Day 7, Games, Masa's Soccer School (older kids), Pastor's of Passion

     This morning saw a fairly early start of breakfast at 7:15 as we had to leave by 8:00.  On Saturday when we had Masa's soccer school clinic in the morning, we usually would have had his older kids in the afternoon as he has a separate group for the teenagers (a lot of whom are missionary kids and most of whom speak english).  This year Masa was not able to get the field so we were able to play them.  God's timing was very evident in this.  Although the field we played on today was a more expensive rental than Saturday, we didn't know back in February when the trip was set up that we would have homestays on Saturday starting at 4pm.  This means that the game with Masa's older students would have conflicted with 15 team members who would not have been able to play.  Instead we were able to play the older students this morning and everyone could participate.  Another side benefit is that Saturday's game would have been on dirt (if you want to see the field, go back and look at the blog post from last year for Masa's school), while today's game was on turf.  The game was in Kobe, the town where Paul was born.  We had to leave when we did because of morning traffic that would have taken normally 60-90 minutes---we got there in 45.  On the last part of the trip, BJ pointed out a freeway we traveled under which had been rebuilt he said 20 years ago because it had collapsed during the Kobe earthquake.  We played 3 20-minute games.  It was a good time of ministry to encourage these boys.  We sang our songs, and Annie did her testimony.
     After this game, we had about 2 hours until our next game, so we took the bus to Masa's church to relax for awhile. Two of the Masa's students rode the bus back with us as Masa's church was a block from their house and so we had a great time getting to know them (two brothers).  Paul gave everyone money for lunch and we walked around the corner to the grocery store.  It was fun to watch everyone shopping for lunch and interesting to see the choices.  We ate lunch then at the church, and played games or just relaxed.  Then it was back on the bus at 2 for the next set of games against the Pastor's of Passion.  Paul explained before we left that this is a group of 6 pastors that have banded together to try to gear up their ministries with a focus and goal on ministering in the Tokyo area in 2020, during the Tokyo olympics.  They are connected with BJ who is very well known in the Emmanuel denomination since his dad used to be the head of the denomination.  It was Paul's desire that before/during/after our games with them that we just show how ministry can happen with soccer and that that would encourage them to be able to use soccer themselves for their ministries.
      We took the bus to the games which were back on the rooftop courts where we were on Saturday for Masa's clinic.  We had two courts reserved and so to get everyone involved, we had two games going simultaneously.  Since these were futsal courts, each game was just 5 vs. 5 (4 players & goalie) and lasted just 7 minutes.  Lot of good action, so I hope you enjoy the pictures and video (pictures were taken using high-speed burst so the quality is not as good as the others--post game pictures I forgot to take off high-speed burst mode so those are lower quality--sorry).  After the game, we had a time of sharing from the pastors again, and then we did our songs (the girls are getting really good and the acoustics in the alcove we were in were great).  Erin did her testimony and it was the perfect one for these pastors as she has been in many countries doing sports ministry herself.  Pray for these pastors that they were able to catch or enhance their vision of what sports ministry can accomplish.
     After we were done, it was dinner on the 1st floor again at the food court, return to the church for change of clothes and then off to the sento.  After sento, there was a short team meeting on the 2nd floor (where the main group of ladies were staying---wow is it packed!) and then off to bed.  Tomorrow we head to Kyoto for a visit to the temple and shopping, lunch with another team and then play that team.  Pray for our fellowship during that time


Pictures, Day 7
Pictures, All
Video Montage, Day 7
Testimony-Annie
Testimony-Erin
Japanese Song, Day 7 (Pastor's of Passion game--great acoustics)
American Song, Day 7