Playing Tour Coming to an End

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I am finally back in Pretoria after being on a playing tour since June 9th. So much has happened along the tour and I have realized that I am not very good at keeping a journal, but I will do my best to update about what we did throughout the tour. We started out the tour at a camp site in the middle of the country to go through tour orientation and to have a couple of training sessions together. Our team consisted of members from the US, UK, Mexico, Trinidad, and South Africa. We then played a practice match at the prison ministry, which I had helped out with for a couple of weeks before the tour. After the match, our coach gave his testimony and 2 of the hope academy prisoners gave first time commitments to Christ. Several others asked to be prayed for as well. On Friday, the opening matchday of the World Cup, we drove into Joburg, the host of the first match, and the traffic was insane. There were vuvuzelas being blown and car horns going everywhere. It was a great experience. For the match we helped out at a big screen event in a church in Joburg. The next week we played another match at the prison. Our team then moved into a deaf school in Soweto, which is a township just outside of Joburg. All schools are closed for the World Cup, so we had the school to ourselves. In Soweto, we ran a coaching clinic and played against a couple of local teams. We also played a match in a town about 2 hours from Pretoria, where one of the tour members was born and now lives. We shared the Gospel with the local team after the match as well. After Soweto, some of the tour members had to leave but the rest of us drove to Durban, which is about a 6 hr drive to the east coast. Durban was beautiful and the weather was actually warm, unlike the negative degree Celsius temperatures in Soweto. In Durban we played 4 much more competitive matches, sharing a testimony or the Gospel after every match. We also visited an orphanage and ran a coaching clinic. We went to a couple of projects run by another missions organization called Lion's Raw from England. I am definitely leaving out many important events from the tour, but so much happened that it's hard to keep track of it all. I think it might be easier for me to post pictures and explain. So after spending a week in Durban, we drove back to the camp site two nights ago and then Pretoria yesterday morning. The tour was amazing and I will definitely take out more time to summarize and process what God did through the tour.

In other news I have now been to 4 World Cup matches (Netherlands vs Japan, South Korea vs Nigeria, USA vs Ghana!!! and Argentina vs Mexico) I have never felt so blessed in my life. The tickets are very cheap in USD, especially for a World Cup and I have been fortunate enough to have found some great deals. Praise God for giving me such a great opportunity to not only experience the World Cup, but to also spread the Gospel at the same time. I will now try to post some pics from the tour.

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Comments

[Megan]

Wow! Sharing the gospel with so many while doing what you love! Cannot get better than that. So proud of you and maybe just a little jealous! Love you!

[Andrew Griffith]

Love ya Bro
Keep up the good work!!!