and players. To boost our chances, we added Kirk Long, the son of the Long's who are hosting us. He's sort of a celebrity in Manilla because he was a very good player on the best college team in the PI and is hoping to play in the PBA soon (the PBA is very restrictive in only allowing Filipinos to play). We hung with our opposing team for the first three quarters. They were killing our zone defense with threes and killing us in transition, but we were within five after the 3rd quarter. The 12 minute quarters proved to be the downfall for our older team and we fell apart in the final stanza, losing 139-118. We were able to get our local pastor, Alvin, into the game near the end and fed him shots every time - which got the crowd back into it. And the last possession we even took a toddler from the stands, put him on our center's shoulders, and helped him make a basket to everyone's cheers. It was fun but we were all worn out and a little disappointed in how it turned out. I played ok, getting in double figures but missed a bunch of open threes - probably how are entire team played in a nutshell. We ate afterwards and had a good devotional time when we got back home. It's been great to get to know these guys and talk about our Christian walks and really come together as a team. It's a blessing to be a part of the body of Christ. That's all for now, it's Wednesday morning and we're leaving in 90 minutes to go to a province somewhere outside Manila. It will be a 3-4 hour drive and then we'll play two games this afternoon and this evening. Prayers for good health and safety are appreciated.
A couple years a go, a hurricane hit Manilla. Beyond the normal dangers of a hurricane, Manilla was particularly vulnerable because of its large population of squatters and poorer people who live in shanties and makeshift homes.
Once the cleanup started, the government enacted a displacement policy (for lack of a better term) for some of these areas. That means that thousands of people were uprooted to uninhabited parts of outer Manilla - disconnecting many of them from public transportation that could allow them to keep jobs. So many families are stuck here and will be stuck here with little hope of improving their living conditions.
So yesterday morning we participated in a feeding program that reaches out to one of these areas on a twice-a-week basis. We transported tubs full of a rice and bean meal and served them out of the back of a van to hundreds of kids and some adults who brought cups and bowls and anything that could hold this soup.
In the afternoon, our immersion into this culture continued as we visited an orphanage that provides housing and round-the-clock care to girls between the ages of 7-17 who have been abused. After playing some games with them, we took them out to a pizza place for dinner.
Both ministries broke our hearts for these kids who are dealing with and have dealt with so much. It's maddening in some ways to realize these problems still exist in our 2014 world. But it is encouraging to know that God is using these agencies to pierce the darkness. And it is an honor to know that we can join the fight by praying and doing something as basic as playing dodgeball.
My prayer is that Christ's love will continue to reflect off of us the rest of the week the same as it did our first day.
This week I'm going in a new direction with Music Mondays. I'm going to pick a few songs over the next few weeks that I own on iTunes that might surprise those that know me. They may not all be songs I'm super-embarrassed to like, but they are selections I probably won't be shouting from the rooftops anytime soon. Having said that, I am certainly embarrassed about this first song. I never really liked it when it came out on the radio. It's not a Christian song (which is something that may raise eyebrows since I'm a pastor). It is a song for a generation of youth much younger than I. It's sung by an artist whose reputation grows worse and worse the more she remains in the public spotlight. Then why is it in my iTunes library? Because in 2011, I led a basketball missions trip with 9 high school-ers from the basketball team I coached. We would go from town to town, game to game and play various teams. We would bring our own basketballs, nets, and sound system to each location to give the event a 'big-time' feel.
Since we had a sound system, we of course would play warm-up music as we got ready and someway, somehow this song found its way into the rotation and quickly became our group's favorite since it represented us as Americans visiting this foreign country. Even thousands of miles away, the crowds in each town recognized the song and often would sing along to it when it played. So much of me wants to dislike this song. And yet with all the memories from trip that I associate with it now, I can't help but smile and sing along myself. Without further adieu, Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA:
