The Gang's All Here!

I know that it's been a while, but y'all know I don't just update for the sake up of just posting. I do have some exciting news: the official roster has been released. Fingers crossed, this is the standing roster and we won't have any shuffles between now and when we leave. But, you never know, since life has a funny way of happening.

Here's the crew, starting with the ladies.

Sprints - Ana H., Madeline K.,  and A'Keyla M.
Hurdles - Jade B.
Middle Distance - Kim M. and Shea M.
Distance - Sara S., Stephanie S., and Angel P.
Steeple - Marisa H.
Long/High Jump - Alexis W., Kylie P., Nataliyah F., and Zibby B.
Throws/Javelin - Valerie A., Zaybree H., Ashlie B., and Jessica S.
Pole Vault - Alex W.
Heptathlon - Chari H. and Tatum S.

And now, for the gentlemen.

Sprints - Bryce R., Leon P., Joe H., Markesh W., Ronnie B., and Cole L.

Hurdles - Dondre E., Aaron M., and Keyunta H.

Middle Distance - Shaquile W., Nick H., and Austin O.

Distance - Ty M. and Jake H.

Long/High Jump - Michael W., Idrees B., Matthew O., and Cody C.

Throws/Javelin - Braheme D., Alec F., and Derek E.

Pole Vault - Mike W. and Mark S.

Decathlon - Steele W.

Finally, the coaching staff.

Head Coach - Jack H.

Distance Coach - Forest B.

Multis Coach - Sharon D.

Sprints/Relays Coach - Chris A.

Throws Coach  - Justin S.

Athletic Trainers - Chris G. and Rachel C.

Team Manager - Monica G.

SID  - Skip P.

Chaplains/AIA Staff - Jodi T. and Brian B.

Would you please join me and pray for not just our team to come together, but for each individual on the list? Please pray that for those on the list who may not know the Lord, that this summer would be one where He would draw them into a relationship with Him. Please pray for those who are believers, that this summer they would learn what it means to compete for a higher purpose and reason than just competing. Please pray that relationships are built, not just on our team, but across borders. Sport has a beautiful way of uniting people in a way that I believe the Christian faith should. 

2015 World University Games - Gwangju, South Korea

I know the title of this blog is "AIA Belgium Project", but then sometimes God shows up, spins you around on your heels, and sets you down a path that you never in a million years would have envisioned yourself going down. Ever. Which is where I find myself now.

For the sake of convenience, I am going to use the same blog to chronicle this South Korea adventure. For convenience, but also, I know that the adventures that I had in Belgium will be adventures that I should remember. So much growth happened over the course of five July's spent abroad, so many lessons learned.

As things stand right now, there isn't a whole lot to share. But, I will share what I do know. Athletes in Action (track and field, specifically) is partnering with UCLA this summer. Logistically speaking, the UCLA assistant coach is going to be recruiting and leading the team of 40-50 athletes that is going to Gwangju. Of that, Athletes in Action will be recruiting a team of ten(ish) track-letes. So, we will be doing this Inception-style of a team within a team. A lot of ministry is going to happen before we leave for Gwangju - discipleship, support coaching, mentoring, discussing topics that in the past would be covered while we are in Belgium.

I am incredibly excited for two reasons (for the moment at least; I'm sure there will be more reasons later). First, I am only going to be wearing two hats this summer - assistant team athletic trainer (UCLA is bringing their track and field athletic trainer) and discipler. Just two hats! But more importantly, we are literally going to the nations! The World University Games (or WUGs) are the Olympics for university/college-aged athletes. Athletes from all over the world will be there, and we get to not only build relationships within the American track & field team, but also with athletes from many tribes, tongues, and nations. All by using the language of sport :)

The big prayer requests at the moment are the recruiting process/roster building, finalizing a support amount, and that the Lord would knit the AIA family together as Brian and Jodi, the staff members from AIA traveling with the team, start their recruitment. 

Different

I've had a lot of downtime these past few days. It's been nice to do nothing for more than ten minutes. I don't think I could tell you the last time that I was able to just be. In my Dallas life, I go roughly a million miles an hour, every day, all of the time. This past weekend? I sat by a river, switching between shade and sun, and did nothing. Literally, nothing. For three hours. I am going to miss this pace of life, a pace where you have a list of things to do, but first, you need to drink a hot chocolate. Because, priorities.

In between periods of nothing, I've been doing a lot of praying and a lot of thinking. When I lead our debrief, we go through how to share the details of the summer trips - what God did, what you experienced, things you want to tell people. There are three different "levels" to sharing these stories: the thirty second version, the three minute version, and the thirty minute version. As I have been debriefing myself and sorting though all of my stories, I have found myself unable to formulate something of a thirty second version or even a three minute version. The closest that I have come to is a one word answer: different.

Different isn't bad. Different isn't negative. Different isn't even good. It's...different. Much of the trip was the same as it is every year: we competed in meets; we shared our stories with new friends and old; we had our regularly scheduled team time (where, I'm pretty sure that I can say that the Lord deepened each of our relationships with Him); we ate a lot of waffles and ice cream; we stayed up late chatting about things of varying levels of depth; we made daily trips to the grocery store. But this year, everything felt different.

So now continues the journey of me trying to formulate an answer that can be used in those situations where people ask, "How was the trip!?" but they only have (or are willing to give) a few seconds because the question they asked wasn't a genuine question, but more of a greeting and an acknowledgement of you. Much like the "Hey, how are you?" that we do so often in America. Squirrel moment: That is the nice thing about coming over here - greetings are greetings, so when you hear that question, people are genuinely wanting to hear how you are doing. I can see why people coming into American culture have a tough time getting used to it.

Back on topic. There really isn't a point to this blog post; I just needed to start processing outside of myself. Maybe I'm not supposed to have a shorter version of this summer to share. Maybe I'm supposed to just give long, detailed answers, full of stories about His provision. Because "different" isn't a description that you usually hear. And I shouldn't be trying to fit this trip into a box that I don't have for it. That seems to be a continuing lesson in my world right now - stop trying to put new things in old boxes. They won't fit and they're not supposed to fit. Square peg, round hole.

Welcome to my stream of consciousness. 

Leuven Staycation

When I left the States, 24 days ago, I thought that today I would be in Turkey, enjoying my first real vacation in two years and getting to connect with some relatives on my mom's side. I thought I'd be experiencing a traditional Turkish hamam and touring Ephesus. Maybe worshiping with believers in the city. The Lord, it seems, has other plans.

To make a very long story short, Jodi and I were confirmed to fly out this morning on a 5:55a flight to Izmir. Or so we thought. It turns out that we were confirmed on a flight yesterday (Thursday), and because we booked through a travel agent, we could not get our refund this morning. If we wanted to fly to Izmir, we would have to purchase another ticket, this time at the last minute. Since neither one of us could afford that, we are now back in Leuven.

We got back to the hostel around seven, and I promptly went back to bed. Jodi stayed up for a bit and saw the owners of the hostel. After telling them our story of yet another logistical snafu, they invited us to drive down with them to a little village in the south of Belgium, near the Belgium-France border. Roel, whom we have known now for five years, found a little B&B for us with a view of the river. He and Camilla, his wife, are staying in a neighboring village about 3km up the road. It may not be Turkey, but there are trails to hike, rivers to kayak, and relative peace. We are driving down tomorrow morning and spending Saturday night before coming back on Sunday.

While this was a relief that things are working out, I will confess to struggling to remember the truths that I know about God - He is a good God; He loves me; He doesn't take away just for the sake of taking; Everything can be redeemed for my good and His glory. It took every ounce of energy that I had, but I dragged myself out of bed around noon (I wasn't sleeping, I just didn't want to stand up) to find lunch and head over to the botanical gardens. The botanical gardens are my favorite spot in the whole of Leuven (even more than CrossFit Leuven, which is saying something), and today I found a new "favorite spot" in the back near their fruit & honey garden.

The Lord led me to Psalm 9:1-2, which I want to share with y'all:

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

And that's what I did for two hours this afternoon: I gave thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for this year's trip; I recounted all of His wonderful deeds that He did over our three and a half weeks together as a team; I was glad and praised Him above all; and He even gave me a song to sing. I know the song was from Him, because anyone who knows me can say that I don't have a lick of musical abilities. We can call a spade a spade here, it won't hurt my feelings. It was some of the sweetest time that I have had with Him on this trip. Apparently I needed to slam into a wall before I slowed down, since speed bumps weren't doing the trick.

I'm excited to share all that the Lord did this summer, but I don't know how much of it will make it on the blog. I probably have four or five blog entries worth of stories to tell. You'll hear a lot of it at the recap party, so if you're curious, you'll just have to come and listen. Or, we can Skype, but block out a solid two hours for me to talk your ear off. 

Chicken + Pasta + Salad

Tonight is the saddest night of the trip - the last night that I cook for our team. Our trip is winding down, with a meet tomorrow, debrief trip, and then we scatter on Wednesday. This year has flown by. I know that it was a shorter trip compared to last year, but it really does seem like just yesterday that we were sprawled out on the Newark airport floor waiting to fly out, not knowing that we would be facing a cancelled flight.

Tonight I kept it simple - chicken pasta salad. It's a nice summer dish of raw veggies, chicken, and pasta. A good pre-meet comfort food for the team as we have one last hurrah.

The Foodstuffs

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or three rotisserie chickens from the farmers' market!).
• 1 box noodles of your choice (I prefer the smaller ones, but spaghetti noodles would be fine).
• Four or five cups total of vegetables!! Whatever is in season, in your fridge that you need to use, on sale. Creative freedom! 
• Salad dressing of choice.
• Optional: Shredded parmesan cheese. 

The How-You-Do-It

• Cube chicken breasts into slightly-larger-than bite sized pieces. Place in skillet (grease that guy first!) and season with sea salt and pepper. Cook until pieces are no longer pink.
• Cook your pasta as directed on the box.
• While the chicken and noodles cook, start cutting your veggies. I split what I cook (broccoli, peas) and what is raw (peppers, cherry tomatoes, carrots). Do what you like here.
• In the biggest bowl that you can find, dump the chicken, pasta, and veggies in and mix together. 
• Allow your folks to add their own dressing and cheese. 
• If you need a gluten-free option, serve the noodles in a separate bowl, mixing only the chicken and veggies. 

My Second-Favorite Meal

I only have two more meals to cook in the hostel before the trip ends. I honestly can't believe it. Tomorrow we are at a meet, so we will eat out. Sunday will be a night of eating in, and then another meet Monday followed by a something special planned for Tuesday.

Today has been the first hot day of the summer. Well, "hot"being almost 90*. But when you don't have AC, it definitely feels warmer than that.

Tonight's meal is one of my favorites - Messy Pierre's, or the Euro-version of Sloppy Joe's. It's always fun throwing things in a pot and simmering, hoping that it turns out alright. This is a meal that was created out of borderline desperation on Year One, and it's been a staple ever since.

The Foodstuffs:

• One pound of ground meat.
• One red or orange bell pepper, chopped.
• Two carrots, chopped.
• One bottle mystery Belgian BBQ sauce.
• One can crushed tomatoes.
• Two cans of tomato paste.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Buns.

The How-You-Do-It:

• Brown the ground beef. Add the sauce and tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Add the vegetables, stir together, and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. 
• Serve on a bun, as a sandwich or open-faced (filling on top of an open bun).

Bon appetite, y'all! :)

Hola! Bienvenidos!

I can't figure out how to get the exclamation point to flip upside down, so we're just going to roll with it. It's something I have yet to figure out back in Texas on my keyboard, and trying to figure out the keyboard in the hostel just isn't happening.

It finally felt like summer (or something closer to summer) here today - sunny and 85*. After the first part of the trip being cloudy, rainy, and 60*, I was running around in a tank top and shorts, much like everyone else in the country. I spend two and a half weeks in cool weather and suddenly I've lost all of my abilities to deal with warm weather.

We only had ten people tonight at dinner, which was odd. I'm so used to cooking for an army that it was a little odd to cook for so few. Then again, I don't think most people would use the word "only" when referring to cooking for ten hungry, hungry athletes.

The Foodstuffs:

• One pound ground beef.
• One packet American taco seasoning (I packed accordingly).
• Taco shells (I prefer hard shells, but whatever you like is great).
• Taco toppings (rice, beans, cheese, avocado, salsa, corn, etc.).

The How-You-Do-It

• Brown your ground beef in a skillet and drain off excess fat. 
• Add the seasoning packet, using as much or as little as you like.
• Slowly add water (a tablespoon-ish at a time) and mix the seasoning into the beef. 
• With the heat on low, cook until the water has evaporated and the seasoning is evenly distributed.
• Make yourself a taco assembly line and have at it!