Our plane landed at 5:30 a.m. and our hosts from the Iligan City Christian Businessman's Fellowship were there to pick us up. They really rolled out the welcome wagon! As we walked out of the airport they had a large banner welcoming our team and they gave us all medallions to wear around our neck. As we went throughout the day, this treatment would continue. It was such a blessing to see people so excited about getting involved in ministry to their community.
One of the biggest blessings was reconnecting with Brother Nelson, who Josh has worked with the last couple of years. He was the one who helped coordinate the details of our trip. He is a local businessman in Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro, but his passion for ministry is evident and the smile never left his face as we traveled around to our different events.
After stopping for some breakfast we headed 2 hours north to Iligan City, where we will spend our first two days. We got situated and had about 30 minutes to relax, then we went out for the motorcade. This consisted of driving around to the main parts of town and throwing out fliers from the back of the trucks we were riding in. It was going great until it started raining. We still did our best, but by the end it was pouring so had that we all got inside the trucks and rolled the windows down to invite people to come to our games. We also stopped at the mall to hand out fliers and invite people to the games as well.
The view of our motorcade from the front vehicle. This is before the rain came pouring down!
At the mall inviting people to come to our game. Everywhere we go, people want to take pictures of us with their cell phone cameras! Isn't technology wonderful?!?
After the motorcade we traveled back to the hotel and prepared for the game. We had a few minutes to relax, and then we headed to the game. We arrived and the game went as normal. It was a pretty tough team, but we maintained control pretty easily with the help of our late addition CJ, who is a friend who does sports ministry in Cebu City. Josh shared his testimony at half time and a local pastor followed up with a Gospel presentation in the local language. We gave the over 1000 people in attendance a gospel tract that the pastor also explained in detail. We went on to win the game 87 - 75.
After the game, we met the opposing team for dinner at Ritzas. After a great meal of Lechon Baboy (Whole Pig Roast) we had a chance to tell them about Buhay Sports and then share a more specific challenge to them as athletes to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. CJ is a friend of ours who is just out of college in the states and is spending the coming months in Cebu City helping out with sports ministry teams there. He told him that when his life was centered around basketball it was never going to last forever, but when he committed his life to join the team of Jesus Christ, he was on a team that would be playing for eternity. It was a really great perspective to share with athletes. After CJ spoke, we had a local pastor who came up and led the players in the sinners prayer. We don't know how many of them said it and truly made a decision to give their hearts to Christ, but a few of them talked to our hosts after the dinner was over and said they had accepted Christ. Our hosts and the local pastors will continue to follow up and hopefully we will get a full report down the road, but at this point, even to know that 1 or 2 have professed salvation makes the long long day worth it!
Here is CJ at the restaurant sharing his testimony with the team we had just played
Keep the people from Iligan City who heard our presentation and the players who we shared with after the game in your prayers. While some of them made professions of faith, there are still more who need to give their life to Christ.
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