Day Nine - 11th of January 2010 (Boys)

Well we’ve made it through another day down here in Mindanao, but boy oh boy was it a tough one! 3 games, a flag raising ceremony, tour of the mayors office and a viewing of Dipolog city on top of their newest building. First off was the flag raising ceremony that team SA was invited to attend by the mayor. Unfortunately this required a 7:00am wake up after a 12:00pm night so we were a little bit reluctant to attend, but this is the mayor we’re talking about so of course we showed up on time; only to wait a further 15 minutes for the mayor to show up! After the ceremony we had a tour of the mayor’s office; we could only wish that the chairs in her office could be transferred to our Jeepney!

After the tour we made our way to AB College, starting our warm up on Andre’s basketball court (not Andre Janssen!) and were soon facing up against a hardened college team. Before the match started the schools cheer squad came out and preformed a rather long routine and straight after we were lining up for jump ball. At half time team SA was down by around 10 pts but this didn’t dampen our spirits at all! It was my turn to give my testimony, which I think was well received by a rather enthusiastic student crowd. Afterwards we commenced our ministry and simultaneously started the second half. Despite closing the gap and even getting 1 point up during the 3rd quarter, team SA went down by 6 points. Nevertheless the crowd was one of the best I’ve experience and I believe we witnessed the Lord at work.

Next stop: the local Mexican joint for tacos (the only Mexican food they had in stock) and pizza (Italian I know, but we take what we can get out here!). The food went down well after a hard morning, and we sculped it down hungrily so we could hurry back to the hotel (Tim, Micko, Mark, Conan, Pete and another bunch were motivated by the lure of a massage!). We rested up for 2 hours before our jam packed evening!

At 3 oclock the Autobots rolled out for the second college of the day. Once again team SA was well received and a pre game performance by 3 college girls entertained us while the wet court was wiped down. The game started on the uneven court and what was meant to be a basketball game quickly turned into a skating match, with players skittering all over the court; praise God we had no major injuries! Time Sobey gave his testimony at half time, after which team SA went on to win by a comfortable 14 point margin.

The final stop of the day, at a barangay court was arguably the hardest game we played today. The local team played well, but were rather physical; getting into foul penalties in every quarter and having 2 of their players fouled off. Team SA came out strong, lead by Pete Grundy dominating the back boards and Conan sniping 13 free throws from 15 attempts! At half time we were up by 10 as Hedley gave his testimony to the smaller but very excited crowd. In the second half the Filipino team brought the game to even but team SA showed determination and tenacity (ooooh yeah) and brought the lead out to around 5 points, where it stayed for the rest of the game.

All that was left for the day was a trip to the Filipino embassy to end our long and tiring day. Please continue to keep the team in your prayers as the sheer number of games and niggling injuries starts to wear us down a little, but don’t get too worried, we’re still going strong! L8r sk8rs! –Andre Janssen