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Belgium Recap (extended version)

I am supposed to keep my newsletters kind of short, but I am a kind of longwinded person. No one reading this who has ever read other blog posts is surprised. So...here's some added details I left out of my newsletter!

Week 1:

We traveled to Belgium overnight, arriving on July 10. Between the 10-14th, we had training camp for 30 athletes who were mostly Belgian and American high school and college students. As a SQ staff member, I helped lead the training, including workshops on the project guidelines, discipleship and evangelism, and sports ministry strategies. We also spent time doing team building activities and worshiping together in preparation for the weeks of ministry ahead.

Leading a workshop during Training Camp
Week 2:

On Saturday the 14th, we split off into smaller sports-based teams and took trains to the cities where we would be serving for the upcoming week. My teammates were Daniel (co-leader, from Germany), Marnus (Belgian), Darcy (Belgian), Adri (Belgian), Yojaira (American) and Dani (SQ summer intern, American). We were being hosted by Geert and Martine, a married couple who leads a house church in a neighborhood of the city of Gentbrugge. Geert and Martine are especially passionate about reaching the young people (and their families) who live near them. Many of their neighbors are Muslim immigrants from countries in Africa and the Middle East. The neighborhood has a very similar feel in terms of racial diversity and income to where I serve in Baton Rouge. It was really exciting for me to see how valuable the lessons I have learned over the past several years in Baton Rouge can be for ministry in other locations as well. As someone who tends to learn things the hard way, it's encouraging to know that sometimes the fruit of past mistakes is present success. A couple of my favorite moments from Gentbrugge, where we played 4-5 hours of street soccer every day, include Thursday night when the kids came over for a movie and to play the card game spoons and Friday morning when a total of 7 kids came to Geert and Martine's house to join our team Bible study! Several of the boys we played soccer with had good questions and listened closely when we shared the Gospel.

Spoons with kids in GB
My GB team/FAMILY (L to R: Daniel, Darcy, Marnus, me, Yojaira, Adri, Dani - yes, that's 3 Daniel/Danielle's!)
Daniel and I chatting with Obedah and other kids during a soccer game in GB
Sidenote: at the end of our week in Gentbrugge, on Friday during our final round of street soccer, I broke my wrist while playing goalkeeper. I didn't share too much about it because God was doing too many incredible things that week for an injury to take center stage. I received great treatment in Belgium and was able to continue to coach during the rest of the project. Since returning to the USA, I have continued to get follow-up treatment and was just released to stop wearing the cast (except for when I coach soccer) and to begin physical therapy.

Becky, me and Enco at soccer camp in Herentals - in matching shirts! - me with the awesome cast I had for a week
Week 3:

On Saturday the 21st, all of our teams came together and spent the day in Leuven to regroup and share what the Lord did during our first week of ministry. I spent a much needed afternoon off enjoying lunch with Leslie, Jenni, and Becky, SportQuest sisters and staff who I love and who I don't see nearly often enough. We ate fries (Belgium has the BEST fries) for lunch and debriefed our first week and encouraged one another. After our time in Leuven, the teams re-shuffled a bit and split off for our second week of ministry. My team traveled to Herentals, where we were leading a week of sports camps (basketball, dance, and football) for kids. With a broken wrist, I was forced to move at a slower pace the second week and rely on my teammates for everything from putting my hair up (thanks Becky) to opening the banana I ate almost every day for breakfast (thanks Enco) and making the lunch I packed to take to camp (thanks Allison, Leo, Becky...and everyone who made that happen). It was humbling, but God was working. I have spent the past year in Baton Rouge serving mostly by myself - especially on the weekly Bible studies I lead for teenagers - and God used the week in Herentals to remind me how much better it is to be a part of a family and how important it is to call on others for assistance. I woke up naturally early (ahem, ROOSTER who crowed at 5:30am every day) each day in Herentals and spent extra time in the Word and with one of my other teammates who rose early. Then we had some great team Bible study and worship time before leading a 5-6 hour camp for the youth. At camp, I was still able to coach soccer some, but I especially enjoyed leading discussion groups about Bible stories and testimonies we shared with the campers.
Kids in Herentals listening to my teammate Allison share her testimony while my teammate Anouchka translated
Kids playing games in Herentals
Finale:

On the 28th our teams came back together again in Leuven for debrief and to celebrate all the work the Lord did through the SportQuest Belgium project in 2018. We debriefed and went shopping and had dinner and said our goodbyes. Early the next morning the Americans flew back to the USA while some of our Belgian teammates went for one final week of sports ministry in a city called Brakel. Becky and I stopped off in New York City to visit my college roommate, Abby, and crammed as much tourism in as we could muster with jet-lag in 2-3 days - Liberty & Ellis Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, The 9/11 Museum and Memorial, thrift store shopping, Central Park, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Becky plus me and the Statue of Liberty, from the ferry to Liberty Island. Also, the much better black brace-cast Belgium sent me home in
I spent about 1.5 weeks in Kentucky with family before heading home to Baton Rouge. I turned 30 and went on a birthday weekend hike with my parents. It was great. What a summer!

Mom & me on the birthday hike
Key Lessons of the Summer:

 *TIME OUTS ARE OK - sometimes it's good to step out the battle to rest & heal so you can re-enter it refreshed and with new insight from the Spirit
*TEAMMATES ARE NECESSARY - ask for help, ask for help, ask for help and when in doubt...ask for help
*TRUST HIM WITH MY TREASURE - especially the kids - my ultimate inheritance is Christ, and He loves the little ones more deeply than I can imagine

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