Week 2 Crossfield/Carstairs

Met up with my team in Carstairs. Carstairs is about 10-15 minutes from Crossfield and is where my head coach and my billets lived. (the actual camp is at crossfield) Lane and I were pretty disappointed to learn that we would be separated for the week and that we would be staying at different houses. The billets who were supposed to house us dropped out last minute and we stayed at different areas. I stayed with the church coordinator Louie and his family. We had volunteer orientation in Louie's basement where we met most of the volunteers. Louie had 2 daughters around my age who were both volunteering for soccer camp. The other volunteers were all about the same age as well, so we were relieved to have some more mature volunteers. It was also nice to have more volunteers, we have around 7-8 this camp. After orientation I got a tour of the house and decided to go bed early instead of watching a movie.


Day 1

Woke up this morning at 6ish and killed time until we had to head out. I got to know Louie a bit better during the 15 minute drive to the field. Louie's in his mid to late 40s and says he's been a soccer coach for decades. He still plays in a soccer league and is able to keep up with guys in their 30s he says. Louie is an engineer for air canada and fixes airplanes in Calgary, he also taxis them around the airport. He also tells me that if he has spare time in his shift, he's allowed to fly the flight simulator which is an exact replica of the actual cockpit. I asked him if he could technically fly a real plane if he had to. He said yes he'd probably do quite well, mind you he said he might wet his pants doing so though.

Camp went smoothly, having a lot of volunteers made a huge difference. There were only about 36 kids compared to 55 at cochrane, so definitely less chaotic. The only complaint I have is that my small group gets distracted really easily and there 3 kids who are quite disruptive. I had a few kids who weren't church kids so it's going to be interesting to see how they respond to coach's corner throughout the week. It was a super hot day so we had water guns to spray the kids and cool them off, which worked really well actually. After the first day of camp, none of the coaches had any major concerns except for the heat. Thank goodness we have 2 tents and water guns.

After camp Louie asked if me and the other coaches would be interested in an adult drop in soccer game in Didsbury (15 minutes from Carstairs) . After a bit of debate we said we would go. Louie and I left after a quick dinner and we drove to the field. My team texted me saying they would arrive together but they would be quite late. I really didn't want to play and to make matters worse my team wouldn't even be there until later. Everyone there was pretty big, skill level was decently high as well. (There were a few club players) I was really nervous to start and had some terrible touches, but after a while it got better. During half, Kaitlyn and Lane arrived and they were both on my team, with those 2 feeding me and Louie we dominated the rest of the game.


Day 2


Camp was good I still have a lot of trouble with my small group. The big 3 are still talking quite a bit and I'm finding it hard to squeeze an meaningful contribution from any of them.


After camp we went to Kaitlyn's house for supper and some games. We got a call from Bev and that she's been bedridden after coming home from the hospital. She's on a liquid diet which sucks. She has to wait until the end of July for a CAT scan. However in the midst of all this God continues to work. Bev told the doctor that hopefully God would heal her so that the scan wouldn't be necessary. The doctor asked her if she really believed that and Bev said yes. Bev told the doctor how she was miraculously cure of her epilepsy in her youth. The doctor didn't seem all that shocked and said that he's seen miracles before too. After the doctor left the room, the patient sharing the room with Bev came up to her and asked if God really did heal her. Bev said yes and had the opportunity to share a bit about God. She left the patient her number and now they will meet for coffee the next time Bev is in Red Deer. Our team was not the least bit surprised to hear that story, that was so Bev. Such a strong woman of God, and to put so much faith in God for her healing and to use an opportunity that God had given to her to evangelize even amidst her sickness. I think she inspires every single AIA coach with her faith, and for myself I definitely look up to her, and strive to be like her in my walk with God.



Afterwards we did devotions and talked about how frusturating small groups were. Kaitlyn told us to pray for our small group members individually. The idea of it was so obvious and so duhhh. Yet it never occurred to me to do so. Going to give it a try before bed tonight.


Day 3


Some terrible news, a kid we had yesterday was seriously injured. His wrist was struck by a ball shot from a volunteer. He has a broken wrist and a dislocated elbow. Today he didn't come to camp, and the coordinator gave everyone a serious lecture about shooting the balls. There really shouldn't be any reason that the volunteers or coaches should be shooting the ball full power at the net when there are kids there. It really should be common sense but over the past few days we have had an enormous amount of injuries due to hard shots. (quite a few from the volunteers) It's just unfortunate that something like that has to happen to a kid. Especially since the injury was from a volunteer and from something that shouldn't have happened anyway. It's just bad for everyone when these things happen, bad for the church, the family, and AIA.





On a brighter note, God answered my prayers today because my small groups went a lot better. The chatter was greaaaaatly reduced. I had 3 kids in my group come to Christ today, 2 of which were the very disruptive ones. It was a pretty amazing experience for me. As cliche as this sounds, I put God in a box a lot of the times. I find myself assuming in who God will work in and how he will work. But you learn to expect the unexpected with God because his way of working is beyond what we can comprehend. In my small group I also have an older kid named Greg, who was the most skilled soccer player in camp. He was also very mature for his age, and had great leadership quality. I asked him if he wanted to make the decision to follow Jesus, but he told me he had already done it last year. He listened in as I prayed with the 3 campers.


Day 4


God continues to answer my prayer request in small groups. I've prayed for a shy quiet girl in my small group called Christiana to open up to me. She hasn't spoken a single word in our small group, and has refused to share anything at all every time I ask her to. Today we were learning how to trust Jesus and I asked if any of them have ever experienced difficult times or had a time of weakness. Christiana raised up her hand and I was really excited to call on her. However, when I asked her to share, she froze up and remained silent. I told her she could tell me the story during lunch time. When lunch time came, she told me that she would tell me at the end of the day. At the end of the day, i forgot. fail..


Day 5


Before small groups today I asked Christiana if she wanted to share her story, but she didn't want other members to listen in. So I asked her to tell me at lunch, again. During small group I handed out the U-talk forms our and had them fill out the backside. When I took the forms in I noticed Greg ticked off the "I've decided to follow Jesus Christ for the first time this week". This came as a surprise to me as he told me yesterday that he had already done it before. I didn't feel it necessary to ask him about it. Whether it's his first time committing or a re-commitment I just think it's important that he made that decision himself and that he understands what it means to commit himself to Jesus. What do you guys think? I asked him who he prayed with and he said he prayed on his own, and I realized that he prayed the same prayer I prayed yesterday in small group.


I spent my whole lunch with Christiana so she could tell me her story. She finally did and it was something about being locked in her grandma's bathroom or something like that. I knew to her that this story was probably a big deal, and even just sharing it with me was a huge step for her. I was just glad that she had finally decided to talk and share something meaningful about herself, and for that I was very grateful. She opened up to me a bit more during lunch, and we had conversations about snacks and birthdays, things like that. I was a bit disappointed that she decided to open up to me on the last day of camp, and wish she would have done so a few days earlier. For a brief moment I thought to God, "if you had only done this a few days earlier, maybe I would have been able to connect with her better and help her accept Jesus." How was I supposed to reach her with the gospel on the last day of camp. But I was reminded of the team devotion I had earlier this week. That everything will go according to God's will and not mine. My head coach said that she views everyone's spiritual journey as a timeline, and we all fit on different parts of these kid's timelines. Some of the kids are in that part of their spiritual journey where they are ready to accept Jesus, and it's time for us to reap what has been sown. For other kids like Christiana, we're just planting the seeds that our God has provided for us. And it may not be in our place to lead them to Christ, but to push them onto the next part of their spiritual journey and ready them for someone else to do so. This was just something I was reminded of this week. Us coaches have planted many seeds this week, but it may not be in God's plan for us to see the harvest. But we have faith that God will carry out what we have started, and in that I find great joy in what I do.