Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Surviving the Blizzard!

Hello Friends,

Sorry for such as long time in between updates. It’s been a little busy around here especially as we try and survive the crazy winter storms. I’m sure a lot of you saw our beautiful city on the national news this past weekend and somehow we did make it through unscathed.
The blizzard sure was a crazy one! We got about 3 feet of snow in two days! (see pic below) As much as I loved the snow since I have never had a winter with snow it really is starting to get old. The snow is also driving Jane crazy cause there are no mountains ski on. Well, there are “Ski Mountains” here or more like ski hills. There are a couple “hills” about 45 minutes to an hour away. We have seen one and all you can really do is laugh. If you try and take it seriously you will just get depressed, especially if you have had the incredible privilege of skiing Mt. Warner in the one and only Steamboat Springs!
Jane has been busy with her job and trying to keep progressing on her future music career. Jane has been such a blessing for the Ambassadors ministry mainly helping to get the ministry organized, not just here but in our offices all over the world. One of her main projects lately has been making up an entire updated database of every missionary we have in every office across the globe, and making a Cleveland office updated directory. Both of these are much needed and everyone is very excited and thankful that Jane is working so hard on completing this task.

Jane is also so excited because she was asked to sing a solo for the Easter service at our church. She gets to choose her own song which she is not sure about yet but she is pumped to be able to sing again. Jane’s parents got her a mini “recording studio” program for her computer that gives her the opportunity to record the songs she’s writing. She has been writing and recording songs and they sound awesome! She is really learning a lot and I’m really lucky cause I get to hear her sing all the time and I love it!
I am excited to we are less than one week away from official check-in to training camp! We started training everyday last week so it’s nice to start getting into it a couple weeks early and maybe get a head start on some of the guys that won’t be showing up until next week. We have been training about 2-3 times per week for the past couple months and it’s been really good. I’m excited to come into this training camp and pre-season already feeling relatively fit instead of coming in and having to work to get fit. We even have a pre-season scrimmage this weekend, and we have exhibition games lined up almost every weekend until our first regular season game. So we are hitting the ground running. We also have a big pre-season tournament the weekend before our home opener. We are hosting the tournament and playing against the Columbus Crew and Rochester (a USL 1 team). So we should get some high quality competition and some good exposure for some of our players including myself. I’m really going to work hard to try and get some trials at the end of our season with some MLS squads. We feel God that is the way God is leading us right now, but we are still praying and thinking about going over seas after the season. As of right now the only open doors God has shown us has been here in the states with the MLS but we will wait and see what happens this season and how the Lord works. Please be praying for the upcoming season and the plan that God has for us.
As for my work with the churches, that is still going great! As we get closer and closer to the season we are getting busier, but we have locked in 7 different partnerships with local churches in Cleveland. The City Star players will be putting on 7 different clinics at those churches throughout the season. The point of those clinics is to encourage the church to reach out to their community and introduce them to sports ministry and the ways they, the church, can use sport, specifically soccer, to share the gospel. It is very exciting! We are getting a great response and it’s looking like we are going to have a lot of kids at each clinic.
Jane and I are also still going to the City Mission and playing with the kids and also teaching them Bible stories. Last week, I had the opportunity to share with the kids and I shared the story of Jonah being swallowed by the big fish. The kids seemed to enjoy the story and the looks on their faces when I started talking about Jonah being swallowed by the fish and staying in there for 3 days was really funny. I told them that God is always watching out for them and He will always want to use you if you are willing to listen to Him and obey, not be scared and run away like Jonah did. Please pray that the kids took at least something about that story and can use it in their lives. And thank God for speaking through me and enabling me to connect with those kids. Also thank God for Jane and the amazing woman role model she provides those girls. Jane is the only girl that goes with and it’s so awesome to see all the girls just absolutely adore her! She is such a blessing to them, and it gives them the opportunity to try and braid a white girl’s hair!
Thanks for your prayers and support!




Here is a pic of the blizzard! It's a little dark but the snow is up to my thighs and we still got about 6 more inches after that!!


This is a shot of the morning after from our side door of our front yard. Lots of snow, and it was fun but hopefully that was the last of it, we are ready for some warm weather!!