It's here!

About a year and a half ago we collected a TON of soccer stuff from players at CASL (the club I grew up playing for in Raleigh) and Millbrook High School.  We delayed its shipment a bit and then finally sent it back in September.  It finally arrived last week!!  Thanks to some new American friends traveling around the World for 11 months we have now built shelves in our new storage shed and organized almost the entire shipment!!  Check it out, looks amazing.

Shoes, organized by size!

Jerseys, some teams are going to look good!

I can actually see the stuff now to distribute it.  We have to figure out how to use it and who to give it to, but we're on our way!  It's just amazing to see the stuff that kids here are going to be able to wear.  

I certainly couldn't have done it without these guys, so thanks so much!

Team from AIM's World Race: Leah, Alicia, Stacy, Jake, Micah, and Jeremy!

Cheers,

Casey

Ubuntu Clinics Week Two

Week One of the Ubuntu clinics from our local schools was a great time!

Week Two has begun with new kids and new schools.  Pray for us this week as we minister to these boys and many others!  

Some Reflections

The clinics we've been having over the last 2 weeks have been stretching my faith, my patience, and my understanding of these communities.  We've now completed 5 of the 6 sessions and the results have been varied.  We've had a few really talented players, and some really bad ones.  We've had some that work really hard, and some that are quite lazy.  We've had some kids that are respectful and do the right thing, and some that just want to goof off.  So all of that has been stretching.  
Last week we struggled to get kids involved from Masiphumelele, the black township near us.  I'm still not sure totally what the answer is there, but we need to think more strategically about how to get those kids involved.  
We are also continuing to learn how to best communicate information and who the people are that we can trust to do things for us.  It's all been quite positive, but I wish I didn't always have so much to learn!!  When will I start to know it all?!?! (And not just in my own mind!)  
Now we're wrestling with which kids to invite into the program.  There are a few talented kids with questionable attitudes, do we take the risk?  There are some kids that aren't great players, but have great athletic ability, do we trust that we can teach them how to play?  In "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell (an amazing book, by the way) he talks about people becoming experts in their field when they have reached 10,000 hours of practice.  Basically his premise is that if somebody starts with a certain threshold of talent that the difference is the time put into their craft.  So, we're wrestling with whether or not our task is to "discover" talented players or to "develop" talented players.  It's quite an interesting process and we have a lot of big decisions to make over the next month or so.  
We'd appreciate your thought and prayers to that end.  After tomorrow's final day I'll post some pictures of this 2nd group of kids.


Casey

Pictures of Elite Clinic

There are some pictures of the 1st Day of the Elite Clinic on our family blog here: www.caseyandsarahafrica.blogspot.com.

We've had some good players to work with there.  Hoping to uncover some more!

Casey

Elite Christmas Clinics

These next 2 weeks are really important for us.  We are hosting Elite Christmas Clinics for 3 days each week.  This week the clinic is in our area and next week it's in an area nearby about 30 minutes away.  For each clinic we have invited 25 kids that will be U-13 next year.  They have been nominated by their coach at school or from a local club.  Through this clinic we will be evaluating these boys so that we can select 16 boys to become the start of our High Performance Training Program in 2011.  That program is the start of us moving towards our full-on academy program.  We're excited to be working with some talented kids this week and to look forward to our future!
We'll keep you updated this week!

Casey

Follow-up with Fish Hoek

We had another follow-up meeting with the Fish Hoek Football Club on Tuesday.  After we met with their committee, they spoke about our proposal at their Annual General Meeting which generated questions and concerns, so they invited us back to meet with their whole committee.  We spent some time presenting ourselves to the full committee and then answered their questions.  Most of their questions were things we expected to hear, only a few were things we hadn't thought through.  We handled all of their questions pretty smoothly, but there was one interaction that was particularly encouraging.  One of the guys, who was clearly skeptical, asked what makes us different from any other academy that is in the other parts of this city.  At that point, the club chairman asked if he could answer that question.  I was really interested to see what he would say.  He responded by saying that our motives are different from the other academies.  Those academies are driven by greed hoping that one of their players will make it big and set them up for life.  They make promises to kids that they either can't or never intend to keep.  He shared that our motives are simply for the kids to be advanced.  WOW!  So amazing that he basically said what I would have said, but that it didn't come from me.  Somebody else, who is only just getting to know us, can already sense that our hearts are different.  This was the best moment of the meeting.  It left me feeling that if the chairman of the club feels that way about us then our chances of this being approved should be good.
So, now we're just praying that they would respond soon with a positive response.  We know that if they give us a year to try it out that they will be blessed by the opportunity and desire to have it continue.

If you're curious about how we presented ourselves to them, here is our powerpoint from the meeting.  It might help you know how to share what we are doing and planning with others in your sphere of influence.

Inspiring

This story is way delayed in being told. This summer we had an amazing interaction with an awesome young man. My wife Sarah had the opportunity to speak at a few of Youth Conference Ministry's camps. Through that we were able to share a lot about the work of Ubuntu Sports Outreach. At the high school camp, Fun in the Son, they played a game all week called "Minute to Win It." It consisted of crazy activities by the students, but they were playing for a prize of $100 at the end of the week. The final day came and the competition even went to a tie-breaker. It was so intense, kids were screaming, and the two churches represented really wanted to win. You kept thinking, "Oh, if they win, they'll buy their whole church ice cream or something fun." Finally after a long competition, Daniel Nasrallah from Reynolda Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, NC won the competition. They were so excited! They celebrated like they had just won the World Cup! It was really fun to see.
But less than 5 minutes later, Daniel was in front of me holding the milk jug full of cash. Cash that he had worked really hard to win. And then he gave it to me. He said that he wanted it to be used for the work we are doing in Cape Town. I was so humbled by this gesture. Yes, it was really amazing to get the financial help, but even more exciting was the support of his heart. This young man had played SO hard to win this game, and when he could have used his prize on himself or his friends, he chose to sew into God's work here.

We had lots of amazing interactions with people this summer, but this moment with Daniel was particularly inspiring!

Casey