Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Mexico, May 2014, Soccer

Most mornings in Mexico we visited drug and alcohol rehab centers. In the afternoons we visited parks. 
 
You couldn't do it in America, but in Mexico we went around to announce a soccer tournament, and each evening a crowd turned up. 

We went to several different fields of grass, concrete, and dust, sometimes chalking lines for boundaries and sometimes dragging a stick. 
 
While the men headed up the soccer games, the ladies played with the children and shared Bible stories. We drew on their faces, turned cartwheels, played hillbilly golf, and washers. 
Several of the women, me included, were much impressed and moved by the great need that the children showed for love and affection. They flocked to us and hung on us, sometimes hanging on to our t-shirts as we walked. Wherever we went, they came like magnets. 
 
Even though we couldn't communicate very well, we had fun. Several of the women shared Bible stories with the kids and I (Ellie) gave my testimony to a group of wide-eyed children. If I can give some personal details, I had a captive audience as they heard how I had been rebellious to my parents and hateful toward God. But now they could obvious see that I am happy because I have given up sin, and I gave the gospel as clearly as I could. I also noticed while I talked through the translator that a man was standing nearby and listening carefully. May God bless him! 
 
During one soccer tournament a group of young men were dancing to the Virgin Mary. It was heartbreaking to see. Not only is it hard to see worship to a false god when our God is so worthy of all the praise, but I saw young men who depended on this dancing for their salvation. They were very coordinated and disciplined. They danced hard and intensely. And they danced for quite some time. 

Interestingly enough, we visited a rehab center later that week where they danced before The Lord. They played music and jumped and clapped for joy. Immediately I compared it to the dancing in the park. In the park they had each moved in time, the steps perfectly memorized, but at this rehab center the dancing was more spontaneous than anything. And what stood out to me most was the joy of the men at the rehab center. Tremendous joy and thanksgiving, not working to get God's favor, but rejoicing to have it. And most importantly, this dancing was in honor of the One True God. 

I know we don't dance as a regular part of our worship service in America -- but maybe we should! 

Back to the soccer games, at each soccer tournament the men took time to gather the young men around and challenge them with the gospel. There was no strategy to make an emotional experience. There was no aim to record great numbers. It was the straightforward simple gospel, and then we challenged the men to commit their lives to Christ. 

The last soccer tournament we held, Wednesday night, the bleachers were filled with young men spoking pot. No attempt to hide it, no nervousness or shyness, just out there in the open together. During the break, Russ humbly and seriously addressed them about it, and though some were high and laughing, others listened seriously. Please pray for those young men, that these words will have a lasting impression on them. At the tournaments we gave out tracks and booklets and Bibles, and the children eagerly received them and promised to read them. 

So for all of the soccer players, spectators, children, parents, and teeter-totter partners, please pray for their salvation. Pray that God may change the hearts of the people to Him and that the work that we have done will not be in vain. Please pray that the words we have said will not fade into the darkness but be a light to destroy it. 

Ellie 

 All photos taken by Billy and Sarah Jackson

No comments:

Post a Comment