We woke up this morning and went to church at Christ Believer's Fellowship Church. CBFC is held on the facilities of the Arthur Center, the ministry Daniel started to be the center point for outreach in a squatter village and surrounding subdivisions. This was a very exciting morning, because as we were all sitting there waiting for church to start, in walked one of the local players from the Buhay Cup. I am not sure what his name is, but Daniel calls him "The Assasin" because he shoots every time he touches the ball. He played against us in our game on Day 1 and came to church after hearing our group invite everyone to attend. This was so exciting for us because as a seed planting ministry you don't always get to be around for the harvest. Most importantly, we are happy for this individual who followed the Holy Spirit's leading to come to church, but it was also a great chance for all of us players to see the fruit of our labor. Praise God!
After church we drove out to Old Manila, where we played against St. Benilde College. SBC is a member of the NCAA, which is the other top college league in the Philippines. Our game went well, and we battled back and forth. When the final buzzer sounded, the score was 88 - 88. People say that a tie in competition is like kissing your sister... I agree. However, when playing what we call friendship games, we do not play overtime, if it ends in a tie it ends in a tie. After the game, Daniel gave the challenge to the other players to make a decision to follow Christ and to make Him, Lord of their life. We gave them all a gospel tract and invited them to talk with us after the game or sometime in the future when they see Josh or Daniel. We were also thankful to CSB for the generous gift of Jolibee spaghetti meals. A lot of times, teams will provide a meal or snack for us when we come to play. They also had us well stocked on Gatorade! What a blessing.
Our second game of the day was near SBC, so instead of going all the way home and coming back out, we decided to stop for some food and wait for the next game. We all stopped at KFC and enjoyed some American style food and fellowship with each other. It was nice to get to talk to some of the guys and find out more about them.
When it got closer to our game we headed back out toward Jose Rizal University. The JRU Heavy Bombers are one of the top 4 college teams in the country. They also play in the NCAA, same as St. Benilde College. We knew we were in for a tough match and we had yet to play our best team basketball, but we really stepped it up for this one. From the get go, Hudson made some amazing threes, Elliot took great care of the ball and really managed the game, and James made some tough plays inside gathering some crucial offensive boards and put backs. Although we lead almost the entire way, the game was never secure. There was definitely a sense of urgency to play our best for the whole game. We ended up winning by about 10.
After the game, Hudson was given the opportunity to talk to the players about his relationship with Christ. Hudson plays basketball for the Unniversity of Florida, so many of the guys were very interested in what he had to say. After he talked about how Christ changed his life we began to pass out tracts. Some of the players jumped right to the front to get one. It was exciting to see their enthusiasm and while no one stayed after to ask any questions, we are confident that God used our time with these players to plant seeds that someone else down the road will have an opportunity to harvest. Please remember to pray for the players of SBC and JRU. That the Holy Spirit will do something great in each of their hearts.
Tomorrow we leave for the island of Cebu... many more games to play....
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