Still Alive

Dear Friends, Family, and anyone else who mights stumble across this blog, I apologize for not having written anything recently, but it has been a busy couple of weeks. Over the past few weeks we've had 2 soccer games as the B-team, both against the girls' team, but have not had any scrimmages. At least hadn't up until I left on the 14th for a conference. After camping, we started looking ahead to this next trip, so a lot of planning has gone into it, and I'll get more in detail with that in a little bit here. Practices were going well, I actually had the chance to get some of my B-team keepers in on the A-team drills. There were a few days where the A-team either had none or one keeper show up, and they needed two for scrimmages. The one day that no A-team keepers showed up they asked my second string keeper -- who has been working extremely hard, and is quickly becoming my favorite keeper on the B-team because of his work ethic and overall character -- to be the keeper for them on some shooting drills. I was really happy about some of the saves he made, and how we went after everything they shot at him. The following day he joined in on one of their scrimmages and had a shutout, and the third day he was a keeper for a short-field scrimmage, he let in 3 goals, but all 3 of them were tough. Ok, so now it's on to this trip. We left on the 14th of April for a 3 week long trip through Senegal and The Gambia. We spent 4 days in a coastal city in Guinea because the kids (Jason's kids) needed to do some testing for school, since they are home-schooled. We then left on the 18th to make our way up through Guinea to the Gambia. We were hoping to make it into Senegal by that evening but about 30 kms south of the border our transmission went out. So we were stuck on the road, with only 4th gear. God is good, I say that because about 30 minutes after we got stuck, some friends of ours that were on their way up to Dakar passed by, and were able to tow us into town to get it fixed. Since they were making such good time they decided to take our hotel reservations in Senegal, and we took their hotel reservations in Guinea, it was really cool how God worked that out. So the next day the mechanic got to working on the car, and by noon we still only had 4th gear, but Jason called his mechanic friend here in Gambia who told him that he could just drop the car into 4 wheel drive low, to get up to speed and then once he got his speed he could just pop it into high, so that's what we did. We drove that entire afternoon, and finally made it to our hotel around 2AM. Our hotel though it right on the beach, and is a very nice place. I've really enjoyed the past couple of days here. Today we started a conference (the reason we're in the Gambia) and Derek and I are doing the VBS for the kids. That goes through sunday, and then on monday Derek and I are taking a taxi up to Dakar to get working on printing ID cards for our club, and doing a couple other things, such as buying gloves for our keepers, and trying to work things out to get the club running smoother once we get back to Guinea. Another cool thing that happened this past week is that the container which has our turf field (35 yards x 25 yards), our tractor (for plowing potatoes and cutting grass and all that), and about 20 boxes of soccer equipment came to Guinea and got unloaded so that when we get back it's ready to go. I will be taking care of the soccer equipment and selling it in our boutique, which should be almost ready to go by the time I get back. The only thing it will be missing is shelves for the cleats and stuff to go on. So during my time in Dakar, Senegal I'll be writing up purchase forms and trying to set prices on everything. That way once the shelves are in, we're ready to start making some money to run the club, so that it can sustain itself. I'm really excited to see what all came in. Sarah and Todd are still back in Guinea and Todd has been inventorying everything for me for when I get back, it's a huge blessing (So Todd if you read this thanks a bunch man). Well I have just over 3 months left with my time here in West Africa. I can't wait to see what God is going to do over the next couple of months, but all I know is, I'm right where He wants me, and there's no better place to be in the world but right here! I have to say though, as nice as it is getting the opportunity to see other parts of West Africa, I'm really looking forward to getting back home. I can't wait to see what my co-coach has done with the B-team over the past couple of weeks, and I am really excited to get back and see everyone again. Well I guess it's good I finally got one of these written again. I'd love to know who all reads this, so send me a facebook message, or email or something and let me know what you think. Blessings, Mark