nitty gritty

Have you ever woke up in the morning and felt like someone had been punching you all night long?  That’s how I felt this morning.  The remedies came flying… “You want me to walk on your back?” Offered Lorin.  ”Do you want to cuddle tonight?”  Invited my bff Lew.  I quickly declined each offer, knowing that both would injure me in different manners.  So tonight I will again attempt to sleep on my bed. In preparation for another day like today. And today was quite the day! A day in the court!

SO, if you haven’t noticed I have been running with this royalty thing… I hope I can make it stretch through the week.  But, I digress.  Today we loaded up at SETECA, Karen (our translator) again brought her joyful attitude to the van and we were off.  Weaving through Guatemala City rush hour traffic, each bump reminding me of the medieval torture mattress.  We arrived at La Limonada and got ready to play soccer (henceforth to be referred to as futbol) with 6 gang members from the ghetto.  

So if you can picture us gringos on a cement futbol court in the middle of a throbbing metropolis getting thoroughly whipped by young, athletic gang bangers in socc… i mean, futbol jerseys, well you guessed it, it wasn’t pretty.  Or maybe it was beautiful!  Tita said to me, “last month these guys were killers, now they play futbol!  HA HA HA BEAUTIFUL!”  What a grand court to be on!

2 years ago a young man named Carlos was accused of killing another young man in a rival gang.  Just before he went to prison, Tita and her team were able to pray with Carlos to become a Christ Follower!  How cool is that!?  Well, check it out… WE WENT TO ONE OF HIS COURT HEARINGS TODAY!  It was obvious that our being there was a great encouragement to Carlos.  Our presence there was occasionally awkward and we weren’t always certain we understood what was going on, but we did know that we were visiting Jesus while He was in prison (look it up).

And the courts just keep coming…

Children, dirty children, smelly children, street children. In the night air, in an area called the terminal, we played futbol in the street! Lorin rolled on the filthy ground and played! Erin colored! Russ & Lew ran and kicked the ball!  Jan & Charlotte loved on the little girls!  This was as royal a court as one might ever join!  Again, if youlook it up in Matthew 25, Jesus talks about when we love people, we love Him!  That means we were in the court of the King of kings and the Prince of Peace! 

Phew, long day.  It’s time for me to roll onto my bed away from home and sleep enough to have another day in the Son.  See ya tomorrow.