Today was a long but profitable day. We left our housing at 6:00 am to head to the airport. We flew an hour south to the Island of Cebu, where we will spend the rest of our trip. Cebu City is one of the 3 major cities in the Philippines in addition to Manila and Davao City.
Upon arrival, we met Pastor Gary, who helps take care of the Philippines side of things related to the ministry trips. Working with him on the ground in Manila is also Coach Al Solis. Al is a former PBA player who coaches in Cebu City. Al is one of 3 players in the PBA to accumulate over 1000 3 pointers in their career.
Pastor Gary and Coach Al picked us up at the airport to take us to the place where we will be staying during our time in Cebu City. Pastor Phillip, of the Cebu Christian Gospel Center, has been a great blessing to Buhay Sports over the years. He has always been willing to open up CCGC to help visiting teams who are in the area for ministry. Praise God for always providing partners who will step up and contribute to the team in different ways.
After we got everything unloaded and situated in our rooms (offices with sleeping mats), we met with Pastor Gary to go over a few things. After our meeting we headed to our first game in Cebu.
Living Word Christian Ministries is a big supporter of sports ministries across the Philippines. Coach Daniel and Josh have partnered with them on a number of occaisions. They have a ministry team called the ACES (Athletes for Christ in Excellent Service) who do a lot of the same things that we do throughout the year. Our first game was played at LWCM against the ACES. It was a great opportunity to encourage our brothers in Christ. Devin shared his testimony and encouraged the the other team to stay focused on Christ, who will carry you through the tough times as well as the easy times.
After our game with the ACES, we headed to University of the Visayas, their mascot is the Green Lancers. The Visayas are the chain of islands in the middle of the Philippines, between the two main islands Luzon (North) and Mindanao (South). UV has been the champion of thier league for the last 8 years, and has not lost many games over that time period. We played at their campus, where they had a cool older gym. It was a very competitive game that we were able to pull out in the end by 4. Coach Daniel told us that at some point we would experience bad officiating. I think this was beyond what any of us expected. Blatently bad calls were made throughout the game, especially by one specific referee, who we found out later was a janitor at the school and not an actual referee... I think this was pretty evident all along.
The most important part of the game was the ministry. We had a pretty good crowd and there were a couple of players on the team from the ACES. Coach Al is the assistant coach at UV, so he is able to plug some of the UV players into the ACES team. James shared his testimony and encouraged the spectators and other players to "taste and see" that the Lord is good. Coach Daniel and Josh see these players at various times throughout the year and will continue to try to build the relationship with them with the goal of continuing to present the Gospel. The ACES will also have an ongoing ministry with a number of these players. Please pray for the ACES team as they minister throughout the country, and for the UV Green Lancers. We know God will use our words to make a change in someone... now or down the road.
After we finished dinner, our local contacts were telling us how close we were to the church where we were staying. "Less than 3 minutes" they kept saying. We got lost a couple times, then stopped for gas, only to find out that the first gas station was out of gas. It was pretty funny how less than 3 minutes turned into almost 30. By the time we got back, everyone was ready to sleep... Like I said, it was a long day, but we know that God will use our work to further His kingdom.
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