Soccer Coach

The Saturday before last, I chatted with my friend Emily on MSN and the next thing I knew, two days later, I was in Medicine Hat with her and Cindy and Heather and some other people running some Christian soccer camps. Two English guys were in charge and graciously showed us how to do simple things like set up the nets. I must explain that all my soccer experience comes from playing intramurals in the Frontier school gym where the only rule seemed to be don't use your hands. As I left home, my brother admonished me tongue in cheek to teach the kids to bend it like Beckham. Alas, it is a sad feeling when eight year old children can outmanuever you.

We also ran camps in Calgary. At one camp, a bunch of Vietnamese kids came and I therefore felt quite at home. One little boy looked just like one of my former students - even how he hiked his pants up a little too high. He made me nostalgic for Taiwan and my blue and white classroom. I did get to lead the game "Simon Says", which I do quite well having much practice utilizing it in the classroom. Unfortunately, Vietnam is the one southeast Asian country where I neglected to learn any of the language except for the word for ice cream which apparently I don't know how to pronounce correctly because the kids had no idea what I was saying.

Between camps, everyone else went to play soccer and handout flyers to the international student families at the University of Calgary. I opted out and got a ride to meet a boy named Sebastian Ray whom I must admit I loved at first sight. Don't worry - he's a beautiful baby, the first child of my cousin Shandi and Mike. I spent the afternoon holding him as much as I could and enjoying just being with Shandi. He was just over a week old when I was there and spent most of his time sleeping like an angel. It's funny how quickly God fills your heart with love when you hold your new little cousin for the first time. Shandi's half-sister was gracious enough to let me hog him most of the day since I told her she could hold him tomorrow. It was strange and exciting to see my cousin all maternal. Not too long ago, we were girls playing Barbies and dress up and nearly crashing three wheelers. I guess we're grown up now.

The last camp I helped with in Calgary was a multicultural affair. We had your average Caucasians of course, but they were peppered with children from a variety of different ethnicities - Kurds, Romanians, Chinese, Irani. It was beautiful to see them running around and playing together. (There were some kicking and punching at times however.) Muslim moms in their coverings stood at the sidelines. Other parents would come by on bicycles. I was in charge of a group of eight kids - which sometimes grew when little Ameer or another little Ameer would decide to leave his mother's side and play with the big kids. My team never quite got the knack of playing as a team. Good thing Hong Kong-born Eric with his purple sunglasses is a little soccer phenom. We would have had no goals otherwise.

As a part of the soccer camps, we would sit the kids down and one of the coaches from England would share a Christian message and then give the kids an opportunity to respond or to play soccer. Tons of kids would stay and want to hear more about Jesus. The Muslim parents and even the Buddhist parents stayed to listen. Some of the Muslims even pulled out video recorders and taped the whole talk. Several parents took some gospel literature home. It was pretty cool.

The camps are still going on, but I caught a ride back to the Toque - Poppa's name for Medicine Hat - to spend time with my grandparents, aunt and uncle (who works all the time so I barely see him). Nana and Poppa are my mom's parents. We've made popcorn balls, played crib, and shot the breeze. My aunt and I went shopping like we always do. It felt so good being in Medicine Hat, doing the normal things that I do while I'm there. At least something hasn't changed . . . too much.