Day 2 from Guatemala City,
We began our day with an early morning trip to Campo Real, a local private school. Campo has hosted us several times before and we have always received a warm welcome. The guys split into groups and led about an hour long clinic for the smaller kids at the school before playing their school team in a short scrimmage game. The morning was filled with lots of excitement from the students of Campo Real and our guys got a good chance to play a game that wasn't overly competitive to start the day. Michael did fantastic sharing how a relationship with Christ has changed his life and how the kids at Campo will have many opportunities in their lives in Guatemala to influence others.
Before we left Campo, Jaime's son, Otto, met up with us and introduced us to the Christian organization on campus (not unlike our FCA). Pack shared a prayer of encouragement with them and we ate a quick meal with them as our guys were able to take time to get to know some of them. During this time, their headmaster and several faculty members approached us and expressed their appreciation for our visit and the impact that it may have on their students.
After leaving Campo, we traveled about 45 minutes across the city to Prepa, a top-private school known for their sports programs (sound familiar?). Jaime explained to me in the van that Prepa is the top-private school in all of Guatemala for basketball and many of their students are members of the Junior National Team. Their facilities were very nice and the atmosphere was quite unique. Prepa is an all boys school and about 200 of them sat and watched our game. The boys cheered very loudly for their team whenever the opportunity arose and several of our players commented afterwards that the crowd was as loud as nearly any that they play in front of back home. The crowd, however, was not as loud as they wanted to be because our guys played extremely well and led by 30+ for most of the game. We will return to Prepa on Saturday to play a series of games that will include our girls team and many of the players told our guys that they are anticipating a rematch.
The afternoon was spent celebrating our impressive victory at the newest mall in Guatemala City. The 7 story mall was unlike any shopping center we have in Mississippi (or probably the Southeast US) and the guys were able to raid the food court and hang out in an atmosphere that felt a lot closer to home than the usual lunch stop while in Guatemala. After leaving the mall, we came back to the dorms for a time of rest and relaxation before our toughest game this evening against a local semi-pro team.
Jaime picked us up and we made the trek back across Guatemala City to play a local semi-pro that was made of young men of all ages. This team will likely be the best team that we will play while in Guatemala and the competition was tough throughout. We fought back from deficits of 10-14 pts on multiple occasions and took the lead late in the 4th quarter. Our guys combined forces with some of the older "coaches" on the trip and were able to send it to overtime after making an incredible multi-possession defensive stand in the closing moments. In overtime, an all-Prep squad dominated and eventually won by 7pts after FTs by De and Ryan iced the game in the closing seconds. The crowd was very receptive after such a hard effort by our guys and Thomas and Jaime shared how Jesus can make a difference in the lives of those that pursue Him.
All in all it was a great day filled with many events and a lot of basketball. Our team went 3-0 and many of the guys are going to sleep well tonight after playing against such tough competition. More importantly, we were received warmly at every venue we visited and our guys have done a great job of sharing their faith and living it out in their interactions with the people.
Tomorrow, we will play one more game here in Guatemala City before driving to Lake Atitlan in the afternoon. While at the Lake, we will work at the orphanage and visit local schools performing mostly clinics and some exhibitions. It should be a time filled with great sites and meaningful work.
You can check our team's flickr.com site to view many of the pics that we have taken. Search under People - Jackson Prep Basketball. I will try to post some of them tomorrow evening along with a few videos.
Continue to pray for our team and Coach Horner and Tim's wives as they travel back tomorrow with Robby and Harlee Grace.
Adios
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