November 18, 2006 (102 Days in Chuuk) 5:30 PM
I put a sign up on my door about a month ago that reads, "Find God in all things". I wrote everything in the colour green except for the word God, I wrote that in pink. Due to the sun exposure, the word God has since faded away, leaving only the words, " Find in all things". I htink this fits in very well with my life. God can sometimes be seen so plainly in all things. But with time especially difficult times God can eventually fade, or become hard to see. Yet, God's still there, I just have to look a little harder to see God in those situations.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Scoreboard!!!
Okay so for those of you that have been wondering here are our stats until now...SCA vs SDA: SCA 80, SDA 62 Won
SCA vs CHS: CHS 35, SCA 33 Lost
SCA vs BCS: BCS 38, SCA 28 Lost
SCA vs XHS: SCA 29, XHS 25 Won
SCA vs PLHA: SCA 44, PLHA 15 Won
So all in all we have 3 wins 2 losses! If you are more curious about individual players stats and break downs of who made what and which guys are the mvps I can get you that if you send a request with a postage marked envelope to: Head Basketball Coach Saramen Chuuk Academy Jesuit Volunteers International P.O. Box 662 Chuuk, FM 96942 Federated States of Micronesia We still have to scheduled season games before we head to the play offs, if you would care to pray the prayers would be appreciated! they will be... Mon, Nov. 6: SCA vs. Mizpah @ SCA 4 PM (+8 or +7 GMT) Wed, Nov. 8: SCA vs. MHS @ SCA 4 PM (+8 or +7 GMT) Hope you can keep our team in your prayers especially as we enter into the play offs. Now, I have a special request. There will be a tournament in Pohnpei, this Christmas, and our boys are planning on going, yet we are trying to raise about $3,000 to pay for our travel expenses, and accomodations. If you are able to help contribute to sending these boys on this amazing opportunity it would be greatly appreciated. All checks could be made payable to Saramen Chuuk Academy, and can be sent to the above address as well. If anything prayers are what we can use the most of! Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more up to date news about the Boys SCA Varsity Basketball Team!
Notes from the coach’s desk…
October 30, 2006 (Day 82 of Chuuk)
And another one bites the dust! We claim another victory for Saramen Chuuk Academy. This victory is sweet and it is way sweeter than defeat. Yet the defeat we dished out left a very bitter taste in that of the opposing team. Pentecost was not happy to lose. We showed them that we were there to play and win from the moment that we ran out on that court! It is a great feeling to have the boys run from the locker room (the teacher’s office on the 1st floor) to the court passing all the cheering fans and the high fives. People joining in, running along. I like the rituals we are starting, I hope they continue. People are trying hard to find ways to beat us! Which means that we have to work harder on our practices to come up with something new! Keep other teams on their toes! By us beating Xavier High School, Chuuk High knows that isn’t the only team to beat anymore, but we are!!! If anyone wants the championships they know they will have to get through us first! And we aren’t going to let them!!! We have been practicing the longest, working the hardest, striving the most to be the best team. This only means that we have to run harder, work faster and continue to be the best that we can be 100% of the time and to give that 100% as much as we possibly can!!! We have created a team to beat! We are a team that other teams want to be and are afraid of! We instill fear into the hearts of other teams!!! Oh, I love being a coach!!! What is amazing is that we started this season we were not a team to beat. I remember sitting in the ISC meeting at Saram, and the coaches were not even considering SCA as a team they will have to work hard to beat. We weren’t even on their radar. I remember sitting there listening and wanting so bad to put Saram on the radar. To make people in Chuuk know that SCA knows how to play basketball! I remember thinking before our first game about whether or not we actually had what it takes to go as far as I had dreamed. To do the impossible, to beat Xavier High School. To make history. And so we are and so we did!!! We are making history as we speak, and forever we will be remembered as the first team in the History of Saramen Chuuk Academy to beat Xavier High School in a basketball game. What’s amazing thinking back to those first few weeks of practice, and thinking about those early speeches I gave to the boys. I had always talked about beating Xavier for some reason that became my agenda. When I first announced the team at assembly, I announced them as the team that would beat Xavier HS. And now that prediction has come true! They have fulfilled the prophesy and the path is coming true. I believed in them, and they now believe in themselves. But, I still remember the very first time I spoke about the championships, I spoke about the possibility of us becoming the Chuuk state champions, and I remember how their eyes lit up. It gave me goose bumps just thinking about it. A light went off in the boy’s heads saying, “Oh yeah, we could win that too!” The first glimpses in belief of themselves, of something to strive for, of something to run for, to work hard for! We have a goal, and we go out to every practice, to every game to accomplish that goal. To move ourselves one step closer to that goal, to make that dream a reality! To play basketball with all your heart, body and soul! Mind, body and soul!!!
Our team has become one. We are a family, we trust each other, and we play with that trust! We have been practicing for a long time. We have built trust and bonds! Our team has developed that sense of trust and that sense of work ethic together. It didn’t happen over night! It happened with time, and dedication. And that time was needed to build a strong team. We work hard as a team, we suffer as a team, and we win as a team, everyone contributes. We all win no matter what! We have to stay together and stick together and Play Hard!!!
You know Elibie (official referee for our games) was saying that a thing that Chuukese people struggle with is commitment. I couldn’t understand why the Campus Ministry office would choose “commitment” as the theme of our school year for the staff. But I think about last year, SCA might have had an amazing team, if it was chosen right. Yet they didn’t win, they didn’t have a coach half the time. And the other half there wasn’t much learning, from what the boys have told me. There was a lack of commitment. I see now why the guys were excited to have the “Americans” come and coach (even though Lincoln is Canadian). I didn’t think that I would live up to their expectations, especially when they spoke of me as having all these mad ball handling skills. But commitment, hard work, determination, effort and dedication to these boys and building bonds of trust has allowed us to do just that! Its all about dedication.
I had been struggling recently with where the place of Living justice in my life was coming from. I was struggling with focusing on the forms of social justice that quickly come to mind when you think of the words. I forgot about the nature of simply loving someone with all your heart and giving them your best just as Jesus did. Giving someone care and letting them know that someone believes in them. Right now I am living justice through basketball, or so I hope I am. Through believing in these boys and offering them an opportunity to learn and to believe in themselves and to see that anything is possible if they want it bad enough. Making the difference in just one person’s life. This is a ministry, a calling and we are blessed. I am blessed to be a witness!!! I don’t know if this is simplifying justice too much or if is me struggling to put it into action, but I struggle daily with the restructuring of the things and words that I once knew! God has brought me here and shattered a lot of what I thought to be one way and just as the Eucharist is, our lives are blessed, broken and shared. I hope that I may take this brokenness, put it together and attempt to come to an understanding of what it is that I can share with the world! Hopefully I am doing so!
And another one bites the dust! We claim another victory for Saramen Chuuk Academy. This victory is sweet and it is way sweeter than defeat. Yet the defeat we dished out left a very bitter taste in that of the opposing team. Pentecost was not happy to lose. We showed them that we were there to play and win from the moment that we ran out on that court! It is a great feeling to have the boys run from the locker room (the teacher’s office on the 1st floor) to the court passing all the cheering fans and the high fives. People joining in, running along. I like the rituals we are starting, I hope they continue. People are trying hard to find ways to beat us! Which means that we have to work harder on our practices to come up with something new! Keep other teams on their toes! By us beating Xavier High School, Chuuk High knows that isn’t the only team to beat anymore, but we are!!! If anyone wants the championships they know they will have to get through us first! And we aren’t going to let them!!! We have been practicing the longest, working the hardest, striving the most to be the best team. This only means that we have to run harder, work faster and continue to be the best that we can be 100% of the time and to give that 100% as much as we possibly can!!! We have created a team to beat! We are a team that other teams want to be and are afraid of! We instill fear into the hearts of other teams!!! Oh, I love being a coach!!! What is amazing is that we started this season we were not a team to beat. I remember sitting in the ISC meeting at Saram, and the coaches were not even considering SCA as a team they will have to work hard to beat. We weren’t even on their radar. I remember sitting there listening and wanting so bad to put Saram on the radar. To make people in Chuuk know that SCA knows how to play basketball! I remember thinking before our first game about whether or not we actually had what it takes to go as far as I had dreamed. To do the impossible, to beat Xavier High School. To make history. And so we are and so we did!!! We are making history as we speak, and forever we will be remembered as the first team in the History of Saramen Chuuk Academy to beat Xavier High School in a basketball game. What’s amazing thinking back to those first few weeks of practice, and thinking about those early speeches I gave to the boys. I had always talked about beating Xavier for some reason that became my agenda. When I first announced the team at assembly, I announced them as the team that would beat Xavier HS. And now that prediction has come true! They have fulfilled the prophesy and the path is coming true. I believed in them, and they now believe in themselves. But, I still remember the very first time I spoke about the championships, I spoke about the possibility of us becoming the Chuuk state champions, and I remember how their eyes lit up. It gave me goose bumps just thinking about it. A light went off in the boy’s heads saying, “Oh yeah, we could win that too!” The first glimpses in belief of themselves, of something to strive for, of something to run for, to work hard for! We have a goal, and we go out to every practice, to every game to accomplish that goal. To move ourselves one step closer to that goal, to make that dream a reality! To play basketball with all your heart, body and soul! Mind, body and soul!!!
Our team has become one. We are a family, we trust each other, and we play with that trust! We have been practicing for a long time. We have built trust and bonds! Our team has developed that sense of trust and that sense of work ethic together. It didn’t happen over night! It happened with time, and dedication. And that time was needed to build a strong team. We work hard as a team, we suffer as a team, and we win as a team, everyone contributes. We all win no matter what! We have to stay together and stick together and Play Hard!!!
You know Elibie (official referee for our games) was saying that a thing that Chuukese people struggle with is commitment. I couldn’t understand why the Campus Ministry office would choose “commitment” as the theme of our school year for the staff. But I think about last year, SCA might have had an amazing team, if it was chosen right. Yet they didn’t win, they didn’t have a coach half the time. And the other half there wasn’t much learning, from what the boys have told me. There was a lack of commitment. I see now why the guys were excited to have the “Americans” come and coach (even though Lincoln is Canadian). I didn’t think that I would live up to their expectations, especially when they spoke of me as having all these mad ball handling skills. But commitment, hard work, determination, effort and dedication to these boys and building bonds of trust has allowed us to do just that! Its all about dedication.
I had been struggling recently with where the place of Living justice in my life was coming from. I was struggling with focusing on the forms of social justice that quickly come to mind when you think of the words. I forgot about the nature of simply loving someone with all your heart and giving them your best just as Jesus did. Giving someone care and letting them know that someone believes in them. Right now I am living justice through basketball, or so I hope I am. Through believing in these boys and offering them an opportunity to learn and to believe in themselves and to see that anything is possible if they want it bad enough. Making the difference in just one person’s life. This is a ministry, a calling and we are blessed. I am blessed to be a witness!!! I don’t know if this is simplifying justice too much or if is me struggling to put it into action, but I struggle daily with the restructuring of the things and words that I once knew! God has brought me here and shattered a lot of what I thought to be one way and just as the Eucharist is, our lives are blessed, broken and shared. I hope that I may take this brokenness, put it together and attempt to come to an understanding of what it is that I can share with the world! Hopefully I am doing so!
Peace found in Piis
October 2, 2006 (Day 54 of Chuuk)
To see the face of god in all things, that is my new challenge. The beauty of this weekend on Piis was that God was so present. With my struggle of wondering where I am, why I am here, and how to find God in it all. Trying to find a place for my spirituality beyond a superficial surface lead of prayer and meetings, but really allowing myself to find God. And I think of the struggle for me is not a matter of me being bad or superficial as much, but rather how I experience my spirituality is different than other people. I found that I experience God in community and I am finding this again and again. It is like Dorothy Day wrote in the postscript of her autobiography,
“Our very faith in love has been tried through fire” “We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know him in the breaking of the bread. And we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore…We have known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community. It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”
This quotation was lived out this weekend on Piis. Perhaps my feeling of struggle with spirituality was just that a long loneliness to feel God to find God in something here. Something concrete. Of course God is in the sunsets, the rain, the calls home. But I need to feel God in others. But it was in the breaking of the bread with the youth that we shared. As is much the custom here in Chuuk. When you are told “Samongo” you are invited to break bread, and invitation into community. Here, people shouldn’t eat alone, people shouldn’t be alone, and that is the custom. And so it went that companionship is born. It was born this weekend in silly faces and guitar playing. We let the other languages we know make up for the ones we could not speak. And through that, love was found. We found communion with each other and it was shared through out. I felt God hold me this weekend.
As I heard Kaspar speak I felt God. My heart was racing to speak, although lost in translation I spoke to the people of Piis my heart. I felt God as I knelt down to pray and as I walked out of the church, I felt God surround me as the people of the community surrounded me, welcoming me in as one of them. I felt at home, I felt exactly where I needed to be. You could’ve left me there for hours, days, and weeks, and I think I would make a home of that place, that small island. But not in all of my time of being here in Chuuk, have I felt so right about being here as I did at that moment. And this question that I have been asking myself of why I am here slowly began to become a bit clearer. Yet it is not answered entirely yet. There was an element of awe that I was left with, in how humbling it all was. For me to be a volunteer, but to be continually served and that is how are lives have been here in Chuuk. We are constantly being served. In so many ways by Sr. Erencia, by the Community and this weekend, I was humbled as my feet were washed so that I may go out and wash the feet of others.
From the moment we walked into the “Ut” and even before as everyone gathered around to hear me play guitar, and then as we walked down the huge collection of people shaking hands. There was really no knowing what God had in store, I had no idea how much my life would be touched by the lives of those people. Who even at that moment I couldn’t see their faces. God had a plan and the Holy Spirit lived and worked and it was most excellent to feel the love that community shared. To see the young at heart come around to see what I was doing with the kids as they watched from the outside and laughed along when I made a silly face. And it was so awesome when I would just stand to play and then all the kids would just run and gather. What an amazing gift! I really think I would love to have kids if that is my calling, if God so be pleased with that, but after my experiences in Siis and on Piis, I am finding that I love children immensely and I see God so present in the face of every child. From the point of walking down that row of people with the “mar mar” being placed on us, till the moment we left, there was something special happening there. In La Bamba, in silly faces, in dancing and in laughter, it was all such an amazing gift. And that sending off, how great it was to be playing with the kids until the moment I left. Then, trying to hide and how they took care of me and watched after me with care. I don’t remember her name but I think it was Atreann, I knew it was something like that. But she was bold and had strength. She will be a great leader one day. Alfred, the president of the youth, I can see why he is the leader. He is a great speaker, and knows how to gather the love of his people. He is fun and serious and his youth group is blessed to have him. As goes for Kaspar, Junior and the other strong, bold leaders. There is a gift that every single one of them has and to unite them in friendship, leadership and God, it is a most excellent combination, to see the fruit of God’s labor. The sending off, walking down the line of shaking hands, again the honored guest, but now, with a history, with memories and smiles. Now with love placed in our hearts. And as we boarded the boat with a little or for me a lot of hesitation, Kaspar holding on to my arm to not let me go, our boat left shore with a mountain of people gathered on the shore to wave good bye till they lost sight of our boat in the sea.
The challenge I face and will continue to face will be of living this experience out daily. Feeling God all around me should not have to stop. As I sat up at the front of the meeting hall, and stared out, and saw the face of God staring right back at me, that feeling is not limited to my time and experiences in Piis. Every time I stand in from of the classroom there are 36 faces of God staring right back at me. That experience of finding God in the laughter and smiles does not and is not limited. It might be a challenge to step back and see God’s face in the trouble makers and those that don’t try or do their homework, and those that aren’t paying attention. But God is in all of them, and I need to make sure that I am showing and shining God through me too. Love knows no boundaries. There is no one language for things like love and laughter, and so I must continue to radiate that love and laughter, and share in the aspects of life that language cannot tie down. God will be there, and there God will shine and so will I.
To see the face of god in all things, that is my new challenge. The beauty of this weekend on Piis was that God was so present. With my struggle of wondering where I am, why I am here, and how to find God in it all. Trying to find a place for my spirituality beyond a superficial surface lead of prayer and meetings, but really allowing myself to find God. And I think of the struggle for me is not a matter of me being bad or superficial as much, but rather how I experience my spirituality is different than other people. I found that I experience God in community and I am finding this again and again. It is like Dorothy Day wrote in the postscript of her autobiography,
“Our very faith in love has been tried through fire” “We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know him in the breaking of the bread. And we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore…We have known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community. It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”
This quotation was lived out this weekend on Piis. Perhaps my feeling of struggle with spirituality was just that a long loneliness to feel God to find God in something here. Something concrete. Of course God is in the sunsets, the rain, the calls home. But I need to feel God in others. But it was in the breaking of the bread with the youth that we shared. As is much the custom here in Chuuk. When you are told “Samongo” you are invited to break bread, and invitation into community. Here, people shouldn’t eat alone, people shouldn’t be alone, and that is the custom. And so it went that companionship is born. It was born this weekend in silly faces and guitar playing. We let the other languages we know make up for the ones we could not speak. And through that, love was found. We found communion with each other and it was shared through out. I felt God hold me this weekend.
As I heard Kaspar speak I felt God. My heart was racing to speak, although lost in translation I spoke to the people of Piis my heart. I felt God as I knelt down to pray and as I walked out of the church, I felt God surround me as the people of the community surrounded me, welcoming me in as one of them. I felt at home, I felt exactly where I needed to be. You could’ve left me there for hours, days, and weeks, and I think I would make a home of that place, that small island. But not in all of my time of being here in Chuuk, have I felt so right about being here as I did at that moment. And this question that I have been asking myself of why I am here slowly began to become a bit clearer. Yet it is not answered entirely yet. There was an element of awe that I was left with, in how humbling it all was. For me to be a volunteer, but to be continually served and that is how are lives have been here in Chuuk. We are constantly being served. In so many ways by Sr. Erencia, by the Community and this weekend, I was humbled as my feet were washed so that I may go out and wash the feet of others.
From the moment we walked into the “Ut” and even before as everyone gathered around to hear me play guitar, and then as we walked down the huge collection of people shaking hands. There was really no knowing what God had in store, I had no idea how much my life would be touched by the lives of those people. Who even at that moment I couldn’t see their faces. God had a plan and the Holy Spirit lived and worked and it was most excellent to feel the love that community shared. To see the young at heart come around to see what I was doing with the kids as they watched from the outside and laughed along when I made a silly face. And it was so awesome when I would just stand to play and then all the kids would just run and gather. What an amazing gift! I really think I would love to have kids if that is my calling, if God so be pleased with that, but after my experiences in Siis and on Piis, I am finding that I love children immensely and I see God so present in the face of every child. From the point of walking down that row of people with the “mar mar” being placed on us, till the moment we left, there was something special happening there. In La Bamba, in silly faces, in dancing and in laughter, it was all such an amazing gift. And that sending off, how great it was to be playing with the kids until the moment I left. Then, trying to hide and how they took care of me and watched after me with care. I don’t remember her name but I think it was Atreann, I knew it was something like that. But she was bold and had strength. She will be a great leader one day. Alfred, the president of the youth, I can see why he is the leader. He is a great speaker, and knows how to gather the love of his people. He is fun and serious and his youth group is blessed to have him. As goes for Kaspar, Junior and the other strong, bold leaders. There is a gift that every single one of them has and to unite them in friendship, leadership and God, it is a most excellent combination, to see the fruit of God’s labor. The sending off, walking down the line of shaking hands, again the honored guest, but now, with a history, with memories and smiles. Now with love placed in our hearts. And as we boarded the boat with a little or for me a lot of hesitation, Kaspar holding on to my arm to not let me go, our boat left shore with a mountain of people gathered on the shore to wave good bye till they lost sight of our boat in the sea.
The challenge I face and will continue to face will be of living this experience out daily. Feeling God all around me should not have to stop. As I sat up at the front of the meeting hall, and stared out, and saw the face of God staring right back at me, that feeling is not limited to my time and experiences in Piis. Every time I stand in from of the classroom there are 36 faces of God staring right back at me. That experience of finding God in the laughter and smiles does not and is not limited. It might be a challenge to step back and see God’s face in the trouble makers and those that don’t try or do their homework, and those that aren’t paying attention. But God is in all of them, and I need to make sure that I am showing and shining God through me too. Love knows no boundaries. There is no one language for things like love and laughter, and so I must continue to radiate that love and laughter, and share in the aspects of life that language cannot tie down. God will be there, and there God will shine and so will I.
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