Professional Soccer Games: Philadelphia Union

It is not every day that you have the opportunity to go to a professional soccer game for free.  In August of 2013 one of my friends texted me while I was at work wondering if I wanted to go that night to a game.  I quickly got off work and headed home to get ready to leave.  
When we arrived to the stadium I met my friends father who happens to be the chaplain of the Philadelphia Union Soccer Team.
The game was going to start in less than fifteen minutes and my excitement was growing inside of me. We were in our seats waiting for the game to start, just a few minutes into playing time my friends father came to where we were and told us to come with him.  We had no idea what was going on until we ended up sitting right behind the players and I couldn't believe how special it was.

My friend's and I have been soccer players from the young ages of four, to us watching any game is amazing.  I have never seen the Union team play before nor did I know any of their names but it was an amazing opportunity in which I will never forget!

Meeting the players was a lot of fun but just being there with my friends and watching a good soccer game was all I could have asked for.  I have gone back to several Union games as the years have gone on, but none will be as special as the first one.  The stadium called my name and the grass field was the best field I had ever stepped on making it a dream come true.

Life Lesson #25: Viewing soccer games live are awesome, with good company it is so much better!

Continent Jump

Up until 2013 I have never left the content of North America.  For the fifth missions trip I had the amazing opportunity to travel to England.  We flew into Heathrow Airport in London, England from a redeye so we arrived in the morning to try and quickly adjust to the six hour time change.  We then took a Train to York, England where we would stay that night.  
As we are all exhausted the people we are staying with show us around York and I bet that if people really payed attention to us they would see walking zombies.  As we reached our rooms we were tempted to fall asleep right after dinner but they had something else for us to do, praying that we wouldn't fall asleep.
The next morning we said goodbye and then took another train to Cambridge, England where we would stay for the remainder of the trip.  We had the opportunity to explore Cambridge as well and try different types of food they had.  
Seeing such amazing architecture in those old buildings and looking at the intense detail was so fascinating to realize how the technology was when these cathedrals and buildings were being made and how impressive it is because they are so wonderfully designed.   Such detail and work put into buildings that sometimes those working on it wouldn't see it finished because it took them so long to build them.
As we entered into the missions section of our trip it was an interesting time.  I had talked to people about my faith before but this was the first time I was on a week long trip just to talk to people.  It started out slow and it was difficult to start up conversations with people.  But once I started it was easy to continue.  I realized that I wasn't just meeting people from England but all over Europe.
We played soccer in the field of one of the parks we hung out at to speak with people brought in a lot of people we had never met before and then we were able to start up a conversation with them.  I started talking with this one guy on the second day there and I had never came across someone who believed what he did.  He was from Switzerland and He told me that he did not believe that history is reliable and he had to be there to see something happen or he doesn't believe the even occurred.  He continued to explain that he didn't know if the Revolutionary ware occurred or the Civil war.  I really didn't know how to talk to him about anything because without believing in the reliability of history then you can't believe much at all.


As I was speaking with this young man  I found it difficult to reason with him so I had a friend nearby go and find the youth pastor that was with us to help me converse with this new ideology.  It worked in the beginning because he was able to show the guy that his belief had so many holes in it and he even admitted it to himself, but he was still adamant on remaining in the belief category.  He told us that he knows many people who believe what he does...I have yet to met another person who does, but maybe one day soon and I'll know what to say.


I also spoke with two girls who had never heard about God before and this was strange to me, they were taught evolution in school but they knew there was a reason for life more than just being an accident.  I spoke with them for three hours and gave them some books to read about significance when you are a child of God.  I don't know where they are today, but I hope that they are well wherever their life path has lead them.

Life Lesson #24: When going to a different time zone taking a red eye get you quickly adjusted to the time zone, but if you don't sleep on the plane you will be very exhausted.

Turtles Take Hershey

I can never clearly recall why my girl scout troop had a turtle for our mascot.  I think it had something to do with national turtle day one year and some embarrassing moments for one particular girl. Thinking back it was cruel at the time but the one girl was so excited about it that it just sorta stuck.
As we did every summer we went on a weekend trip somewhere.  In July 2013 we went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.  The drive was always difficult with seven of us we didn't fit into one car.  But that was okay we made it work even with all the things that some girls need to bring on a weekend adventure.

Hotel rooms always had interesting moment for us.  Choosing who was going to sleep in the same bed and who was maybe gonna sleep on the floor so the didn't have to deal with sleeping with one of the girls who always took over the bed every night.  Once that was settled we got to work making our t-shirts.  We always made a shirt for every trip, and this trip was no different.  We drew a candy on out shirts that and instead of writing its proper name we wrote turtles to fit with our theme and our personal expression.


One thing that was always nice was we could be ourselves around each other. We went swimming in the hotel pool and then we went to Hershey Park.  We went to Chocolate World and had a lot of fun buying chocolate and seeing how it is made.  In Hershey Park we went to the water section and enjoyed all the great rides that we could in the short amount of time. Then when we were finished we met up with our leaders and the other girls who didn't com with and we went on regular roller coasters for  the rest of the day.

Life Lesson #23: When Going to a park with water rides also pack flip flops so you don't have to walk around barefoot on the hot ground.

Summer Camp Round Two

That feeling you get when you return to a place you fell in love with is unforgettable and difficult to put into words.  I simply loved summer camp in the summer of 2012 I decided it was an opportunity for round two! SB2W summer of 2013 would be my second and last time I was a camper.  The picture to the left depicts the cabin I was in, I was still a Legend in Cabin 12 but our group was a little different this time.  My best friend didn't have the opportunity to come, but I found my old friends and new ones.

We had a lot of pride in our cabin and my counselors where the coolest of them all.  I still have the opportunity to email back and for with one of them as I go through my college years.  To the right is both of my counselors for my cabin  the one on the left eventually was added to the roman team "the enemy" and the one to the right was a Galatian so she was on the right team. 

I still struggled with wrist issues on this trip and had to keep myself in line with some of the activities.  During the faith pole i luckily was able to get on top of the telephone pole and jump with a little help from some of my friends.  Heights remained to not be enjoyable and when the high ropes corse adventure came around I found myself cheering from the ground...safe!  I returned to the white water rafting adventure and survived for a second time.  The weather seemed to be against us as it poured most of the afternoon and night meaning we got a little wet while camping.

I kept many of my friends from this adventure but I knew all to well that I would not return to the wonderful Que, so I said my goodbyes and prayed that maybe there was a chance I could return.  The outdoors has always brought me a sense of piece and when the two weeks came I didn't want to leave.  My brothers came with on this adventure though I rarely saw them.  Unfortunately for them the weather most of that summer was rainy and kept us inside for some of the day.  They found this boring and I got the chance to grow closer with my cabin mates and counselors.  This term also turned out to be a blue summer and the cool blue Galatians went home with another victory over the red hot Romans.

Life Lesson #22: Sometimes the weather can ruin your adventure, but you must improvise and turn it into becoming something much better and never let the weather ruin your fun.

Track Team Over Night

When they say that you run your fastest while in a hotel hallway, many people don't realize how truthful that is.  Overnight school trips are amazing and are a great opportunity, but sports overnight trips are even better.  During Track season the biggest meet for us during the regular season was ACSI in Bangor, PA.  This was May of 2013 and the first time we stayed overnight.  previous years we enjoyed torturing ourselves and decided it would be way more fun to meet at school at 4 am and drive to the meet.  This messed up our sleep schedules and hurdlers went first and I was barely awake.


Between athletes there is such a saying as "I run faster in the hotel hallways then I do anywhere else"  is probably the most realistic and truthful statement about athletes I know.  We went around the town and just admired the smallness of it all.  It was the cutest center to a town I had seen in awhile.

The food that we had for dinner was your usually carb load up, the classics like pasta.  We were a small team at this point with no that many girls and we were able to place 3rd over all.  I wasn't able to achieve my goal of getting first place for my number 1 event and all time favorite the 100m hurdles.  I knew I was coming back the next year to face the same girls and I wasn't going to lose to them again.  We placed 2nd for the 4 by 100m relay and it was the best time for the year and we were happy about that.

The trip was an adventure and the track meet took all day and my whole team waited till I finish javelin and then we headed to the nearest sonic for our classic post meet dinner.  That day each of us accomplished somethings that we never though where possible.  But that day we might have run faster on the track then through the hotel hallways no matter how creepy they were.

Life Lesson #21: There might be people out there that are faster and stronger, but as long as you push yourself to do your best then you can't walk away with your head low.

Mexico Round Two

After this first year of crushing disappointment, it only seems fit that we were again to return to Mexico in and unfortunate turn on circumstances.  Originally the plan was to go to Panama in August 2012.  A month or two prior to the trip our youth pastor got a job on the other side of the country in California.  And he was scheduled to start work before our trip.  By now I had learned to live on my toes and expect the unexpected when it comes to ministry.


None of the other pastors on staff had the availability to go with us to Panama and the youth pastor taking over had no experience down there.  So in drastic measures we quickly switch the trip to Mexico for a second year in a row.


The route was the same as the summer prior, we flew into California and drove down into Mexico.  This trip though was much more child oriented.  We did help with some construction projects but nothing as demanding as the year prior. But this trip was still a blessing.

Since my youth pastor was already moved into his house we went to visit him at the college he still works at.  This campus is in Marietta, California and has natural hot springs.  The smell wasn't particularly that appealing but the warmth quickly changed our minds. We got to experience college life and eat some great food that only the west coast offers us.


I learned that making balloon animals is way harder than it looks and takes a skill of some sort to make them awesome.  We sang some of our spanish worship songs that I learned in my spanish class.  The kids couldn't get enough of them.  At the orphanage that we spent decent amount of time at one of the workers daughters was fluent in english.  She served as our translator with many of the little children.

One day we spent with some local people from a village I spent the day with a brother and sister who never said a word to anyone.  When their mother came to get then she smiled at me and took her kids.  She pointed at a piece of paper that said thank you written on it with the children's ages; 4 and 5.  I never figured out their names or their mothers for that matter.  Maybe they all couldn't talk or they were silenced.

We spent some time at the beach doing devotions and just getting to know each other through the missions trip.  At first I was really upset about the fact that I didn't have the opportunity to go to Panama, but as the bible says when the Lord closes a door he opens a window.  This was one of the first times I started to open up about my spiritual journey.  I made a few friends cry while I told my story but in the end it was all worth it.

Life Lesson #20: Sharing my testimony the first time was hard, but it only got easier with experience.