The Angel

Let me paint a picture for a moment.

Monday morning (everybody knows what those can be like)

A busy weekend of unexpected work and late nights.

Our friend and companion, one of the four gringos, Jarrett (a.k.a. Jet a.k.a. Canilla Man) is leaving at 10:30am to go home.  

We know the day will be full and busy and we are attending a coaches meeting from 8-11am.  

We sit through the first half hour of the meeting. It is all in spanish and we are struggling to follow (not an uncommon occurance).

We take a break and Marcos tells us we will be working as a group during the next session.  He turns to a guy we do not know and signals him to come over to us.

He walks over. He has long curly hair and a nice thick beard.

He looks as us, smiles, and says, ¨Hey what's up?¨ In perfect American sounding english!  It was a miracle! The first North American (gringo) we have seen or met since being here. His name is Cyrus and he we felt very blessed to meet him.  We still aren't sure if he is real.  We believe he may be an angel sent from above to lift us up on what was feeling like a tough day.  

He translated for us, shared his story with us, ate lunch with us, played soccer with us, and we are planning on working more with him this week.  

Cyrus has been venturing through Central and South America since January seeking to learn about what it means to be a human and how understanding that can help him discover new and different ways to love others and present Jesus to those in need of a Savior. His story is amazing and inspiring.  We feel blessed to have had our paths cross and we are looking forward to working along side him this week.  God is good...really good!

Farewell to Jet

Today we said goodbye to one of our group members. Jarrett.  He left at 10:30 this morning and we were very sad to see him go.  Our prayers are with him now as he will be arriving in Boston around midnight tonight.  It puts a smile on my face to think about the first time his mom sees him and what her reaction will be! We are sad that he is no longer in Colombia with us, but we are glad that he is able to go home to his family and be with them (and see his brother graduate from high school- way to go Dalton!!!)  Jet worked hard down here and was the most well rounded spanish speaker in our group!  Personally I got to spend a significant amount of time with Jarrett and feel very blessed to have worked with him, laughed with him, and shared our stories with each other.  It definitely will not be the same without him here!

p.s. If you are wondering why we may at times refer to Jarrett as Jet it is because Colombians (Weimar, our host father, in particular) can not pronounce Jarrett and so he was named Jet... which also happens to be the name of a chocolate bar here.

Pictures! Enjoy!

Thursday Night Update!!!

Wow...it has been far too long since our last update or post (Sorry Mrs.Weaner). Our last 4 days have been crazy and busy. I will just go day by day to fill you guys in on what we have been up to all week.

Sunday...All 4 of us were at Weimars house. We went to his church again just like Saturday night. Grant, Weimar, and I helped lead the worship. The middle of the day was filled with a lot of rest. Sunday night consisted of us putting our newly practiced dance moves to the test at Lenas, Weimars wife, families house. We enjoyed some empanadas and mucho fresco! We went late Sunday night to a corner shop for our new, nightly coined tradition, cookies in the night!!!

Monday...This day was a holiday in Colombia called Festivo. Basically, everything shuts down, and you just spend the day resting with your family. That is exactly what we did for most of the day. At night, we went to Acevado, one of the neighborhoods, and helped out with their league games. We all officiated one game, except Weimar took over for Grant because Colombian teenagers tend to get out of hand (there were multiple red cards in this game).

Tuesday...The blessing of many, many weeds took over our morning. It was a great time for us to work and fellowship at the same time. Grant and I went with Alex in the afternoon, while Jet and Sam stayed with Weimar. We had lunch in Bello Park, and enjoyed some very delicious aveno. Grant and I returned to Granizal this night, and played on the turf field by Alexs house.

Wednesday...We woke up at six thirty in the morning to take the metro to the club. Grant and I trained the kids at the soccer school, while Sam and Jet did some more work around the stadium. I was able to all train the under 16 all star team in the afternoon. Grant and I did some more work around the stadium in the afternoon, as well. We planted 4 trees in some very interesting places! We ended our night back in Granizal training the chickies with one of our friends, Eduardo.

Thursday....Another early morning. Sam, Grant, and I arrived at the club a little before 8. We spent 4 hours in the morning leveling a huge pile of dirt and rocks. Grant trained with the all star teams, while I snuck in siesta in the stands of the club. Sam and Jet spent most of the day in Zamora and Acevado.

There is a bit of an update. Sorry for the poor grammar and length. We will try and do a better job of putting up pictures and stuff for you guys! Tomorrow is an exciting day for us. Grant and I will be moving in to the Guzmans house. We will spent the remainder of our trip there together. Alex and his family have been awesome to us, so it is a bummer we are leaving their house.

Trust in the LORD,
Jack

P.S. Just a disclaimer......last friday, when we got to the stadium, I took a friends moto for a joyride. In the shuffle, I set down our Flip camera we have been using to take video. Unfortunately, the camera was stolen. There will not be any more videos on the blog for the remainder of the trip. Fortunately, Jet has his moms camera, so we will have pictures. Do not worry Mrs. Weaner, I am not allowed to touch it!

Saturday

Grant and Jack slept over at our house Friday night into Saturday!  Two guys per a bed... four gringos on one bunk bed! We helped coach two games  at the stadium in the morning, watched the u20 premier team play their game, then went to Weimar's house for lunch.  This was the first time the four of us have been able to spend an extended period of time together and it was great!  


Weimar took us to his church's Saturday evening service.  Grant and Jack both played guitar with their worship band.  They had no music/notes to follow and practiced for a total of about 15 minutes... but they did well.  The service was two hours long...of very fast spanish, so we didn't understand much. BUT, it was really encouraging and inspiring to see a group of people, gathered in a big garage, with their Bibles on their laps, diving into the Word!  The verse that came to mind was, Matthew 18:20, ¨For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.¨ Many Colombians would consider themseleves Catholic, many don't practice any form of religion, and Evangelical churches are few and far between. But I could see that this group of people (maybe 20 people) were committed to being uncommon in their convictions and  faithful in their relationship with Jesus.  


After church we walked to a local Colombian arepa stand and had arapes and a stick of mystery meat.  We took taxis back to Weimar's house, where we spent about an hour dancing and learning how to salsa and tango! We are having a fiesta here next week when Jarrett leaves and we need to know how to dance like Colombians!  I think a laughed harder tonight than I have in a long time.  We all laughed and danced (and sweated) a lot! It was a very fun time and we are very thankful for the Guzman's hospitality and joyful hearts!

Update and Affirmation

Quick update for the guys on the team and for all of you that heard about the work we did at the stadium.
The water tank is in and working!  There are about 10 to 12 new faucets/water pipes that are using the water.
The trench we built for the turf field is completely filled with concrete and the field is flat and covered with stone/concrete. There is a retaining wall around the entire field and they may lay down the turf during the last few days we are here!
The field we weeded last year is looking good on one half.  The other half is struggling... A worker accidentaly sprayed ¨poison¨ on the field to kill the weeds and it killed the grass as well. It is still very playable!

We have seen Messiah shorts on coaches and Messiah scarves and balls in coach¨s offices.  There have been Keaton, Trevor, Jordan, and Peez training jersey sightings!

My favorite story yet:  Jarrett and I went to Acevedo the second night we were here.  One boy (8 or 9 years old) was looking at us and was kind of following us around. After about 10 minutes he walked up to me and asked, ¨Logan?¨  I just smiled and thought, Uncle Logan has done is again! I just thought is was awesome that a boy from Medellin Colombia saw our crest and had a special enough experience with one of the players wearing it to remember his name... a year later! Well done Logan

All this is just to say, we did have an impact down here last year. We left it better than we found it!  We helped and it mattered.  As I saw and experienced all these things down here, the second time around, I was filled with joy as I realized that our trip was indeed impactful and meaningful!  It is a unique and special experience to be able to see the fruits of your labor in a foreign country a year after you went on a mission trip to that same place.

Hopefully Jarrett, Grant, Jack and I can continue to help and have a positive impact on the CDUC and the people of Medellin.

I apologize for the lack of grammar and the amount of spelling errors in this entry.... I type on a spanish computer and I can not find some of the punctuation buttons.  Also, I know speak a hybrid language of broken english and broken spanish so my writing has taken a hit.

God Bless!
Sam

El Canche De Granizal

I wish I would have taken more video this morning. We did a training session at one of my favorite places in Colombia, the turf field a minute from our house. When Messiah was here last year, they played a game against one of Alexs teams on this field. Most of them remember that experience very well. Granizal, the neighborhood we live in, is not a good one by any means. It has been a place of many gangs, drugs, and violence. The kids who play on this field, which is in the middle of the neighborhood, either have dads who are in gangs or they themselves are a part of a gang. We have been there 3 times or so to run training for younger kids, and will be there this weekend with Alex and his team of older guys. Our names go from Grant, or Forlan, and Jack, or Messi, to gringo, gringo, gringo!!!!! It is a completely different environment then being at the stadium, or other neighborhoods we go to. My blood pressure is always a little bit higher when I am there. Maybe it is the security guards at all the entrances with guns and clubs in their hands or the muzzled police dogs roaming the perimeter, nevertheless, it is a cool place to be. It is where Alex grew up, and lead his own guys in violence and drugs. Thanks to his new life in Christ, he leads this neighborhood in a different way. Everybody in the neighborhood knows who he is. His spectrum of influence is massive, and he takes advantage of it. Almost every morning for 3 hours or so, he takes his Bible and goes into different houses and shares the Gospel with them. He sits down with the families and fathers he used to provide with drugs, and provides them with knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus. It is so sweet to hear about. He has begun to take and share the tracts we brought down with the families as well. I am glad and thankful that we can join in with what he is doing in Granizal. It is a place that desperately needs Jesus. Pray for Alex and the CDUC guys who live here as they take the Gospel into some really tough places in this neighborhood.

I will try to take some more video of the soccer in Granizal this weekend. I was too busy playing with the kids, I forgot to video the actual session, but you can kind of see what it is like around here!

Jack