I was fortunate to get free tickets from Ian Hanavan. He has been on an AIA basketball tour and I had met him Friday evening. I am hoping we can brainstorm some ideas and work together to spread Jesus throughout Leuven through sports! I also found out another player, Jamel McLean, went to Xavier and ALSO went on an AIA basketball tour! So fun!

They’re not the greatest photos, but Ian is on the left and Jamel is on the far left in the photo on the right.

It was a pretty intense game as both teams were really good. I had heard the Bears had not lost a game yet. The Bears trailed the majority of the game, but tied it right at the end of regulation, sending the game into overtime. They lit it up in overtime and won 96-90!

The non-American part of the game was at the very end when the team, coaches, cheerleaders and some fans went onto the court and sang “Sweet Caroline.” I cracked up!

It was so fun and I am excited to have a Belgian basketball team to cheer for

Here is Roel making the turkey stir fry:

And here was the finished product:

And of course the apple muffins Lise whipped up (with no recipe):

I definitely have many things to be thankful for. How awesome it was to spend this traditional American holiday with another American, a Dutchman, two Belgians and a South African

Then the randomness of the day came. There has been a basketball player I had been trying to contact for months. A colleague of mine in the Czech Republic told me I needed to connect with him because he has been on an AIA tour in the past and is living here in Leuven. Not once did he respond to any of my emails. So we decided to take a chance and go to the gym and see if we could find out when they practice. We walked in and asked the lady at the desk when the team’s next game was. She simply replied, “Why don’t you ask them?” Apparently they were in the gym and we were able to just waltz right in and talk with them. Another lady walked us down to the gym and called this player over to come and talk with us. You would never get that access to athletes in America! But we met with him and it was great! Of course he apologized for not responding to my emails and I granted him grace since his wife just had a baby. But he was excited to connect and is open to becoming involved however. I’m looking forward to see what God does with that connection.

I also found out that another player went to Xavier! I will be attending the game tomorrow night and I’m looking forward to it. I love watching live games when I actually know some of the players.

We have yet another meeting tonight. We’re having dinner with a cyclist at my favorite restaurant – de Appel. Then my two colleagues Jonathan and Jan will head back up to the Netherlands tomorrow morning. I’ll have a few days here in Leuven and will head up to the Netherlands on Tuesday morning. I think Jonathan has a full schedule planned for me up there.

I am excited for the opportunities I am seeing here, working with churches and different sports ministries and different people.

I am still struggling with jet lag. I’m stuck somewhere between Ohio time and Belgian time. I’ll get adjusted just in time to head back to the States and then I’ll have to readjust back!

It’s weird being here without a team, but it’s good to be back. I got to the hostel and got a warm hug from Lise! Missed her, since she was on maternity leave this summer and only saw her once. They rearranged the lounge area and they had the heater blazing. Of course I thought we should name it…his name is now George Flam…a very Belgian name. We got to chatting, Roel joined us and I finally said I needed to go lay down for a bit. Took a good 2 hour nap. Jet lag apparently gives you weird dreams…wow, crazy!!!

Lunch from the sandwich place across the street. Now I’m about to head out to walk around and wake up a bit. Looking forward to visiting with more friends this evening.

OBSERVATION: If I tried to make sense of this world from my own understanding, I think I would pull my hair out in frustration. Prominent football coaches being accused of 40 counts of child molestation; children sold into slavery for sexual use; child sacrifices to bring wealth in Uganda; accidental drownings and near drownings in Florida; suicide; depression; alcoholism; college shootings…

APPLICATION: Through my lens, none of this makes sense and it saddens and angers me. But there is comfort in knowing that it saddens and angers God as well. This is not how He intended the world to be. And there is also comfort in knowing that God is bigger than each and every one of these. He will redeem these situations and every hurt and pain the world has ever and will ever see. But we need to trust Him in His word. It’s one thing to say we trust Him. It’s another to actually believe it in our hearts.

PRAYER: Lord, I say I trust you, but often times I doubt. You are so much bigger than any hurts or pains this world has ever felt. When I stroll down the path of doubt, help me remember to not lean on my own understanding, but to trust in you and you alone.

OBSERVATION: Jesus just died, rose again and ascended into heaven. Chaos is raging in the streets. Here are the apostles in a room “…along with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” A big decision sits before them. Instead of making lists, writing out pros and cons, debating over who should take Judas’ place, they go to prayer. It’s not just a blanket prayer or a quick, “Dear God, guide us in this decision and help us choose this man. Amen.” That may have been part of it, but that was not all. How do I know? Scripture says “constantly” in prayer. What does being in constant prayer even look like? What does it mean to pray without ceasing? What would my life look like if I always went to prayer first? How would my life be different if I sought God in the daily, not just in the depths?

APPLICATION: Just today I’m freaking out about a decision I have to make and certain situations in my life. I make a mental list of what needs to be done, be even as Philippians 4 pops into my head, I STILL don’t lay it at God’s feet. Why do I neglect to seek the guidance of the Creator of the world in everything I do? When written out like that, it becomes clear as to what it is – stupid.

PRAYER: Father God, you know the fears, the anxieties and the decisions that lay before me. But I don’t want to include you in just these things. I want you in it all. My flesh, however, doesn’t. My flesh thinks we can handle the little mundane  things on our own. It even wants to try to handle the tough situations on our own first before we realize we’re in over our heads and need you to fish us out…again. Lord, I want to “in every situation” (Philippians 4:6) – the big, the small, the good, the bad – I want you in it. I want to know what it means to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I want to be a person who goes to prayer first, second and last.

There were so many things about this summer that cannot be explained without God. There was so much goodness, my heart is so full of mirth whenever I think about it. This summer’s trip means so much to me, but one word that best describes it is redemption.

A part of me so badly wanted this summer to go well, not just to reflect God and his glory, but to redeem myself from last year. I made a lot of mistakes last year, but I learned so much through the process. I had been through a lot of hard things as well in just a short amount of time…about a span of 3 months starting March 19th, 2011 with the death of one of my athletes. With the goodness of everything this summer…from the ministry, my team and the growth in my heart, reminded me of my phrase, “There is always goodness amidst the crap. There is always goodness, because there is always God.”

When we’re knocked down by things this world throws at us, we have to get up and keep going, because God is still moving. I’m not saying don’t grieve what needs to be grieved. Take the time you need to process through things – label what you’re feeling, work through what you’re feeling, sit at the feet of our Father for as long as you need, but you eventually need to get back up. There is work still to be done. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying there won’t be set backs. But I am saying that grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gives us the hope and the strength to continue moving forward when we feel defeated, when we feel distraught, when we feel like a failure.

I’ve yet to process through all of Belgium and the time I spent there but I do know that my heart longs to return to that country and to the people. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and coming along for the ride. This isn’t an ending, it’s a “to be continued…”

Then we did some rope climbing. I got about a little over halfway up and then my arms just gave out. Couple of the girls got all the way up and on the way down, one of ‘em landed on her ankle funny. Of course all of her paperwork and our physio (trainer) were back at the hostel. Steven, our vault coach/new friend/life saver, drove me back to the hostel to pick them up. I called this place I’m supposed to call to find a place to take her to. Steven said we would take her somewhere else. We took her to a smaller hospital…we were in and out. There was one other patient we saw (the others did, I never did), the doctor was friendly, she got x-rays and everything. They believe it’s just a really bad sprain, no broken bones, just a lot of pain.

On the drive to get Rachel and the medical forms, Steven was talking about some law that when everything is going good, something goes wrong. I told him that was like this team…the plans were all piecing together so nicely, then God decided to give me pole vaulters! I followed that up by saying, “But then God gave me you!”

I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in the providence of God. I believe God knows in advance what we need, when we need it. He puts people and experiences in our lives to mold us and shape us into the person he created us to be. Last year was hard and a sandpaper person was placed in my life (someone who rubs you the wrong way, but is placed in your life to smooth out your rough edges). But through that, I got a glimpse of how I should lead and through that experience, I’ve learned what not to do. I believe because of it, I’m a better person, a better leader and a better child of God.

We have some open beds at the hostel, which has allowed us to invite other people in and hang with us. We’ve “adopted” two guys into our family. Alex from Flotrack and Charlie, a distance runner (shocker, God keeps placing distance runners in my life!)

It has been fun to do life with them. Experiencing Belgium for the second time has been so much better. I feel like I have an idea of what I’m doing and my team is so wonderful. They’re all about ministry and are so flexible. They’re willing to serve wherever is needed and honestly, this isn’t a team…it’s a family. We bonded so well right from the beginning and the bond continues to grow stronger as we serve and live together…as we experience Belgium together.

There was one bad day. Honestly, it wasn’t that awful, but for me, it was horrible. One of our guys went off shopping and lost track of time. We thought he’d be back for lunch, but lunch came and went. Team time came and he still hadn’t shown up. Obviously, I was completely catapulted back to Florida. He finally came back and I didn’t know whether to hug him or slug him. Eventually I told him he was grounded.

But I just couldn’t shake the Florida feeling. It still hurts and the wounds are so fresh. I think with our summer projects, it has been easy to suppress the feelings to deal with at a later date. Unfortunately, they just happened to pop up at an inconvenient time.

The ministry here continues to flourish. We keep meeting more and more people. We went to a local church – ICEL. They had a missionary lady speak and she talked about prayer…one thing she said that was really good was that the loss of control leads people to pray. But sometimes we view prayer as a way to regain that control, not necessarily to surrender that control to God. She also said that when we are in the presence of God, our perspective changes – our perspective on ourselves, our perspective on our enemy, and our perspective on God.

Yesterday, we took a trip up to Holland. I was hoping to bring the team to the Corrie ten Boom house, but apparently they’re closed on Mondays…woops! But we did stop by the house and walked around Haarlem. We went to Amsterdam and got to tour the place where Anne Frank and her family hid during WWII. Amsterdam is an interesting place. My friend loves that city – maybe because it’s a good place for busking, but I’m not a huge fan. I loved Haarlem, though!

Tonight will be fun. Dinner party planned for 15-20 people. The 10 originals, my two adopted boys, our hostel owner, our Belgian pole vaulter friends and possibly some other American athletes.

My prayer is that through us, they see the love of Christ.

We had an interesting Friday. Our new friend Steven, who is a pole vault coach, said we should be able to travel the train with our poles. We called the train station to confirm and they basically said it would be impossible. Lovely. We went off to team time and put this to prayer, since God was going to be the only one to figure this thing out. After team time, Nick and I were going to head to the train station to try to sort this thing out. Roel, our wonderful hostel owner, said he would bring the poles up for us. He was going to come to the meet anyway…since he is an honorary AIA member I almost cried. I feel like I almost cry every time God blesses this trip. It’s more because I have not seen God’s hand so vividly and so much before…or I just haven’t paid much attention.

We strapped the poles on his car (he thought they would fit in his car and just stick out the window a wee bit…not so much). Then we headed off to the train station to catch the train to Lede, where we would be picked up and brought to Oordegem. Logistics this year are so much smoother, since we’ve already been here last year and I have a better idea of what we’re doing.

We stayed in athlete housing on site. We met a bunch of other athletes, some from Ireland, Switzerland and Israel. The girls had a girls night and got to spend some time getting deeper with each other. It’s hard to believe we haven’t been together for a full week and this team is already so close (a little too close sometimes!!!)

Meet day was great. The weather here in Belgium is bi-polar, so I never know how to dress, so I just dress in layers. We saw our vaulting friends – Steven, Jonas, Xenia (yes, her name is spelt the same as my city, but pronounced differently) and Lien. They are all a part of a club that has graciously opened their arms to us…and lent us keys to their stadium. Steven has been a huge help to my vaulters and has suggested another meet for the vaulters on Thursday. He said he would “help us Americans who have no idea what we’re doing.” Just another example of how God is taking care of us.

Then yesterday was amazing! Roel came and picked us up and took us on a tour of southern Belgium, the French part. We saw a fortress, the city where the guy who invented the sax was from, a castle and a monastery. We got into some deep conversations and I’m wondering if anyone has a way to answer these questions. They make sense in my head, but I’m wondering if there’s a better way to articulate them. Here are the questions:

* Why do you believe in Jesus?
* What does it mean that the Bible is God “speaking to you”?

Today we will be joined by two other people. Jenny, who is on STINT in Czech and Alex, who is with FloTrack. It will be fun to have more friends come along for this adventure.

Happy 4th of July everyone! No fireworks over here in Belgium…we’ll have to figure out a different way to celebrate!