In January, Chenda and I started a team of Solomon girls. I teach English in the evenings, and I began asking my girls if they would be interests in playing soccer. Many of them said, "yes", so we have it a try. This is something that I've been praying about and envisioning for a while. God has brought this vision to reality. Right now we have about 14 girls who come to practice twice a week. We have played a couple of games, but is very difficult to find cambodian girls' teams. It is not very popular in this culture for girls to play sports. In fact, a few girls from my English class cannot play because their family won't allow them. Some cannot play because their families don't believe girls should play soccer, and some cannot play because their family doesn't want them to get darker skin from the sun. Here, everyone is trying to protect their skin from the sun and avoid getting darker. In America, everyone is soaking up the sun and trying to get darker. Anyway, I'm so excited about what God is already doing among these girls. It gives me an opportunity to pray for these girls, love on these girls, and speak truth into their lives. A few of them don't speak very good English, so this is inspiring me to learn better Khmai.
Four months ago, we had our first practice. After 5 minutes of scrimmaging, the girls were literally sitting on the ground because they were too tired. Yikes! Most of these girls have never played an organized team sport before. Today, we had practice and the girls scrimmaged for 35 minutes straight with no subs. I was so proud of them. They are learning how to run hard and not give up.
Please pray for these girls to fall in love with Jesus as they enjoy playing soccer.
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