On a Friday back in June, the night before college graduation, we had the soccer team over to our house for a movie and time to honor the seniors. So I had gotten a soccer jersey for our seniors and had written a charge to them as they were graduating. I read the charge which was really a prayer of commission and blessing for the guys, and I hope that it's something that they can reference in the future. Then we did a surprise unveiling of the jerseys, and the guys really went crazy. I'm not sure if it was the fact that it was for their favorite EPL club team, or if it was just the emotion of the night, but it was really funny. Everyone ran up front for a picture. I was laughing so hard and enjoying their excitement. Then we said some encouraging words to our outgoing athletic director, Derek Breuninger, who had done a great job over the last couple years getting the athletic program really moving in the right direction. We gave him a Malawi flag, and once again, it was picture time with the whole team! I am very grateful that it was a good way to send the guys off to the holiday.
Other good news with the ABC Lions: 1) Our new athletic director, Jeff White, worked with some folks from his church and college soccer team back home to raise money for new jerseys and a team set of soccer balls. We joke that we could quite possibly be the best outfitted team in Malawi (besides maybe the national team). Now we just have to make sure our game measures up. 2) Jeff has also been doing a lot of thinking on philosophy of our sports department and I'm excited to see how it gets implemented this next year. His hope is that we really push the teams into more outreachto the community, and make sure we keep our priorities straight while playing sports: Honoring God with our athletic endeavors.
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