Finally, A Little Break!

This morning we woke up and headed back to Cagayan de Oro, the city we had originally flown into. We had to leave very early so Kirk could get to the airport in time to catch a flight back to Manila and then get to class at Ateneo. We met up with our hosts in CDO, the Cagayan de Oro Chapter of the Christian Businessman's Fellowship. After we dropped Kirk at the airport we headed to the hotel where we will be staying for the rest of the trip. We finally had some real time to relax. Up to now, it has just been a few minutes here and there, but because we had left so early we had a good amount of time at the hotel before our next appointment. We ate lunch together as a team at Pizza Hut. Real Nice!

We headed to our game at 4:30 pm in Barangay Puerto. We arrived about 5:30 and there were a few people around, but there was no opposing team to be found. We waited and waited and by 6:45 there was still no team. I talked to our hosts and told them that if no one was there by 7:00 we would just do a dunk contest and play some games with the kids instead of playing a full game. I am not sure if that had anything to do with it, but the team showed up right at 7. One benefit of sitting there so long was that word had gotten out that there were Americans at the court. By the time the game started there were close to 2000 people crowded into the little covered court.


This is just a small section of the crowd. See how people squeeze in just to get a glimpse of the game?


Mark getting mauled by fans who want pictures, or autographs... or a lock of his hair


We had a great game, and while it was not a close score, the rims were back to regular size and CJ and Josh were able to keep everyone excited with some dunks (mostly CJ). The final score was 84 - 64. Micah F shared his testimony at halftime and we gave tracts to everyone. A local pastor shared a Gospel presentation and we invited everyone to visit the local church on Sunday. Pray that the words we spoke and the tracts we gave out will lead someone to give their life to Christ or stop in to church on Sunday and hear more about it.


Vince handing out tracts to spectators in Barangay Puerto