The morning after the first day of sports camp looked a lot different. While we may have had many early risers yesterday, lots of us slept in all the way until breakfast to recover from the previous day. After a quiet and tired breakfast, we had the opportunity to have our first worship. The worship time brought all of us the energy we needed to start the day. Abby talked about God’s story in Genesis and the creation of man. Straight from worship we headed over to the recreational sports park to meet the first group (ages 17+). Today in camp we focused on volleyball, soccer, and basketball. Volleyball and soccer are a lot of the older groups main/favorite sports so we were learning more than teaching. We ran lots of drills that taught them specific things that they can use to work to improve their skills. During the break of the two camp sessions, we got to have some delicious lunch. They served us chicken salad sandwiches with coleslaw. We also had a group of the team head down to the local store to fuel up on some Coke’s, Fanta’s, and Kung Fu which is a Zambian energy drink similar to Red Bull. Pickleball is also a popular thing for us to do while passing time. Whether it is a very relaxed game or super intense, everyone seems to enjoy it. The young kids arrived and we were back to sports. With the younger kids they subbed basketball for netball. Netball is a very popular sport for the women in the communities. The kids are always filled with excitement and energy for all the sports. After sports wrapped up for the day, the team went back and put on our fancy clothes for dinner and Poetice’s worship night. At dinner, the whole base sang Nolan happy birthday for his 21st birthday. We also got really tasty cupcakes! All dressed up after a sweaty day we started the worship time. This worship time is an opportunity for kids from the camp and also members of the local communities to join in. The main lesson during worship was allowing God to meet you exactly where you are on your faith journey. It was an opportunity to dance, sing, and invite God into our lives. The environment in the worship center was very comfortable for lots of the members on the team mostly because of the locals who welcomed us. After worship, a Zambian birthday tradition, Nolan got multiple buckets of cold water dumped on him. After he dried off, we got started with our nightly debrief. This debrief created a space for everyone who was called to express what they felt during worship. One of the main takeaways of this session was an overwhelming number of compliments given out from one member of the team to another. The whole team has grown super tight and has high aspirations to see how God will keep working in each and everyone of us for the rest of the trip.
-Jack, Nolan, and Kennedi