Redemption Met Me on a Soccer Field

SATURATED FREEDOM

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UNPRECEDENTED EUPHORIA 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RESURRECTING THE FORGOTTEN

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was standing in the middle of a soccer field that lies in the middle of an itty bitty community called San Box. On my right, the jungle of Costa Roca climbed the hills and engulfed the neighborhood of rustic houses across the street. On my left, the mountains of Panama were painted with clouds and whispered sweet “hellos“ from the distance. All around me were the voices of local high schoolers and my twenty-five squad mates shouting, “Aquí! Aquí!”

Rain hosed the sweat from my body every so often. The shirt that I had been wearing for the last four days, because it was the only ‘clean’ one I had left, loosely stuck to my skin as my feet hit the ground with the tennis shoes that are now permanently decorated with concrete stains. My lungs were full. Fuller than they had been for a long while. 

Soccer consumed twelve years of my life until I dropped the sport completely at the end of my sophomore year of high school. I was exhausted and lacked every desire to be on the field.

But redemption found me on that field Thursday. 

A skill that I spent over half of my life retaining is now a skill that the Lord has claimed to use to invite people to His table. I think it’s funny how it’s part of God‘s character to want to use the things we left in the grave to command heaven to earth. He looked at us, who are mere masses of mortalities, a compound of sin and dust, and breathed new life all over! Death is now a garden crowned with glory because Jesus resurrected from the grave! 
The fellowship on that field consumed all language barriers that day. Communion was abounding! Grace was harboring! Compassion was flourishing! I saw the hopeful bud of friendship.

And it’s all just the start. 

We will be back on that soccer field Tuesday, so you can be praying that God helps my squad further the relationships we already made, draws new people and other locals to the field, and breaks down any language barriers that would keep us from loving them exactly where they are at:)