Day Three: Soccer Tournament

Another 7am rise and shine, to a once again phenomenal brekkie cooked by Marilou. With most of the team excited for the day’s activity being an all day soccer carnival, we once again crammed 23 people into 2 cars. Luckily the sardine ride didn’t last for long. Once we arrived at Faith Academy, it was such a blessing to see the excitement on these kid’s faces and the unity brought by our shared love of sport that bridged the language barrier.

The 2nd Annual Rehoboth Christian College Soccer Tournament was played from 9:30am until 4pm. With three divisions: 6 teams of Boys under 12’s, 10 teams of Boys under 17’s and 5 teams of Girls under 17’s, we all played and round robin on a full soccer pitch, divided into three. Rehoboth had a team in the Boys under 17’s and the girls under 17’s.

The day consisted of the boys doing good as usual, and the girls blowing everyone’s mind, with actually playing in the Grand Final and placing second.  The first, second and third placing for each division of the competition each received a trophy and a soccer ball, so our girl’s team asked the winning team, La Salle, to sign their ball and our girls signed a ball and they exchanged them. We felt like sports stars as many of the team wanted photos with us and to get us to sign their soccer ball.

The referees challenged our boys to a scratch match at the end of the tournament. The game was hotly contested with the referees taking out the match by two goals.

While the day consisted of many blessings, such as minimal injuries, beautiful weather, and the chance to increase our companionship and understanding of the Filipino people, we faced some challenges and difficulties such as; teams rocking up late, teams not rocking up late (because they didn’t rock up at all) and having to turn away some teams as they didn’t have a formal coach or any pesos to register. Some creative and quick rescheduling was needed, without a printer, we had to write everything out by hand for each of the 21 teams.

After such a physically taxing day we spend the night relaxing by the pool, going down the slide, and jumping off the diving platform.  Miss Smoker surprised us with Yellow Cab pizza and a coke for supper.

The Smurf family is super keen for some more construction tomorrow, and all the blessings and challenges it will bring.

Today’s blog was brought to you, by the Smurf family (the blue team)

Papa Smurf – Josh

Mama Smurf – Emily

Dumpling Smurf- Cassia

Pop Tart Smurf  - Tyler

Sausage Smurf – Jesse Stafford

Smurfette – Becky

Daily Motto: “You only live once, so go nuts…” – Abraham Lincoln