Our day began at 8am with breakfast (Weet-Bix and milk) and a devotion from Pastor Gary Visitacion. We then took off for our fast game which tipped off at 9.30am in the blistering sunshine of Sibalom.
A large crowd came out to support the local team who fielded a strong team determined to compete with us. A pre-game meeting with the local Mayor included Pastor Gary’s words ‘….the Sports Ambassadors have not been beaten – maybe today is the day for it..’
The Mayor took our token of friendship (a koala keychain) and wished her team all the best.
Hedley ‘Babyface’ Taylor proceeded to go on a scoring frenzy before giving his testimony at half-time to crowd of 300. During the third quarter we handed out pamphlets and information slips for the local people to fill in. We then took the slips for the local pastor. This crowd was quite responsive and we had a swag of responses for the pastor to work with. The game climaxed with Danny ‘Larry Bird’ Cook throwing down a two-handed dunk which bent the ring down and rendered the game unfinishable until some maintenance work was done to fix it. The Sports Ambassadors Spirit team won the match 47-52.
After a quick lunch at Jolibee (a Philippines chain store like MacDonalds) we headed back to our accommodation for a siesta before our long trip to Patnongan for our second match of the day.
The regional province of Patnongan brought a large crowd of over 500 people to the outdoor court near the centre of town for our 3.30pm game. Giles ‘Mr Excitement’ Creelman presented his testimony after hitting his first two shots and leading the team to a handy half-time lead. The rain then threatened but the jubilant crowd sent the rain away and brought the home team back into the game with the scores level during the final quarter. Some excellent work from Paul ‘The Wingman’ Beeacham and David ‘Top Gun’ Tidy gave the win to our team and keep the winning streak alive with 72-65 win.
We are all in good spirits and rallying around our fallen leader Greg ‘Tower of Power’ Beacham who has a touch of the flu at the moment and had a day off after speaking at the church service we attended last night. We trust he will be spearheading our team again soon.
Tomorrow: Two More Games!
By Giles Creelman
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1 comment:
Hmm… they just don’t make those basketball rings strong enough, do they? Just make sure you’re always in front on the scoreboard before you sabotage the equipment :) Good to hear about the ministry opportunities—keep up the great work! Hope Greg feels better soon too. Love Jen
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