Day 7: Eagle's Nest

Greetings from the Eagle's Nest,

After a good night's sleep we woke up this morning and got to spend the day working at the Eagle's Nest, touring the facilities, mixing and pouring concrete, playing soccer against some of the locals, ziplining through the trees, and we ended the night spending time with the kids from the orphanage having a little movie night and just having fun.  Tim Sensing's 9 year old daughter came to the Eagle's Nest a few years ago and really had a heart for the kids in the orphanage so she raised money this year to make some gifts for the kids in the orphanage as well as send lots of diapers, wipes, and a bunch of other necessities that will really help the orphanage out.  The gifts she made were personalized for each of the children in the orphanage so we were able to pass out the gifts to the kids tonight and the kids had lots of fun with that.

I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures from today and I know the boys will share more about what they enjoyed most about their full day at the Eagle's Nest.  I know that each one of them will have a different story to tell about what they liked the most about our time hear.

Tomorrrow morning we will spend some more time playing with kids and mid morning we will head back to Antigua for a little more shopping and then back in to Guatemala City.  We may or may not have a game tomorrow evening, we are not sure of the details of that yet.  We will stay in a hotel near the airport tomorrow evening and wake up early for our flight on Sunday morning.

Days 5 & 6 in Pictures

We arrived safely at the Eagle's Nest Orphanage this evening and got settled in, had a great dinner, and a team meeting tonight.  We will be here for the next day and a half before we head back towards Guatemala City on Saturday.

We have done lots the last few days and I have posted a brief update prior to this but wanted to share a bunch of pictures from the last few days.  Hope you enjoy!

Day 5 &6: Quick Update

Just wanted to send out a quick update.  I am typing this from a computer and browser that are in Spanish so I dont know how this will show up.  We have been in the town of San Marcos since yesterday afternoon.  We were able to share at a school, we were able to share in a special church service last night and then we went out two by two and stayed with different church members in their homes.  It was a great time trying to learn to communicate with them.  This morning we put our manual labor hats on and moved a bunch of dirt and bricks for a pastor who is trying to build a church in his home.  

We are about to get back on the road to the Eagles Nest Orphanage.  We should have a better internet connection there and I will update with lots more pictures and details.

Day 4: Prepa, Orphanage, and Game in Barberrena

Yesterday was a packed day.  Lots of time in the van travelling to and from our different sites.  We started the day heading to Prepa which is a very nice private school and we played their high school team.  It was a really atmosphere becauase the large majority of the school was gathered around the court to watch the game.  We played really well and were able to win the game.  During halftime Camp did a great job sharing some encouragement with over 250 people.

From Prepa we made our way back across town and grabbed a quick lunch and headed back towards the orphanage where we served dinner the other night.  This time we were actually just able to spend time playing with the kids as they got out of school.  There was lots of candy eating, bubble blowing, and just getting to spend some time loving on the kids at the orphanage.  

From the orphange we hopped back in the van for our longest trip of the day.  We made our way all the way across Guatemala City and up in to the small town of Barberrenna which is on the way to El Salvador.  Small hiccup on the way to the town is that we lost Coach Horner, Sensing, and Camp in traffiic--they were follwoing us in a rental car and in a town of 4 million people some times it is hard to follow the person in front of you when they are accustomed to driving like a Guatemalan!

The rest of us made it to Barberrenna and in to the gym in the middle of the town to discover it was basically the whole town who had come out to watch the "Americans" play one of the top ranked Semi-Professional teams in the country! Needless to say we struggled a little bit against the team but the atmosphere was really fun and we had the opportunity to share with most of the people that had come after the game.  Ben Clark did an excellent job sharing his story with the team and fans after the game.  

After the game we had some dinner and made the trek back to Guatemala City.  We are up early today getting ready to head out to the town of San Marcos where we will be staying tonight and heading to the Eagle's Nest for Thursday and Friday night.  We will keep you updated as we can but Internet could a challenge tonight but we will be in touch!

Day 3: Manos Ala Obra School and Game

We had another great day around Guatemala City today.  We woke up and spent the morning at Manos Ala Obra School teaching some P.E. Classes to 7th-10th graders.  We got to work on some basketball skills as well as showcase our non Soccer skills.  It was a great time with the kids and fun for the guys to communicate because the majority of them spoke decent English so we were able to have some meaningful conversations with the students and some of the teachers.

From the school we headed to the Mall for lunch and had a little downtime this afternoon.  It was a good break from going non stop the last few days and good to let us catch our breath a little bit before we go hard for the next several days in a row.  

Early this evening we returned to the National Gym and played an Regional All-Star Team of 15  year olds.  The guys played very well and we also got some time to share with the team after the game and James did a great job sharing witht the players and coaches. 

Tomorrow we are off to Prepa, back to the orphanage, and then we are headed out to a rural town tomorrow night to play a game.  Not really sure what our internet availability will look like over the next several days but we will do our best to update as much as we can.