Day 8, Slow morning, Afternoon Shopping at Lalaport, Evening Game/Dinner with Sangyo University girls

     It is good that today is kind of a slow day (& tomorrow to) as the girls are still recovering from jet lag.  Despite that, a little over half of the team was up at 4am to trek up to the third floor of Pastor Hasui's church to watch the final of the World Cup.  During the game, the camera showed this beautiful shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue with the sun behind it (see pictures).  After the game was over, most everyone went back to sleep.  Breakfast and a team meeting followed.
     At 11am, it was hop the bus to the Lalaport mall for some shopping and lunch.  It was a huge mall.  We didn't have a lot of time, but it was a fun experience.  One of the girls from the Sangyo team works at the mall (Yuka, who visited us 2 days ago and is coming to the US next year), so we went to visit her.  We left the mall at 2pm and came back to the church, where the ladies took a long time to work on the Japanese song to get it ready for its debut tonight.  This is a very dedicated group of girls.
    A number of church volunteers showed up about 4pm to shuttle us in cars to the game site.  It was exciting to see how the players and coaches were excited to see us, particularly since it had only been since March when they had been to the U.S.  We played 2 30-minute periods and Sangyo won 3-0.  They are a VERY high-level team.  Then we played another 30-minute period with the teams mixed.  After the games, we continued our ministry with our team song, which we had translated afterwards so they knew the meaning.  Then we sang our Japanese song, followed by Natalie giving her testimony.  I am sure the Sangyo girls were moved by Natalie's obvious passion and love for them evidenced in her testimony.  We then passed out the team brochures and mixed for a while, and then off to the university showers to clean up.
     After showers, it was off to the Gusto restaurant for dinner together.  This is where a lot of ministry happens.  It also demonstrated this year the benefit of repeated contacts.  As Mike noted, last year there were only about 6 girls who came to dinner.  This year, we had the entire team show up---24 players, 2 coaches & 2 assistants.  It was great to see ministry happening for almost 2 hours.  It was hard to break it up.
     We got back to the church and had a late, but short team meeting.  At the meeting, Paul asked the team how many of them "Facebook friended" someone or were asked to be.  EVERY hand in the group went up.  Many seeds were planted tonight and it was exciting to see the growth in their interest.  Thank you for your prayers.

Pictures
Team Songs & Words
Day 8 Video Montage

P.S.  For those who already saw yesterday's (Day 7) video montage, it has been changed.  I noticed and had a comment, that the segments were too short, so I lengthened them.