Archives for April 2008

aia
In 40 minutes I’ll be getting in a car to head an hour or so out of Prague for our spring AIA planning retreat. Shortly our team will be disbanding and heading back to the States (except for me) for various things, and that means planning time! For those who know me, planning and meetings like this aren’t my strongest suit, but I’m actually going into the next 4 days with a good attitude! Praise God! It should be good. Please pray for our time that it would be productive, would bring us together as a team, would bring a clearer group vision and more. One of the things, I’m looking forward to is seeing Billy’s (my director) vision of transitioning from outsider roles (which I would say is very, very common for Campus Crusade and Athletes in Action) “insider roles”. This began to develop in Billy’s mind when I was here on STINT in 2004-2005, but it has yet, in Billy’s opinion, to be owned by all of us. I’ll be honest, it’s this vision that has me on staff here. I believe in it deeply. In places like Prague, or post-Christian environments in general, being an outsider doesn’t make an impact. As places continually become more and more post-Christian we need this missional shift, taking on the skin of a culture and infiltrating it with the love of Jesus. So I’m excited to see what God does in this weekend.

football
Football is going well. We are 2-1 overall, and 1-0 in the Czech League. We lost the game in Dresden, which I am still bummed I missed from being sick. Oh well… This past Saturday night we played down in Brno under the lights and won 30-18. It was a first for me over here, planning under the lights that is. It was fun, even though we didn’t play well and it was raining hard most of the game. In fact, it’s interesting going into games where you are expected to thump an opponent. Our team in general seemed to be playing down to Brno. We will have a the same challenge with Pilsen coming into town this weekend. To make it harder is that we could easily overlook this weekend’s game to next weekend’s game against our rivals, and the current Czech League champs, the Prague Panthers. It should be interesting. Please continue to pray for my health in general. I’m no longer sick, but I still feel my body trying to catch up after that crazy flu I had. My hamstring and ankle are feeling okay, but they aren’t where I want them a 100% yet, so I’m trying to bang off the rust in the midst of trying to get healthy which is uncharted waters for me. Below is a cool pic from Saturday’s game, but to see more click here.

visa
I have great news! My visa is ready in Berlin! It has been a long process to “getting legal” and I’m almost there! I will get back from this planning weekend and taking a train 4 and a half hours to Berlin, picking up my visa and coming straight back to Prague. Then I will have one of the “long-termer rights of passage” with my first visit to the infamous foreigners’ police to get my visa validated. Here is an excerpt from a recent Prague Post article about what a lovely experience it is:

During a recent visit to the branch, Yelena K., a Ukrainian citizen who has been working here for the past three years, threw her arms up in despair as she waited to register her new passport. “I have been waiting here since 4:30 [a.m.], and still I am not sure if I will have any luck,” she said.
Apparently, getting up at 3 in the morning was not enough to secure her a front place in the disorderly queue. “People start lining up in front of the building as early as 2 a.m., but even these people are sometimes out of luck,” said Radka Nichani, a visa-processing specialist who visits the branch on a weekly basis.

Please pray that it isn’t too stressful and that this all gets taking care of. It is one of the not-so-fun-parts-to-living-overseas, but I learn a lot from it! Well, that car is almost here. I need to finish up! Blessings to you this Wednesday!

I had thought I turned the corner yesterday, but I didn’t make it that far around the corner! As I was getting ready to go to bed to wake up and go to class and practice today, the fever and chills returned with avengeance! I have never done drugs, but my delirium between conscious and unconscious was probably the closest I have ever felt to what doing drugs would be like. I had some crazy dreams and which resulted in laying sweating in bed awake last night. So I woke up this morning called the doctor and he had me in and out within the hour with antibiotics! Gotta love that! Most of the day I’ve slipped in and out conscious, but I’m feeling a little better. However, the sad news is because of this, I’m more than likely not playing on Saturday in Dresden. Which is a huge bummer. I’ve been really excited about this game, but for only being two days before a game and still feeling the way I do it wouldn’t be healthy. And it also took all the energy I had to get out of my flat and go to the doctor; my head was spinning after walking up three flights of stairs! Praise God, I finally appear to be on the mend. Thanks for the prayers.

In Batman Begins, we hear this quote repeated several times throughout the movie, “Why do we fall, sir? So that we might learn to pick ourselves up.” I love it because it is true to life and very, very true to American football! When we fall (or in this case, get “jacked up”) we learn to pick ourselves up and stay after it. See the evidence of below…

Yeah, that’s me (#2). On the first punt of the game, I got caught and he certainly “jacked me up!” Quedos to #20 of the Wildcats for not giving up on the play and “jacking me up!” This is why I like to deliver the blows and not receive them. No fear, I survived the play and I’m happy to say that the image you see above does not speak of the outcome of the game either for myself, or more importantly my team.

We ended up beating the Kirchdorf Wildcats 28-7, after a sluggish start. You could tell it was our first game of the season as our newly installed offense and defense were bit sluggish. However, we turned that around in the second half and came out and scored 21 points unanswered points. We saw glimpses from a lot of the young guys that are playing and that was fun. Actually, that was my favorite part; watching some of younger guys make some plays and watching us “older” guys do what we do, even if that meant have the rust banged off by the hammer of our opponents shoulder!

Personally, I think my hammy and ankle are fine. (Thanks for the prayers.) I did say to my parents last night, “I’m definitely feeling this more than ever felt it before!” It didn’t help that as I went to bed on Saturday night I felt a cold coming and I think it hit during the game. At the beginning of the second half my strong safety, David Horina, set me up a jump ball and I intercepted it, running it back for 70 yards or so. I’m grateful there was no one chasing me, because even with running free, I was gassed. And I mean gassed! I fell to my knee and thanked God for the opportunity and that I didn’t have a heart attack right there trying to breath through the congesting! The cold has only got worse since I got home, I actually have stayed home today resting trying to shake this with ny-quil, echenasia, zinc, and air-borne. Haven’t had too much success with that yet. Right now I’m leading towards taking another sick day, but that is tough because I don’t want to miss Czech class. Pray that I get well soon and that my “older” body feels more normal tomorrow! Blessings!

I was hoping to get an update entry up today, but I ran out of time. But for all of those who were worried if I made it back (Hi Dad!;-)) from Budapest, no worries, I have. It was a great week and I hope to get an update up soon, but I have another 6 hours ahead of me in a moving vehicle tomorrow (and then back, all in one day!)! Yah! Kind of. We have our first game tomorrow against the Kirchdorf Wildcats in Germany. The shocker for me was, I found out that the game was away last night, 20 minutes before our walk through ended. So I’m about to retire early for the evening, because we have to get out of here early tomorrow morning. I would ask you to pray that I would, first and foremost, give Christ a praise worthy performance tomorrow but also pray for my health. My hammy is feeling almost 100% but it isn’t quite there and my ankle is just hanging around making me wonder about it. Thanks for the prayers! Go Lions!