March/April Update

This past month has been heavily inundated with football. We finished the primary school tournaments on Wednesday, then closed the school term on Thursday and then I left for a short vacation on Friday. I was able to drive a group of eight missionary friends from various parts of Kenya to Uganda to raft the Nile over the weekend. WE arrived back in Nairobi on Sunday night. This week I will be staying in Nairobi as I watch the Kenya National Secondary School Basketball Championships.

2010 is a historic year for CGA as our first graduates will sit their secondary school national exams in October/December. Many of these sixteen students were in CGA's first Nursery class back in 1997 and with the support of their sponsors, CGA has helped to see them all the way through their primary school and secondary school education. A few weeks back two of these "Form 4's" called me up and asked if I could come to the parent's day at their boarding school. I don't usually come on those days because we want to encourage their guardians to take the parenting responsibility, but this time they insisted. "Rose" began at CGA in the first class in 1997 as a total orphan under the care of a distant relative. She has had many obstacles throughout her education without much support from home and with the burden of many responsibilities in her family, but she has continued to persevere. During the parents day I was able to meet with all of her subject teachers and see her recent performance. She has really been improving and has climbed into the top ten in her school out of over sixty students. By the end of the term she reached the top five. If she continues that upward trend and God provides a way, she would like to study architecture after secondary school.

"Alice" is not an orphan, but is in a very difficult situation. She had come to CGA in 2nd grade even through her family lives on a neigboring island. Her father is a polygamist and had abandoned her mother several years ago to be with his other wives. He still has contact with his children, but says his only role in their lives is to give them a little money a couple times a year. The mother resorted to brewing and selling illicit brew to provide for her family, but after many run-ins with the police she finally abandoned her family to go somewhere else for a fresh start. The children were left in the care of the elderly grandmother. Alice says that without the support of CGA she would have never reached the level of education she has reached and would have remained very bitter towards her parents. Her goal is a B on her national exam so that she can pursue her dream of being a nurse. Everyone one of the sixteen Form 4's has a different story and it is exciting to see God at work in their lives. To look at where they have come from and where they are going.

Our girls' football club captured the Coca Cola Regional Championship in Homa Bay, we dove head first into the primary school ball-games schedule. It works like an all-star selection because you start at the school level with tournaments and then the best players are selected to proceed to the next level. Usually there is 1-2 days between tournament to train with your new team and prepare for the next level. Through all the levels (pre-base, base, zonal, divisional, district, regional and provencial) we were fortunate to win all twenty matches that we played up until the Provencial Final. Our regional team was made up of ten Suba Laker Football Club Girls and six others from various parts of our region. We reached the finals undefeated (and untied) and had already beaten our opponent in the preliminaries. They played a tough match and didn't allow us to score even though we had multiple chances. Eventually it went to post-match penalty kicks where we lost 4-3. Fortunately four of our girls were selected for Nationals, including a CGA student for the third straight year. Adah Sharon Awuor will be the goalkeeper at the National Tournament.

Prayer Requests:

1) Pray that my short time away from Mbita would be spiritually and physically refreshing

2) Pray for the students and staff at CGA to refocus themselves during this school breaks so that they return in Term 2 with renewed passion and energy to carry out God's calling in their lives.

3) Pray for our Form 4's in secondary school as they study and prepare for their National Exams later this year.

4) Pray for our Suba Lakers Girls Football Club to continue to positively impact the lives of these girls off the field in every area of their lives.

Rafting the Nile

Had a great weekend rafting the Nile in Jinja, Uganda. We finished the primary school sports tournaments on Wednesday, closed the school term at CGA on Thursday and then headed for Uganda on Friday. Jenny Cox and three other American teaches from West Nairobi School came out to Mbita to visit the school this week. So the five of us jumped in my Landcruiser and took the morning ferry and drove to Kisumu. We met up with four other friends from Narok. The nine of us squeezed in my vehicle and with some good IPOD music blaring headed for the border.

This was the forth time I have done it, but each time is a totally different adventure. It is so wild. There is an incredible rush you get when you are paddling right in the eye of the rapid, not sure if you will survive or get thrown into the water. Actually I think I get more scared each time I do it because I know how crazy it can get. We had a fun group of missionaries and enjoyed our time in the vehicle, at the camp and in the raft. Both of our rafts only flipped twice, though I was also thrown in one extra time by the sheer force of the wave.

Sunday's journey from Jinja back to Nairobi was long, taking about 10 hours; but the weekend was just what I needed. It was nice to get away from Mbita and be with some other young missionaries and be able to talk, laugh and joke. I was thankful for the opportunity and for God's provision in the entire trip.

Suba Lakers Dominating

The past few weeks has been full of sports from the school level reaching up to the Provencial level (6 levels). The Lakers have been excelling throughout on their various teams and showing people around the area that girls can play football like boys. For many of their games, there are more fans watching them play than the boys team. They have won every game (around 23 in total) including the regional championship this past Thursday and Friday. They won the finals by a score of 2-0 with goals by Caren Akeyo and Alice Okoth. The team representing Mbita District was made up of 12 girls from the Suba Lakers Football Club and coached by myself. We are leaving today for Bondo where we will compete in the Provencial Championships. Ten of the players are from the Suba Lakers Club.

Shining Stars

The CGA girls football players continued their winning ways today. Even though their games were shortened drastically by the referee because of time, they managed to earn two clean victories. Eleven CGA girls were representing the Mbita base at the Zonal tournament. In the first match Sharon Akinyi scored a classic goal when she got past the last defender and used her speed to race towards the goal and deliver a powerful shot. In the 2nd match the team dominated the action with our goalkeeper never even getting a chance to touch the ball. Sharon netted the 2nd goal after a beautiful cross by winger Belinda Awuor that she controlled perfectly and directed it in the goal. The fans gathered around the field at Kirindo Primary thoroughly enjoyed watching the style of play the girls displayed with deft passing and great teamwork.

It marks the end of a successful two week run with 10 straight victories at different levels and in different tournaments. Seven of the CGA girls were selected to move on to the Divisional level on Monday. It has been fun coaching this bunch of girls, as we move on to the different levels we compete against other members from the Suba Lakers Football Club. After defeating them, we join them with our group for the next level.

CGA players also have been very successful in netball, boys and girls volleyball and boys football, in addition to girls football.

Copa Coca Cola Champs

The Suba Lakers played in the Copa Coca Cola Tournament this weekend in Homa Bay. It was an under-17 year old tournament. The club took 17 of its primary school players to compete against mostly secondary school teams who had entered the tournament. In the first match, the Lakers thrashed Pedo 7 to 1 which helped us to advance to the semifinals in the knockout tournament. In the semfinals we managed two goals against Ogande Girls Secondary School.

On Sunday we prepared to face two former CGA students and their powerful Asumbi Girls Secondary School team. They have reached the Provencial Finals the past two years in the Nyanza Secondary School Championships and had all of their players returning from last year. Our young primary school girls fought valiantly, but wore down as the 2nd half dragged on. The defense stayed strong though and goalkeeper Adah Sharon made some great saves to preserve a 0-0 draw. To decide the winner the match went to penalty kicks.

We missed our 2nd kick and were down 2-1 with most of the girls losing hope. Asumbi had easily made their first two kicks, before Adah blocked the next two. When their fifth kick sailed wide of the goal our team erupted with joy and attacked our goalkeeper in a dogpile. Adah was then carried around the field in triumphant victory.

My high spirits were brought down quickly about 15 seconds after the celebration when I realized that my cell phone was gone. Some bystander had taken advantage of the mayhem to steal my phone from me. So we won the tournament, but I lost my nice phone and all my contacts.

Our team will be advancing to the next stage of the Copa Coca Cola Tournament in Kisii town in April.

A Great Day

I am not sure if it was such a good day because I am feeling healthy again or if God just blessed me with one of those days to encourage my heart. I led our staff's morning devotions and God just spoke through me as I taught on Ezra and the spiritual rebuilding of the Israelites when returning from 70 years of Exile in Babylon- reading, practicing and teaching the Israelites the word of God.

Then I went back to the clinic for my 2nd injection of antibiotic (a really cool tingling through the veins up my arm). After that I went to the bank and was successful in running some errands.

After that, back to school and teaching my 8th grade Math class and 7th grade Bible class. In Math the students were following right along on a difficult topic (area of combined shapes, borders, etc.) and were very jovial and lively. The 7th grade Bible class was more active than ever raising their hands, answering questions and asking questions. We had a great lesson about King David's heart and how he was quick to repent of his mistake with Bathsheba once he was confronted by Nathan. We talked about how he fasted and prayed for his child not to die, but after his death how David got dressed, ate and went to worship and praise God. We conrasted this to King Saul and how he was so quick to lie, deny, make excuses and blame others when Samuel confonted him about following God's instructions to totally destroy the Amalekites. They were able to discover for themselves the difference in a "man after God's own heart" and others. Not the fact that David was perfect, but that he was quick to repent and turn back to God.

After the lessons we took our 4th-8th graders to Mbita town to play a friendly match vs. another primary school at Onundo Stadium (not a stadium like you would picture one, more like a soccer field with a fence around it).

Our girls walloped their opponent 3-0 (should have been 10-0) and the boys played their best match so far and held a strong team to a draw. By the time it was over, the sky was getting dark and the rains were coming. I was able to pile about 25 students who live far from town in my vehicle and get them all home just a few minutes before the rain storm hit.

At home I had a nice fish fillet and potatos dinner waiting for me and my friend.

Thank you God. I needed that!

Becoming More African

I had some stomach discomfort and back pain this past week, along with some general achiness. I thought it was just that I slept in a bad way or hurt myself playing football. After a few days of dealing with it I went in to the clinic. They found malaria, amoebas and parasites and bacteria in me. I didn't expect those things because in the past when I would get them I would have extreme vomitting and a healthy dose of "the runs." Dr. Sawa looked at me and said, "I guess you are becoming more African. The longer you stay in Kenya the stronger your immunities get and the better you are able to deal with these 'small things' like malaria, amoebas and parasites." I wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news.

Thankfully I got a couple of antibiotic injections and some medicine that quickly started working within 24 hours. Now I feel like a brand new man!