Update from yesterday

Today the team split up into two groups- one went to a prison in Medellin to share testimonies and play a game against the inmates, and the other stayed at the stadium to do some work on the new field and then play against some guards from the same prison.

Marcos, the director of the club, gave us some background on the prison we were visiting. In the 80s and 90s, during the height of the drug wars, this prison was filled with the worst criminals from the various cartels, specifically their hitmen. Violence in the prison was out of control, with an average of 9 prisoners being murdered every day. The prison warden eventually gave up trying to keep peace in the prison and decided to basically let the military into the prison and let them clean it out, allowing them to do whatever they wanted to the prisoners.

Alvaro, one of Marcos’ closest friends and founders of the club, heard about the warden’s plan and went to plead with him to prevent such a loss of life. He asked for just one month to change the culture of the entire prison and stop the killings. He started going to the prison every day and talk to the prisoners about the love and forgiveness of Jesus. Bags of urine were thrown at him, and he received multiple death threats. But he refused to give up on the men in the prison and continued to return day after day. Eventually a full revival swept through the prison, and countless prisoners gave their lives to Christ and turned away from violence. Tables were filled with guns, knives, clubs, and every kind of weapon imaginable as prisoners chose to trust God to protect them instead of trusting in weapons and violence. By the early 2000s, the death rate in the prison had fallen to 2-3 a year. This was the prison we were allowed to visit and share our personal stories along with our love of soccer.

Friday afternoon through Saturday evening, we will be on a retreat at the stadium with the youth players (ages 15-20) from the club. Today we spent some time talking in small groups and getting to know each other as much as possible with broken Spanish and English, and after that we played some games indoors until the rain stopped. After that, we ate dinner and then played some pick-up soccer on the turf before bed. In the morning, we’re planning to go to a swimming hole a little ways up the river from the stadium and spend some more time together with the guys from the club and have a short devotional as well as share some testimonies with each other.

Many of these guys are assistant coaches of youth teams in sectors across the city of Medellin, and they give up hours of their day every week to coach young kids and love them like their coaches loved them when they first joined the club. Eventually some of them will join the club as full time coaches, completing a life-giving cycle that gives the kids of Medellin a chance to turn away from a life of drugs and hopelessness and find true joy in Jesus and in fellowship with other kids who encourage them to choose a better life than many of those around them.

Each player in the club has a different, beautiful story about how God brought them to the club and changed their mind about life, soccer and their future, and it’s a privilege to hear them as we get to know each other on the retreat.

Again, thank you so much for your prayers and support. God is doing amazing things here through the club, and you have been a huge part of it even though you are thousands of miles away.

Messiah Men’s Soccer