football at the orphanage

HEY HEY HEY! So, this weekend's update is from rob, i've just included some visuals. ITS REALLY EXCITING!

A little background: Saturday we had a football tournament at Asco.

I know a lot of you have been praying for the football/soccer tournament and I thought I would let you know just how much your prayers were felt as I was on that field today.

But first things first. About a week ago I told all the kids that today we would have a school wide football tournament, pitting class against class, and that the winners would receive trophies. We split the school into 8 teams, 2 teams per grade, ranging from 1st grade all the way up to 4th. 1st and 2nd grade were put in the lower division, and 3rd and 4th in the upper division. The winners of both divisions would each receive a trophy. And I still don't technically know exactly how to say the word trophy in Amharic...but all you gotta do is pretend like your holding it above your head in victory and the kids get the picture real fast. So anyways, in order to hype up the tournament, we gave each class a piece of posterboard and some crayons and told them to make team posters with their names and the team name they choose. And let me tell you that was a fierce process. I've never watched a full soccer game in my life back home, but I can tell you that Liverpool, Arsenal, AC Milan, Barcelona, Bolton, Manchester United, Ethiopia, and Chelsea are all pretty popular over here in Africa. We had a bracket made up and everything. Yesterday I went to collect the posters, and the kids had spent so much time on them, it was so obvious how excited they were about the tournament by how amazing their team posters were. There was some intense bragging wars going on all week long. Kids always kept coming up to me, saying their team name and pretending to hoist an imaginary trophy over their heads. They wanted that trophy.

So that brings me to yesterday afternoon. Originally the sisters of the orphanage had informed me that there was a trophy "lying around" somewhere in one of their massive storage containers, but after a good bit of searching we couldn't find it. So on Friday afternoon I set out to explore around town, determined not to return home until I found two quality football trophies worthy of all the hype surrounding the tournament. This is where the Lords presence started to get real obvious. I head to Piazza, one of the busy sections of town that is known to have a couple sports stores, and I bring my ATM card with me to withdraw enough money to get a couple big trophies. Well it turns out the ATM in Piazza doesn't accept my kind of credit card, so I¹m sitting in Piazza with the equivalent of 8 American dollars and money my fellow volunteers had given me to rent Season 3 of The Office. So I'm very limited in my funds at this point, and its starting to get dark, and the tournament is the NEXT morning. And to make matters worse, I only find one store in Piazza that actually sells sports trophies, and it's a government store with fixed prices...HIGH fixed prices(unlike other places where you can wheel and deal and get stuff cheaper). I know this is going in, but I walk in anyway, desperate to find some kind of discount section or something...anything. I stumble across a pair of MATCHING silver and blue trophies...i mean they were perfect. But the total price was more than all the money I had on me. So I walk over to see about the movie rentals, not wanting to disappoint my housemates, so secretly wanting the movie not to be there so I could use their money to buy the perfect trophies. And ofcourse, the movie was rented out. God¹s hand part 1. But as I said, even with the money I was supposed to use for the movies I was still short (and if at any point in this story you are thinking to yourself, Self, why didn't he just call somebody to bring him more money...just remember the setting...3rd world country...not gonna happen)

So despite my limited funding, I walk back to the trophy shop anyway, praying that the Lord would find a way to get me these suckers. I go up to the counter and give what I felt like was a pretty moving speech about how the trophies were for the children at Mother Teresa's and all about the football tournament yada yada yada. They bump it down five percent. Still not enough. They try to sell me these other trophies that were much smaller and way less cool...and, not seeing any alternative, I agree and they start to wrap them up. But something inside me just couldn't let those silver and blue ones go...I wanted them for those kids so bad. So I put almost all the money I had on the counter and ask them if they will take it, even though what I'm offering is still 10 burr short of the discounted price they offered me. The lady at the counter at this point I think is won over (God part 2) and goes from initially saying all she could do was 5 percent very firmly, to going into the back room to ask her boss for permission to sell them to me for  that cheap. Remember this is a government store...absolutely no wheeling and dealing takes place in these places...as far as I know its out of the employees' hands. So the lady at the counter goes back into the back room and I have to wait a minute or two, praying that the Lord would hook it up and melt some hearts back there. She reappears with a smile on her face (God part 3). I can¹t tell you how excited I was watching those trophies get wrapped. These kids don't get to look forward to an event like this very often, maybe even never, and to know that they were going to get the best of the best...it was an amazing feeling. And that was just yesterday.

That night me and a couple other of the volunteers put the finishing touches on all the posters, made huge score sheets for each team, and drew up a bracket to show the winners of each game. It took me back way back in the day when we used to draw up brackets for basketball tournament in the backyard. Who knew that was preparing me for days like today?

So today we wake up at 6:45 in order to get to the orphanage by 8 to prepare everything before the games start at 9. Now unless you've been spamed from my previous emails, you probably have gathered that my work place is one of the most chaotic and unorganized places on earth. There is a head nun that has to approve of absolutely every decision made in an orphanage of over 400 kids and over 60 workers and volunteers...and she prays half the day(I mean I'm all for prayin and all, but for the love of goodness can there be a little delegation action up in here). So whenever you want something done, you have to track down a nun, tell them what you want, and wait at least a few days for word to pass around to get it done (no elementary school intercom system here baby) So planning this tournament was pretty much a logistical nightmare. Needless to say I was a little nervous as to what the heck was gonna happen when I showed up this morning. But man when I walked in those doors, my doubts were erased so quickly. I see that some of the older girls had gotten pom poms(where from I have NO IDEA), and there was his vibe of excitement running through the whole place. I had set aside an hour before hand for set up, expecting chaos at every turn...b/c lets be serious...it takes 3 days for decisions to be reached on an average day, and I was coming in needing things to be done on the spot..a VERY unprecedented concept for this place...but everything ran smoothly (God part 4). Come 9 o'clock when it was time for the first game between the two first grade classes, the stands were filled with kids, cheering on their classmates. Some of the workers even brought out the 1 and 2 year old babies and sat them down on the rows to cheer. Unbelievable. The next four hours was like a tornado. 8 teams, 6 games, 200 1st ­ 4th grade kids, 5 volunteers. But God made it work. We found a system and it ran so well. We barely have enough jerseys for four teams of 20, so while two teams were playing, two more were getting dressed on the sidelines for the next game. 4 of the 8 games went to shootouts. It was hilarious b/c most of the time during the week the kids score 4 or 6 goals a game, but today everybody (even the girls that never play) was so excited that they ended up being straight defensive battles. I mean they were into it. The shoot outs were awesome. At the end of regulation, each team chose 5 of their best players to shoot. Everyone else crowded around both sides, essentially making a tunnel between the shooter and the goalie...we had to keep pushing kids back they were so excited to see. It was priceless to see half the kids who were shooters make the cross motion across their chests before shooting. One kid was so focused on scoring that one of his teammates took his hand and did the motion for him as he just stared straight ahead, his eyes locked in on the goal. The last championship game was between one of my best younger classes and one of my worst older classes attitude wise...so lets just say I was a little biased as the referee. I mean it was just one questionable call....it could have gone either way...I just made sure it went to the underdogs...and I may have extended the game twice its normal length until they could tie the game at 2 all. So the last championship game came down to a shoot out too. This was story book stuff. By this time the little kids watching the tournament's attention spans had been pushed to the max, so we had little 4 year olds running around all over the fieldŠI have no idea how they didn't get trampled. After 4 rounds of shooters, the score was 3-2 in favor of the younger underdogs with the good attitudes, and it came down to my boy Chalacho shooting for the underdog team (pronounced just like it sounds). If he makes it, the good guys win. If he misses, the other team has a chance to tie, and potentially send it to another shoot out. It was so close, but he missed it and the other team came back and won in the next shootout. Such a terrible way to end it.

Just kidding he made it. Gotcha. Once he did the team erupted. I had the trophy in my hands for about 2 seconds until it was lost in a sea of shouting kids, all wanting to hold it. I even got water poured on me in the celebration, which made me feel like a real life coach. All in all it was an unbelievable day. So much good came from such a simple sport. Some of the teenage kids helped me out big time by serving as scorekeepers, interpreters, and shoot out organizers, which was great b/c us volunteers don't usually get any interaction with them during the day b/c they are off at school in another part of town, so that was a big plus.

So many memories etched in my mind that I will never forget...

One of the first grade classes actually huddled up to discuss their strategy before their final game.

Another set of girls put all their hands in a circle and counted down before their game started. So crazy.

And of course, the cross motions before the shoot outs was the highlight of the day.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for this day. You helped make what you just read happen by asking God to work in big ways. God showed up huge today, and everyone involved walked away encouraged. God gets all the glory, our 200 to 5 ratio reminds me of another miracle of God coming up big when the numbers seem too overwhelming. To have this day go as great as it did with these
circumstances WAS a miracle. Flat out. I just wanted to take a few minutes and share this story with you, so that you will know that your prayers were heard. You couldn¹t be here to see the smiles on these children¹s faces, but you were a huge part in bringing the joy of today into being. Know that.

Thank you.
Rob Shields