So the last few days have been very busy, the rain has
come now and again but the temperature has stayed warm and fortunately has not
affected any of our sports training that we continue to do. We started Day 3
with a trip to the Nelson Mandela stadium in which one of our contacts out here
was able to see a training session of the Uganda national team. It was great
to see the team train and currently the manager of Uganda is Bobby Williamson who played for Rangers
in Scotland, Paul said he had a sticker when he was younger of him,
unfortunately he forgot to bring it. We even where able to have a word with him
after and said it was one of the most satisfying jobs he had and just another
fan of the Uganda way, big game coming up in October against Zambia which if
they win would mean they go into the Africa Cup of Nations, which they have not
been in for around 34 years, no pressure but he be a bit of a hero if he got
them into the competition! One of the children from orphanage Tekume was able
to come along and even got a photo with one of the big Ugandan players, he
seemed to love every second of it.
We continued with the training with the Lilly Orphanage and
doing Basketball coaching. We were able to run some passing, shooting and
dribbling drills that they all did very well in. I love the competitiveness of
the kids I been working with, we played a few dribbling and shooting
competitions and they certainly wanted to beat the other team and if they did
it spark jubilant celebrations. When I came back today to do another session
some of them where already practising the drills they learnt which is great to
see as a coach, just wish I could have more time to coach them. We are
certainly looking at ways to keep it going while we are away because so many of
them really love to learn new Basketball skills. Had a time to do one of my
devotions again about perseverance and encouraging one another, this included
one boy, one girl and Churchill who has come from India to help us while we are
out here doing a foot fire drill to see who could last the longest. It felt
incredible to have the opportunity to talk into these kids lives and I truly
believe we all have something to say that help build another. One of the girls
after one of the sessions came over to me held my hand and just said thank you,
couldn’t ask for anything more than that and one of my big memories of the trip
so far.
In other news went to another church to think of building up
a Basketball court next to one of the churches. This of course will be a very
long term plan but the possibility of it is certainly doable. Little bit of
extra fund raising may be needed but we will have to see what happens. We where
able to visit the Compassion office today and it was great to meet the people
we email on a daily basis. They where all so welcoming and just great to hear
the inspirational work that they do and the part every person had to play in
Compassion Uganda running smoothly. Even one of the doctor’s at the office
checked out Dan who is a little bit under the weather but I tease him that it’s
just a bit of man flu, vitamin c tablets and plenty of rest was recommended.
Just before writing this blog was reading my book Wild at
Heart and thought the below quote from John Eldredge was appropriate:
‘The Enemy fears you. You are dangerous big-time. If you
ever really got your heart back, lived from it with courage, you would be a
huge problem to him. You would do a lot of damage…on the side of good. Remember
how valiant and effective God has been in the history of the world? You are a
stem of that victorious stalk.’
Whatever you do, have courage when you do it, wherever it
may be. We are all so capable and I thought you should know that, will keep you
posted as this journey continues…
No comments:
Post a Comment