Spring Parade

The Kindergarten class had a Spring Parade yesterday. Geña and Norma (sister-in-law) dressed up our little pickup that Rebecka and Luis rode in as King and Queen of the Butterflies. There were 9 trucks and they all had Kings and Queens in them. Something very elaborate and it makes me wonder what the kids will expect in elementary school and beyond??

Rebecka really enjoyed herself throwing kisses and candy to the onlookers. At the end of the parade, everyone met at the center of town to watch the presentations of the Kings and Queens.

Mazatlan with the Reeh's

We had a great time with our friends Roger and Hazel once again. This time we went to visit them in Mazatlan before they take off to Washington next week. It was a good time to relax and rest, however I still feel a little tired. We walked the beach on Monday night and it was a lot of fun. Rebecka had the time of her life. She was able to swim in the pool during the day and in the evening she ran along the beach splashing in the waves and picking up seashells as she went. Thank you Roger and Hazel for great company and a great couple of nights.

STM Update

Last week we had Cy-Fair Christian Church here to work specifically with our youth and they did a great job! There were 16 youth and 6 adults. In the mornings, they worked on the new church building FINISHING the sanctuary floor/basketball court.

On Sunday evening there were "get-to-know-you" games and we split them up into four different groups; americans and mexicans mixed. That was there group for the whole week so the next night, Monday, we did team building games which included a popular life-size Sudoku game drawn out on the speed soccer court in Arrayanes. Each team had to work together to finish the puzzle and their finish time would determine what time they would start their "Race" the next day. It was popular because many of the students were frustrated because they couldn't figure out the puzzle or couldn't figure out how to work as a team. The two teams that finished quickly worked together as a team. It was definately a challenge becuase it's more of an individual game, but they figured out how to work together. This was a huge growing experience for the americans. It was all new to the mexicans.

The next night, they had a race; much like the Amazing Race. Their goal was to make tortillas together as a team. Each team was divided into four groups at one point and they had to communicate amongst themselves to figure out what the half-spanish/half-english notes said. It was a lot of fun to watch and many of them said they really enjoyed it. This point was to continue to work as a team, brake the language barriers of communication and have first hand experience at what a body looks like as it functions. As they divided themselves up into four groups, they had to decide amongst themselves who would get water, who would get the firewood, who would get the gridle, and who would get the flour. Once each group finished their task, they were to take their item to the pastor's house where they were to make tortillas together. It was interesting. It was funny. It was a very good learning experience.

We as a body need to work together in unity. When the body of Christ is not unified, it's deformed, it's not working properly. This was very evident throughout the week and both americans and mexicans said they learned that it's important to be unified and work together as a team. All the teams finished by eating the tortillas they had made in a relay race.

Wednesday was a free hang-out day where the girls made some picture frames and the guys had a mini-speed soccer tournament. Then the final night, the big night, Thursday night was "Oscar Night." We handed out awards to the students who shined this last year. It was definatley hard to choose who would get what, but as a staff we came up with who we though was most deserving in Hospitality, Most-Improved Band Member, Spirit, Braveheart, and Servant.

The Most-Improved Band Member went to two students because of their improvement in the band. They have grown a lot in the past year.

Jose Luis

Jose Angel

The Spirit Award went Claudia for having a smile on her face all the time. She never complains and is always committed to what's going on.

The Braveheart Award went to Sandra becuase she has taken the biggest steps in her Christian walk this past year. Mostly, these past couple of months she has been willing to do whatever for God and is allowing Him to mold her.

The Servant Award went to Martin becuase of his great leadership. Last year at this time he was in Oaxaca at a Bible School and he came back CHANGED. He has shown so much growth in his leadership ability and it seems that whatever Martin sets out to do, he succeeds. He has definately become an extraordinary preacher as well.

The Cy-Fair youth have impacted our youth in a big way. The relationships they have developed are relationships that I know the students will never forget and they cannot wait until they come back again next year.

Short-Term Missions

We have a short-term missions team here from Texas right now. They always do such a good job a focusing on a specific age group and making relationships with them. They are working with the youth this week and their pastor and myself are working side-by-side for a successful week. Last night we had a number of ice-breaker games and then we split up into small groups. Each group (4) has an interpreter. It was a good time and tonight we have more team-building games for the four groups. I forgot our camera again, so no pictures of last night (unless I can get some from another staff person). Thank you for your prayers for this week, it's always interesting to see the relationships built durning times like this and the lives that are impacted, Mexicans and Americans.

High School

I went to a town meeting last week at the Junior High that was to be about a new High School they want to put here in Cofradia. High School here in Mexico is a prep school and it's our equivilant to grades 10-12. They will start this August with 10th grade, then the next year they will continue on to graduate as the "first generation." No buildings, they will use the Junior High until the government supplies enough for a building. However, they are talking about a dormitory for the students that would come from different towns to stay in. There are 9 towns close to Cofradia here that would be included as the Cofradia High School.

This is really exciting to me because many students here don't have the opportunity to continue their education because of their lack of resources. With the High School here in town, they will be saving lots of money in travel expenses. Inscription for the whole year will cost a wopping $14!! Books will cost $40. That's way less than half of what they're paying in other towns. This is a huge blessing for the town.

VIDA Abundante (Abundant LIFE)

Last night’s meeting with the youth was a lot of fun. They arrived at 5:30 and are really getting into playing catch with an American Football. I wasn’t playing with them this week because of a sore back, but they developed their own fun game of “keep-away.” It was neat to see all the girls getting involved too. At around 6pm, we had everyone come in and we started the evening’s message. We’re looking at the book, Chazown. It has to do with having vision in your life, or purpose. We focused on the beginning of the first chapter as a review because they’ve heard some of it already. It starts out talking about when we are in our last chapter of life, what will we be doing on our death bed? What will we be thinking about? Will we have no regrets? Some regrets? Or will we be full of regrets? We focused on the verse of Matthew 9:36 where Jesus had a compassion on the people because they were lost and “like sheep without a shepherd.” When we don’t have vision, or a sense of purpose, in our life, we are just like lost sheep without a shepherd. We just “exist” and get from one day to the next. Some of us may not even realize we’re lost.

We finished the evening with a video from Alex Campos. It’s a testimony of a young boy attending a military camp who makes some really good friends. One day while listening to a Veteran of War talk about the opportunity of having a Heavenly Father, he’s reminded of his own father who was very mean, disinterested in his life, and in a fight, killed his mom in front of him. So, he hated his father, “the last thing I want is another father!” Just about everyone received the invitation of having Jesus enter their lives except him. After they graduated, his friends went one direction and he another and felt abandoned once again. He hit rock bottom, looking for freedom and happiness. One day he received a note in the mail calling him to the front lines of the war. As he went met up with the soldiers, there were his two friends that he had made, it was a really special time for him. They shared with him about Jesus, but he never wanted anything to do with him. One day, out on the battle field, one of his friends stepped in front of him guarding his back from enemy fire and took a bullet in the chest, saving his life. He then realized what they always had talked about—the love of Jesus. Just like his friend taking the bullet in his place, Jesus died in our place. He then accepted Christ as his personal savior and was transformed. In the end, he went back to his invalid father and forgave him.

It was an amazing 18 minutes. Silence in the room. And I know that many of these students could relate to the guy in the video and his relationship with his father. We had a very good discussion in the end and had a time of separate guy’s prayer and girl's prayer. It was a great evening!

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY 2007

The Silbermans
Home: 9403 Tracyton Blvd.. NW *Bremerton, WA 98311 * USA * 360-692-2054
Field: APDO #19 * Tuxpan, NAY 63201 * MEXICO * 011-52-319-232-5172
Support: Steven & Efigenia Silberman * Alternative Missions * PO Box 5835 * Goodyear, AZ 85338 * USA

¡SALUDOS!
Greetings everyone! We pray that this letter finds you in good health and passionate about Jesus! Geña and I were just talking and it seems like just yesterday that we wrote you last. However, it was in November that we sent out our last newsletter, we are long overdue to tell you what God is doing here.

FAMILY NEWS
We are all doing generally well. We’ve had a few colds come through, but we’ve been able to manage. Our trip to Arizona to renew immigration papers was a lot of fun for all of us because my parents drove down from Seattle to Tucson to spend a couple weeks with us. My niece, Trisha also flew in for a week and we had an early family Christmas. Rebecka and Emma really enjoyed themselves with their grandparents and cousin. Then, during the actual day of Christmas we had another treat as our friends Roger and Hazel Reeh came to spend a couple days with us. What a blessing!

MINISTRY
In December, five teams with five guys on each team played against each other for five days. Our first organized sports tournament was a great success in bringing the two towns of Cofradía and Arrayanes together. Each team had members from both towns and many of them made new friends and others strengthened old acquaintances, it was a lot of fun to watch and be a part of.

The Speed-Soccer Tournament started on Tuesday, the day after Christmas and each team played two games a day. Saturday was the Championship game, we had barbecued hot dogs and went inside the church for the service. One of the students has started a Rap Music band called “Fishers of Youth.” They started the service with a couple of songs and they did pretty good. We then had a time of worship and we talked about being part of the “winning team”--God’s team. Many students came forward for prayer, either to receive Christ into their hearts for the first time, to renew their commitments to Him, or for a refreshing of the Spirit of God in their life. In the end we handed out the awards; certificates for the three best goalies and the three best scorers, we gave a brand new soccer ball to the one who scored the most, and we gave out trophies to each member of the winning team. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and not only were the students able to have fun and make new friends, but there were young people involved who had never been to church before that the leaders got to meet. This has created an open door for further witnessing! Great stuff!

In January, I was flown up to Houston, Texas to be the “special guest” at an indoor youth retreat called Disciple-Now or D-NOW. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. One of the purposes for going was to see if we could do something similar in Cofradía. It may not be exactly the same because of the culture, but it would be nice to implement the ideas developing a greater sense of community within the group.


In February, the same pastors I went to visit in Houston came down to speak at our second annual Student Leadership conference. It was a great time of getting the students to open up and think about their faith. The theme was “Authority.” What is it? What does it look like? It was interesting to see the students’ opinions of authority being a bad thing, but when you realize that we live under God’s authority, that means he loves us, he protects us, and he is always taking care of us. Many were able to see the difference and have a new viewpoint of Authority.

VIDA Abundante (Abundant Life) This Friday night youth meeting has been going very well. It meets in our home and we try to make it a place where everyone is comfortable to be able to share what’s on their heart. We worship, give testimonies, study the Bible, do activities, and have a time of prayer in the end.

Noche de VIDA (LIFE Night) This is our once a month youth event. This event is becoming more of a facilitating role for me rather than leading everything. It’s exciting to see the growth of the youth in their leadership of worship and preaching. We are also getting the adult sponsors more involved in the planning. This is a lot of fun for me because I get to see other people having an opportunity to do what I love doing and it’s great to see their growth.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY.

May the Lord bless you all,

Steve, Geña, Rebecka and Emma Silberman
Missionaries to Mexico
Alternative Missions

SUPPORT ADDRESS
Thank you for continuing to be part of our team and supporting our ministry. If you haven’t yet joined our team of supporters, please consider joining.

· Send to:
Alternative MissionsPO Box 5835Goodyear, AZ 85338
· Checks made out to ALTERNATIVE MISSIONS
· Send a note on a separate piece of paper indicating that it is for Cofradía Staff Members: Steve and Efigenia Silberman.
· You can also donate online. There is a link to the right of this page that says, "Donate to the Silbermans online."
· Thanks again for being part of our team!

EMAIL
steve@alternativemissions.com
JOURNAL
http://thesilbermans.blogspot.com/
WEBSITE
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†MANNA†
“It’s truth that sets you free, not the knowledge of error.”
Neil Anderson

Written: February 21, 2007

Student Leadership Conference

The Student Leadership Conference was GREAT! We started on Thursday night with an introduction meeting over really good tamales. We had 21 youth and 9 adults in our house! A lot more came than we were expecting, but it was a really good time. Pastors Brad and Dave talked about “Authority.” They did a great job of getting the students involved and bringing to light the way the world views authority and contrasting it with God’s authority. They asked the question “Why?” Why do we have authority? And the bottom line is LOVE! We have rules and guidelines we set for our children to live under because we love them. The same way with God, he has given us some guidelines to live by to keep us on the right path.

The next night they elaborated a little more on the whole idea of God’s authority and what that looks like to us, for us and through us. Saturday morning they had a time with the leaders of the church, and in the evening we had a worship experience Monk style. Something called Lectio Divina. This is a reading of the scriptures over and over, meditating on the words or phrases that jump out at you, asking God questions about those words and listening for His input in our life. It was a really neat time that some of the students were able to capture and learn from. The verse that was used was Zephaniah 3:17.

What a great time of speaking into the lives of students and it has given us more open doors to follow up and help the students in their walk with God.

Next Weekend...

We look forward to this weekend having Brad Pembleton and Dave Chavez from Houston to lead us in a Student Leadership Conference. This is the second year we’ve done it and it’s been a great motivator for the youth. The meetings will be Thursday and Friday nights, most of the day Saturday and Brad will preach on Sunday. Please pray for openness and attentiveness with the youth. I’m concerned that many of them don’t really have a “relationship” with Christ. They say they’re Christians, and have accepted Christ into their hearts, but I think back to the last two weeks of our youth home group studies where we’ve talked about the cost of following Christ in Luke 9:57-62 and how they've listened and/or responded (or the lack thereof). Someone once said salvation is free, discipleship is costly. Pray that the youth would cross the line into being a disciple of Christ instead of being saved “by the skin of their teeth” (if that’s possible??). Thank you Lord for your GRACE and MERCY! It's refreshing to know that God looks at our hearts.

Weekend in Review

We’ve had a few late nights this week. Starting with Thursday Night/Friday morning, we gathered about 10 of the youth to serenade one of the youth girls just after mid-night. The next evening after the youth home group, we went to her birthday party and we got to bed a little earlier, but still late. Then on Saturday there were over 20 of us who went to La Fuente in Tepic to a concert. It was really neat at the end when a couple of our youth went forward; one especially whose name is Beto. I went to pray with him and he said it was the first time he has taken a step towards Christ. He has had some identity problems due to being wounded emotionally and I was proud of him for going forward to pray. We got home around 12:30am. I was pretty tired for the Sunday services; Sunday is always a long day for me doing two worship services. Needless to say, I crashed on Sunday night and finally, unwillingly got up this morning around 7:30.

Noche de VIDA (LIFE Night)

I haven't posted about our Saturday night meeting because I was waiting for some pictures. Here's the report...

Our once-a-month youth event was a lot of fun on Saturday night. We had over 40 students who were there and stayed. Amber put together a video of the Soccer Tournament we had during Christmas time (they always love to see themselves on the big screen); The youth band led worship and did a great job, they even did some new songs that are really hard to do! I was really proud of them. We also had a game called “¿Quién Quiere Quinientos?” or “Who wants five hundred?” Pesos that is. It’s a run-off of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” We had questions about the Bible and ONE participant. As they answered questions, the peso value doubled. We started with one peso and the poor guy that played only got to question #3 and lost everything. He normally doesn’t go to church, but everyone who wanted to play put their name in a hat and Rebecka pulled the name out to see who would play. We gave him a prize for participating though. One of the Americans who is on a construction team here right now brought down a bunch of prizes so we gave those away as well. It was a lot of fun and we’ll probably continue to do that game in the future. The money they win will go to a savings account called LIFE Investment where the youth can individually save up for retreats, camps, and other youth functions. We had another one of our youth, Martin, preach for us. It was the first time we’ve had one of our own youth preach at a LIFE Night. He did a really good job and the youth seemed to pay attention to his message of ”Making Decisions.” During our prayer time, many students came forward with petitions like; “I want Christ to live in me” or “I would like it if God took away my desire to drink (alcohol)”. We even had some students praying for one-another. It was a great evening.

To finish off the night, Ruben and Martin’s Rap band called Fishers of Youth did a couple of songs. It’s hard to understand what they’re saying, but it’s very encouraging to see them stepping out and reaching youth for Jesus. Half of the band is made up of students who have just been going to church for a short time…since our game THE CHALLENGE, the Soccer Tournament, and Martin’s return from Bible school in Oaxaca. Great things are happening and the youth did a great job on Saturday.

VIDA Abundante (Abundant LIFE)

Our Friday night youth home group meeting went pretty well. We had around 12 students and we’re gearing up to a Student Leadership conference in a couple of weeks with the youth pastors from Houston. I’ve been focusing on purpose, leadership, and dedication to serving Christ. The study was from Luke 9:57-62 on Friday when Jesus had a conversation with three different men about following him. Three important things that Jesus mentioned were; Counting the Cost of following Christ (v.58), making Christ the First Priority in life (v.60), and Not Looking Back (v.62). We had a good time talking about what good leaders know how to do…FOLLOW. In this case, FOLLOW CHRIST. We had fun with the game “Follow the Leader” too.

FORD

We’ve finally got our little Ford pick-up legalized, licensed and we had a little body work done on it. It had some rust on the floorboard (you could see the ground through it), so a friend of ours welded in some sheet metal and we also had the seat re-upholstered. Everything turned out great and we’re excited about having a “Cofradía” truck. We have been using it a lot to run personal errands and ministry events when the base vehicles are not available. It’s perfect!

Re-uphulstered seat and newly welded floorboard

Nayarit license plate...yeah!!

Today's pics

Rebecka's serious look

Huh?

Houston, Texas

I am in Houston, Texas right now with a couple of very good friends from Cy-Fair Christian Church. Cy-Fair has gone down to Cofradia taking youth teams, men's teams, and just a couple of weeks ago they sent a women's team. Student Pastors Brad and Dave have organized an indoor youth retreat called D-NOW (Disciple-Now) and invited me up for the weekend to be the "special guest."

This is the first time I've been to Texas and I really like it here. The people I've met are really friendly. The church is a wonderful church, so if you're ever in the Houston area, I HIGHLY recommend visiting!

There were 85 students involved in D-Now this weekend, split up into 10 different small groups where they talked about sharing your faith as you live your life. Each group stayed at a host home where they spent the whole weekend until Sunday morning service. Brad and Dave and I went around visiting the small groups in their homes on Friday night and Saturday morning as they were working through the material they had with their speakers and sponsors. Saturday night everyone went to a concert at the church with The Afters. That evening they returned to their host homes and had communion. Sunday morning we had youth church where I led worship and shared a little about Cofradia and how the students are doing down there.

It's been a lot of fun! I fly back to Mexico tomorrow morning and I should be in Cofradia by tomorrow night.

Testimonies (Marcelina, Martin, Ruben)

In church on Sunday, we have a time when people come forward to give a testimony. There is a couple from the village of Santa Fe, Luis and Mari, who started to go to the village of San Diego about a month ago to visit and preach the Gospel. For a long time, I went there every week to do Bible studies and visit the bretheren there. On Christmas day when our friends Roger and Hazel Reeh were with us, we went to visit Marcelina.
Marcelina is in her 70s, she doesn't exaclty know how old she is. She is part Cora Indian and her family doesn't visit her that often. She lives in a stick house with no bathroom, she can't walk because of arthritic pain in her knees, she can't see because of a bad case of cateracs, and it hurts her to move her arms around. One thing she does have going for her is that she loves Jesus. When we went to do Bible studies, near the end we would do them in her house because she couldn't go anywhere. Before doing them in her house, we would go to visit her and read the Bible to her. Her favorite book is Phillippians.

Luis and Mari went to visit her last week and she had a testimony of what God has done for her lately....

"I started to pray that God would send the Christian brothers here again to visit me. Two weeks later Esteban (Steve) came to visit me with some of his friends, and now you're here (speaking to Luis). When Esteban was here, they prayed for me and you know what? I can stand up and it doesn't hurt my legs! I can lay down and move my arms all around and it doesn't hurt! I can sit at my bed, look out the door and see who's walking by and recognize who it is!"

God is good. He cares for our every need and he cares for the little old ladies who are hurting in remote areas of the world! Thank you for your prayers!

Two more testimonies are from a couple of students in Arrayanes. I asked them to write out a testimony of how God is using them to share their faith with others...

Ruben's Testimony...

"In my life, I have experienced problems just like any other teenager, but with the Lord’s help, I have been able to continue in my Christian walk.

In the journey of my life, I have experienced wonderful things. I started playing in a worship band, but as I was playing I noticed that worship music didn’t attract the youth of the world. So then, when my brother Martin came back from Bible school in Oaxaca, he talked to me about putting together a Rap music band. We talked to the missionaries about it and they said to go ahead with it.

I’m really excited about this. We started with using the church’s instruments, but we felt like we needed more youth to be involved. So we asked God to provide youth that wouldn’t be embarrassed to play in front of people and little by little, the youth started to show up. Some are just beginning to learn about the Lord and others have known God’s Word for a while.

Before starting everything, we thought of a name for our band and we decided on “Fishers of Youth.” We decided on that name because it's about youth and they can know what a good life is with the Lord.

This is what we’re doing for humanity because Christ loves us and he is Real. We continue to praise God in the good times and the hard times. The guys in our band and their instruments are: Martin-bass; Ruben-voice; Jesus-drums; Gregorio-keyboard; Fredi-voice; and Lorenzo-voice.

By the way, we need instruments for our band.

Ruben Dario Garzon Solis"

Martin's Testimony...

"Hello, my name is Martin; I am about to tell you what God is doing in my life.

First of all, God has made me a man of faith. Also, God has been working in my life as I go to Mojocuautla (an Indian Village) where we are teaching Bible stories. Through these Bible stories, the people are learning about the ministry of Christ here on earth.

Another way in which God is working in my life is to continue with the vision that He gave me. God has a special plan for my life. We’re also forming a Rap band with 6 of our friends. Through this Rap band, some youth are making decisions to follow Christ. Other things we do to reach out to them are climbing mountains--that aren’t too high, going fishing, we go camping down at the river, and we go hunting. Everything I do, I do it with God’s purpose and through these activities, the youth who have recently given their life to Christ can have better fellowship with one another. So then, I will give you a testimony of what happened to six of us when we went hunting.

We went to the woods, while we were there, we waited for nightfall. Before we did anything, we prayed for God’s protection and provision over our lives. We didn’t have any firearms, the only thing we used were dogs. Suddenly, we found an armadillo and the dogs were able to find where he went into his hole. So there we were, digging and digging. The ground was really hard so we decided on a plan—to have one of us put his hand in the hole where the armadillo was. That is what we did, because we couldn’t get the armadillo out. So, one of us put his hand in the hole until he felt the armadillo. He was able to grab the armadillo’s head, but he also felt something farther inside the whole and said, “there must be four armadillos down here!” Someone else said, “well, all we need is two more because there’s six of us!” But the animal we thought was the armadillo inside the hole started to make a sound as if he were mad, we know the sound of an armadillo…buf, buf, buf. Some said it was the armadillo and that he was mad, one of us said, “that doesn’t sound like an armadillo, it sounds like a snake!”

We continued confident there was no problems and we put our hands in to get the armadillo and suddenly, just as one of us thought, a snake came out of the hole! We were all startled! We were able to kill the snake that spooked us and it measured about 6 foot in length and about 3 inches in diameter! God was watching over us!

This is all the testimony that I wanted to share with you about what God is doing in my life.

Thank you and may God bless you.

Your friend,
J. Martin Garzón Solís"

Latest pics

Just though I'd put up a few pictures so you don't forget what our kids look like:)


Lately, Emma has been tilting her head and smiling. I don't know if this means anything, but it sure is cute! Just a few minutes ago we were playing "I see you, I don't see you" behind a cereal box.

Luis (Rebecka's cousin) came over to play for a little while. Rebecka just took a shower and still has her towel hanging over her head. It's something she likes to do and pretend it's princess hair.

And no, we didn't forget to put a tree up this year. My Aunt Margie gave us her old Christmas tree and it couldn't be better suited for our house. It's tall and skinny. Our ceiling is high so that works well, and the corner it's in is a busy corner, so the skinniness is great! Thanks, Margie!

Hello

I haven't had much time nor much to say lately. It's been nice to see that some of the guys from the soccer tournament are still coming to church. Please continue to pray for some of the youth who have been around a while. A few have been making bad choices lately.

The family is doing well. Emma still has a little bit of a cold, but is still doing very well. Rebecka started her first day back to school today after the Christmas break. She's really excited about that!

Youth Speed Soccer Tournament

Well, the soccer tournament is over and with all the activities of this past weekend; I haven’t had a chance to give you an update.

5 Teams with 5 guys on each team played against each other for 5 days. Our first organized sports tournament was a great success in bringing the two towns of Cofradía and Arrayanes together and opening doors for ministry. Each team had members from both towns and many of them made new friends and strengthened old acquaintances. It was a lot of fun to watch and be a part of.

We started on Tuesday, the day after Christmas and each team played two games a day. Out of the 5 teams, three played on Saturday for the Championship. There was one semi-final game (#2 vs. #3) and the winner played the #1 team in the Championship game. It was exciting! The semi-final game was decided by one goal, while the Championship game went into overtime and was decided by the first goal to be made. The #1 team stayed on top as they were in the whole tournament and won the Championship game.

After the Championship game, we had barbecued hot dogs and went inside the church for the service. One of the students has started a Rap Music band called “Fishers of Men.” They started the service with a couple of songs and they did pretty good. We then had a time of worship and we talked about being part of the “winning team”--God’s team. Many students came forward for prayer, either to receive Christ into their hearts for the first time, to renew their commitments to Him, or for a refreshing of the Spirit of God in their life. In the end we handed out the awards; certificates for the three best goalies and the three best scorers, we gave a brand new soccer ball to the one who scored the most, and we gave out trophies to each member of the winning team. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and not only were the students able to have fun and make new friends, but there were young people involved that the leaders got to meet who had never been to church before. This has created an open door for further witnessing! Great stuff!

Semi-Final Game (Los Cuau[green] vs. Arsenal[white])

Championship Game (Warriors[black] vs. Arsenal [White])

Ricardo Hernandez scored 26 goals and was awarded a new soccer ball

Los Guerreros (the Warriors) are the Champions! (Martin, Jesus, Fredy, Jose, Salvador[not pictured])

Soccer Tournament

Here are some photos of the tournament yesterday...