Tuesday Thoughts

Sarah decided she would LET me blog for once (wink, wink) so here are some of my thoughts from this weekend and the Elite Christmas Clinics that Ubuntu Sports Outreach has been hosting.
Sarah mentioned this but Sunday night at Hillsong was pretty incredible.  Leaving the house, I wasn't all that expectant that God was going to do much, but by the time we arrived I knew that I needed to get prepared.  As the service moved towards the "Anointing" period, the Asst. Pastor, Jon Norman, came and prayed over Jenks and then me and Sarah.  He prayed some specific things that we've also been praying for and really spoke truth over us.  After that, since we are Connect Group Leaders, we were sent out to pray for others.  It was such a privilege to anoint people with oil and pray for them.  It's amazing the things that God would lead you to pray.  As that was finishing, the lead pastor, Phil, stopped the whole thing to share some specific thoughts with me and Sarah.  Yes, in a room of over 1,500 people he spoke to just us, in front of everyone.  He spoke a lot out the ways that God is stretching us and preparing us for ministry that is even bigger than we have experienced before.  He spoke specifically to me about not deferring to Sarah in ministry but to own my specific gifts.  It was just so humbling for God to choose us for him to speak to in that way.  He's definitely right about God stretching us.  It happened during the 5 weeks of having Ntokozo living with us.  It happens everyday living in this community.  And it's happening right now with our attempts to move forward with Ubuntu.
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?  It's quite an interesting process and we have a lot of big decisions to make over the next month or so.
So, that's some of what has been going on my heart & head.

Casey