Tuesday: Big Games and Big Waterfalls

We woke up today at 6:00 AM to meet our hosts from the Iligan City Businessman's Fellowship. They have a weekly meeting where they play and this week they invited us to join in a quick game with some of their friends. By 7:30 we finished a short friendship game which we won 62-40. Immediately after we played a local barangay team that was made up of several local star players. Although it was 8:00 in the morning we had a pretty large crowd. It was by far the most competitive game of the trip and we came back from a 20 point deficit to win 132-120. Afterward, Kirk Long was able to share his testimonies with the local players and some of our security team that has been following us around for the last 2 days.


Our team posing with the guys from our morning games in Iligan City



Daniel with the guys from the Army who were assigned to our team while we were in Iligan City. No worries parents, this is just something that the local mayors like to do to make us feel welcome. We weren't really in danger, although, it should help you sleep a little better at night knowing we have 24 hour armed guards :)


After our game we had meetings with the local mayor and the congressman of the area. Then were able to take in some sightseeing and we visited Tinago falls. Tinago Falls is a great local waterfall where we were able to swim and cliff dive. Some of the missionaries who have grown up in the Philippines said it was the nicest nature spot they have seen in all of the country.


All of the guys who made the journey to the waterfall. It was a blast! There were a few kids who showed us how to climb the rocks for a good high jump into the water.

When we returned from Tinago falls we headed to our 3rd game of the day. As we pulled up to Tibangan court we could hear that the crowd was ready for us. The court was completely packed with well over 1000 people. Vince Burke challenged the crowd to give their lives to Christ at halftime and we handed out tracts to many eager fans. Generally we are able to get the crowd excited with lots of dunks, but the goals at this court were well over 10' 6" high... no one was dunking tonight, but the crowd stayed excited because the game was close... after a few scares, we pulled out an 85-80 victory.

As we left the game we headed to a short dinner where we were able to meet with our opponents in a smaller setting and Daniel was able to share the Gospel with them. Please pray for these players as we challenged them to make a decision for Christ.