My team and I hit the World Race jackpot for our first month. We are working with a soccer club, COSDECOL, in Bello, Colombia. This place is surrounded by beautiful green mountains and a city that shimmers at night. Our host site is gated with 24 hour security. Each of my teammates has their own bed. There is a wonderful staff that cooks us 3 amazing meals and day and cleans our rooms. We keep clean thanks to our hot showers and washer/dryer, and stay hydrated thanks to the filtered spring water at our home. There is nothing here to complain about.
So far this month, my team has been a landscaping crew, a band, organizers and movers, soccer players, and message bringers. Mark, the director of COSDECOL, has a huge vision for this place that we have been trying to make reality. That means spending hours a day under the sun pulling weeds, moving rocks, and planting grass. We’re getting our January suntans. The church that meets here on Saturday evenings started back last week, and we were asked to lead worship. I hear that we have been asked to sing again at the coaches meeting next Monday. We have each been assigned to a coach and will spend time with them and their soccer team. A teammate and I will start working with a group of teenage girls next week. Before their practices begin, we will start them off with a short message and time of prayer.
The people here speak Spanish; some speak English; but everyone speaks the language of soccer. It was the original vision for this place for soccer to bring together believers and nonbelievers, and now it is bringing together Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers.
Yesterday did not start out very well for my team. One of my teammates hasn’t been feeling well since we’ve been here. I had an allergic reaction to something and had to take medicine that knocked me out all day. Many of my other teammates started feeling ill after working out in the sun all day. It was an overall hard day for all of us; one that we wouldn’t have considered a good day… until later on.
I’ll be honest, it gets discouraging not being able to communicate with people when you want to, especially the kids. All I have wanted to do is talk with them, but I can’t. It gets tiring doing the same job for hours in a day. It gets aggravating to always have to have a heightened awareness of your surroundings instead of just being able to enjoy where you are and what you’re doing.
It’s astounding how aware of your burdens God is and how he lifts them, even for a night.
Last night Mark took us somewhere new for soccer practice. It was a place that is commonly known as the dump. It is where gun battles used to make kids dive for cover, drug deals used to happen in the streets, and dead bodies were dumped. This place, if anywhere, is where your senses should be heightened. In this place is a soccer field where kids go to practice every day. The girls on my team joined a group of boys around 9 and 10 years old and we played soccer. I couldn’t talk to them; I had no idea what they were saying to me, but it didn’t matter. It was so much fun. Everyone around the area was gathered for the sake of soccer. We laughed, we did the wave, we did cartwheels, we exchanged English and Spanish words. It was easily one of my favorite days so far.
It is amazing how your frustrations and fears can be wiped away when everyone is gathered for a common purpose. On that field I felt safe and I felt accepted. My hope is that we can show these kids that they can feel safe and accepted when they gather together in Christ. There is no fear, no discouragement, and no language barrier in the arms of Jesus. All are welcome and all are loved. Just imagine what this world would be like if we all gathered together for the common purpose of worshiping our God. That is our mission.
It is time to break the barrier and bring the kingdom.
