A Night of Soccer

Remember that little guy in 5th grade who just moved here that I was hanging out with at Triple C, Alejandro? Well on Friday night, UVA played Virginia Tech in a soccer game. Alejandro wanted to come, and two of his friends too, so we all went to the game! It was a great night and the boys had so much fun! It was finally something familiar to Alejandro: soccer! He talked and

talked all night about playing soccer where he was from and how much he loves it and watching games, etc. He loved the Cavalier mascot too!

The game was great, with both teams playing in front of a record UVA crowd. UVA's goal is to get 8,000 people to come see a game and that night there were 7,906 people! The game ended in a tie, after two extra time periods. In fact the best play of the game was when the score was 1-1 and they were in the second extra time. VA Tech got a penalty kick and everyone was nervous, thinking that Tech was going to score on the penalty. But the UVA goalie (who is A-MAZING, by the way), dove for the ball and blocked it!!! The Tech players all fell on the ground in despair! And all the UVA fans were going nuts, cheering like crazy maniacs! Alejandro was totally in to it too, jumping up and down and shouting, "GO VIRGINIA!!!" in English!

After the game, the UVA players signed autographs and one of the players let Alejandro come down on the field so he could meet the players personally and get them to sign his game program. No other kids were allowed to come on the field! He thought that was the coolest thing ever and ran around shaking their hands and getting the players to sign his program! I love this picture of the UVA goalie handing the paper back to him. Just look at Alejandro's face in the picture, looking up at the goalie with a big smile.

Of course it takes 7,906 fans a long time to exit the parking lot, so there was traffic for about 25 minutes. Instead of waiting in the car, we played soccer on one of the walkways near the parking lot until the traffic subsided! Of course, to me, the best part of the night was getting to talk for 3 hours in Spanish to the boys. I still have trouble understanding what they are saying, but it's definitely getting better. By the end of the night, I understood more and more. In fact, several times Alejandro said something funny in Spanish that I totally got, and that made it even funnier because I actually understood it! I wish every night could be like that!

We're off to see the river...the most wonderful river of all!

On Friday, right after the night at Triple C with the 5th graders, we went on a field trip with the second graders to see the James River and the Appalachian Mountains! It's part of our geography unit for the kids to know important features of Virginia, so instead of just talking about it in the classroom, we decided to take the kids TO the features! They used maps of Virginia to find the James River and trace it from the Atlantic Ocean all the way past Lynchburg. They drew maps of what they saw as well!
After we left the James River, we drove up to the top of Carter Mountain apple orchard to eat lunch and show the kids the Appalachian Mountains in the distance. We could even see our school from up there! It was really cool to show them what Charlottesville looks like from a bird's eye view! After lunch, the kids each got to pick an apple from the orchard and then we took the apples back to school to eat! They were the juiciest, most delicious apples ever! In fact, one kid put his straw from his juice box right through the apple and drank the juice out of it!

Overnight at Triple C

Every year the 5th graders from my school go to Triple C Camp at the end of September and for an overnight field trip! I've never gone before, since I don't exactly teach 5th grade, but this year I decided to help chaperone and hang out with the kids. I mostly wanted to do it because it would be fun, but also because there's a little guy in 5th grade named Alejandro who just moved here and he doesn't speak any English. So I wanted to hang out with him, practice my Spanish, and give him somebody to talk to in the only language he knows.

So I left right after school to go over to the camp. I didn't spend the night but I stayed until about 11:30 to help get the kids to sleep. I'm totally going to do it again next year because there was a kickball game, a dance party, a night hike with flashlights, a bonfire for making s'mores, and a telescope! And that was just the night events! There are so many things I missed in the day! Next year I want to try to take off of school and go for the whole day to help the kids on the cat walk and eagle walk ropes courses, the climbing wall, the zip line, and all the team building activities!

The best part was definitely hanging out with Alejandro and talking to him in Spanish. I couldn't understand everything he was saying, but I was getting better by the end of 5 hours! It was awesome!

Las Palabras de "Tu Eres" (debajo)

Tu eres el amor de mi vida,
Tu eres mi esperanza,
Tu eres todo para mi...

No te cambio por oro ni plata,
No te cambio por ninguna riqueza,
Tu eres, eres mi todo Dios...

No tomaré sin Ti otro paso,
Pues no podría seguir,
No viviré otro día sin Ti,
Porque no tendré la fuerza,
Señor si Tu no estas

Eric Lopez

so what exactly is a sacrifice, anyway?

Ever since the accident 9 days ago where Collin and his mom were hit by the car, I've been thinking a lot about what happened and what significance it has. One thing that I want to start right off by saying is that this post is not about me, it's about God. It's going to seem like it's about me at first...but bear with me while I get through all the background info...

After I spent the night at the hospital with Collin that Thursday night, many people have come up to me or emailed me to tell me how awesome that sacrifice was. They tell me many kind things that I won't repeat here, while I just stare at them with the confused, "head-turned-sideways" puppy dog look. I honestly don't know what to say to them. It sure didn't feel like a sacrifice. They tell me how blessed Collin's family was by my generosity and again, I don't know what to say. I've been stuck in this quandary for 8 days now, trying to figure out how to get the focus off me and on God and why my reaction is one of such confusion. This weekend, a revelation hit me.

I think God let me in on a huge misconception in my previous thinking. Here was my confusion: SPENDING THE NIGHT IN THE HOSPITAL WITH THIS LITTLE BOY WAS NOT A SACRIFICE. The definition of sacrifice is: "to surrender or give up for the sake of something else". In order for this action to be a sacrifice, it implies that there is something else that I would rather have been doing and that I gave up such a thing to be at the hospital. But that's just not true. That night, at that moment, with that child, there is no where on Earth I would rather have been. If I had been home, I would not have been sleeping. I would have been laying in bed, wide awake, wishing I was at the hospital. See, there was nothing I gave up to be there. Staying with him all night was the only option available. It's an act of love, not sacrifice.

I think in America today, many of us have a twisted idea of sacrifice. We think of a sacrifice as "giving up chocolate for a week around Easter time" as if God really cares whether or not you eat chocolate. We think sacrifice is the hard work we put in to love, help, rescue, save, or just be there for others. But what I've been realizing is that THAT's not a sacrifice at all. That's saying, "look, God, look everybody, just look at what I gave up to help this person. look at my sacrifice!" That in turn leads to the most telling signs of the state of our hearts: "So now, God, I want this and this ... and don't forget about that sacrifice I made ..."

So then I started looking again at what happened that night at the hospital. There was no hard work. It wasn't work at all. I wasn't tired. I wasn't frustrated. I wasn't asking God to look at what I was doing for this child. Those thoughts never even crossed my mind. Instead the only thing I saw, thought, and felt was "love". Period. Nothing else. No effort, no work, no frustration. Just love.

That's when the biggest revelation of all hit me. Jesus. Maybe I've had it all wrong. We cry out to him in praise and to honor his sacrifice on the cross. But in the final moments of his life on Earth, did he feel like he was giving up something? I wonder if he felt like he was making a sacrifice when he paid for the sins of millions with his own life. Or did he feel like there was nothing else he'd rather do more for the people he so desperately loved. Maybe all this talk about his beautiful sacrifice is leaving him with the same confused puppy dog look that I know all too well. Like, sacrifice? What sacrifice? To think that he felt towards me the way I felt towards Collin and his family leaves me with my head spinning. To think that he's saying in all of this, "This was no sacrifice. There is nothing I would rather have done than to do this for you, two thousand years before you were born, because you're that important to me and I love you that much."

Even though I keep hearing that I blessed Collin's family, really I was the one who was blessed. I was the one who got to see a much clearer picture of Jesus's love that leaves me wondering how I can ever question his worth and love again.

Thank you, Jesus...not for your sacrifice, but for your love.

Camping Under the Stars

Last night Ann and Alicia came to visit and we went camping with Peter! We camped at my mom's farm down at the big pond! Baxter the basset hound came down and hung out with us all night. We cooked hot dogs and made s'mores and my roasted strawberry and graham cracker combo. Except nobody else liked my roasted strawberries. :( That's okay. I still like them. I think those strawberries were seriously the sweetest, juiciest strawberries I've ever had!

Peter made an awesome bonfire for us and Ann had fun experimenting with the combustion temperature of marshmallows. It was the true camp experience as Alicia, Ann, and Peter delighted us by singing the theme songs from 70's and 80's tv shows.

This is one of Ann's marshmallows combusting. It's the one she was proudest of.

When we finally settled in to the tent to go to sleep, we found we had lots of company. My mom's dogs, Gracie and Baxter, decided to sleep with us, and the really awesome cat named Lover Boy came in too. Gracie guarded the tent all night, Baxter stunk up the tent all night, and Lover Boy climbed on the tent all night.

Peter brought his totally cool telescope and we went out to the middle of the field to look at the stars and the moon. We could see Jupiter and its moons. We could also see so close to the moon that we could see the craters and jaggedy edge of the moon! It was awesome! Peter's going to buy a camera adapter to go with the telescope so I can take pictures of the moon! We even saw moon shadows and Peter and I both looked at each other and said, "OH...MY...GOSH!" Hahahaha (that's just for you Kathryn)!

Geography Day

This week was a crazy week at school! On Wednesday it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and on Thursday Mr. Rough (another second grade teacher) brought in a bunch of eggs to put in an incubator so the kids can watch baby chicks hatch! On Friday we had Geography Day where we did geography stuff all day long! In the morning the kids had to go on a treasure hunt around the school using a map and clues. Then they decorated cookies that were in the shape of the United States of America. They had to put on all the features of the USA that we learned about. They used big chocolate chips for the Rocky Mountains and little chocolate chips for the Appalachian Mountains. Blue Twizzlers or Air Heads work great as the major rivers! Finally in the afternoon, we put together a giant puzzle of the United States. Each kid had picked one state to research and then colored the puzzle piece of their state. We went outside on the field to put the whole thing together! The kids were wound up all day but it was so much fun!

Oh and guess what else happened on Friday! Collin came back to school!!! He stayed the whole day! You'd never know that he was just hit by a car a week ago!

The World's First Flying Boy

There's this little guy in my class named Eli and today he asked me to help him collect all the feathers we could find on the field at recess (and trust me...there was a lot of them!). We talked about why he wanted the feathers and finally decided that when we have enough, we're going to glue the feathers to him and see if he can fly! He is so excited about being the world's first flying boy. He'll be famous and have books and movies written about him! By the end of recess we had about 20 other kids who joined in our quest, all searching the field for feathers. We have a whole bag full now, but we still need a lot more. I'm sure tomorrow we'll be doing the same thing!

update

This is the little guy we're all praying for. He was much better yesterday. I stayed with him all afternoon and evening, playing games, talking, laughing. Assuming all went well over the night, he's going to go home this morning. He has not had any pain medication since 4:00 PM on Thursday because he says he has no pain at all. We don't understand how that could be possible... We think he's probably in pain, but he doesn't want to admit it because he thinks he won't be able to go home today if he says he's hurting. We've assured him that's not the case, but he's still assuring us there's no pain. He's a tough kid. He was truly protected by God because he has no major broken bones (just some small fractures on his ribs), no internal injuries, no brain damage. Basically he only has scrapes. How in the world an 8-year-old getting hit full-speed by an SUV can only have scrapes, only God can answer that...

Lots of people from Cale came to visit yesterday, teachers, parents, and kids. One person brought a UVA football that he had just gotten all of the UVA football players to sign. Collin saw it and said, "You mean the whole UVA football team knows about me??? I'm practically famous!!!"

His mom is doing better too. They won't let her move because they're afraid her liver will start bleeding again (they just got it to stop), and she has a few broken bones, but no brain damage, no other major internal injuries, no spinal injuries... It's amazing! She's going to have to stay in the hospital for several more days, but she's really doing much better. Thank you so much for praying everybody. God is so good.

New Prayer Request

Please everyone, a new need has come up! It is very urgent! A little guy from my class who I've grown really close to over the past year had a really bad accident yesterday morning. He and his mom were trying to walk across the street on a major road at 10:30 AM and an SUV going full speed hit them. They're at UVA hospital and the 8-year-old child is very stable, not nearly close to 100% but he's very stable. His mom needs a lot of prayers though! She's in much worse shape. I spent all evening and night at the hospital with them last night and I'm heading to school now, so please pray for them. Please.

prayer request update

Thank you to all of you for praying! Please don't stop praying yet though because it's just getting started. I'm going to talk to a lawyer tomorrow and get some answers to a bunch of legal questions I have. Please keep praying for this little guy and that I'll know what God wants me to do in this situation! Thanks everybody!

to Washington, to Washington...

DC United crushed New England Revolution this past weekend and now they're DEFINITELY in the lead - 46 points to 42 points! I went up to see it with my friend Brian and his uncle. It was such a great game! The score was 4-2 with Fred scoring one goal, Moreno scoring one, and Emilio scoring two! Here's a picture of Emilio jumping over a NER player with the ball. Brian loved the game - it's the first soccer game he's ever been to. All the way home he was chanting, "DC UNITED!" just like they do at the stadium during the game! He even got his soccer ball signed at the end of the game (see bottom picture)! It was a great way to end the weekend!

HUGE PRAYER REQUEST

Hey everybody...I have an urgent request:

Would you please pray for a specific situation with a child from my class? I'm sorry I can't give any specific information right now, but God absolutely knows which child and which situation I'm talking about. If you feel led, please pray for this child, this child's family, and my role in this situation.

Thank you guys. I rest in confidence that God is in control of this situation and what He wants to happen WILL happen.

This is why I spend my Saturdays watching kids play sports...

Sometimes people ask me why I spend my weekends watching kids play sports and the usual answer I give is that there's nothing I'd rather do more (besides worship Jesus, of course!). It truly is the highlight of my week. Unsatisfyingly, that answer doesn't really explain WHY I like to do it.

Well today at one of the games, I realized why I love it so much. This team of kids in Challenge soccer was losing at one point 8-3. They are a young team and it's most of their first year playing Challenge. Notice the pictures...this is how they felt about losing! See them smiling, laughing, having the time of their life? They just love to play the game! This is why I spend my free time watching them...for just a brief time, the busyness of the world is frozen. Everything we thought so important moments ago is not important for the next hour. All you see is the spirit of children and their belief that a game is just a game.

This is why I go.

Jupiter, The Ring Nebula, and a Globular Cluster

Tonight Peter and I went to McCormick Observatory on Observatory Hill at UVA because it was open to the public! We got to see through three different telescopes, including the biggest one at McCormick which has a lens 26 inches across (the biggest telescope lens that exists is 40 inches - telescopes bigger than that use mirrors now instead of lenses). We saw this picture of Jupiter (in the top picture) and we could really see the stripes on Jupiter that are formed from the wind blowing in different directions! We could also see four moons around Jupiter (you can see one in the top left corner of the picture)!

Later Jupiter dropped below the trees on its nightly path through the sky, so we couldn't see it anymore. Instead it was focused on a globular cluster, one of the "oldest" (based on what you believe about the formation of the universe) in the universe! We could see so many cool stars!



We also looked through two smaller telescopes that were set up outside of the building. One showed the Ring Nebula and the other showed a double star that I can't remember the name of. It was cool because we could see the double star with just our eyes, but it looked like just ONE faint, blurry dot, and then when you see it with the telescope it's TWO stars, it's BRIGHT, and it's SO CLEAR! It was so awesome!

Labor Day Party

Among all the soccer events of the weekend, I managed to go to a Labor Day party at my mom's house. My sister, her friend, my brother Ryan, and Peter were all there, with lots of other people. We spent a lot of time at the big pond swimming and canoeing. Ryan's girlfriend has two kids and they came too. The top picture shows the youngest, Ezra, who is 4. He was waiting patiently for a ride in the canoe. Kathryn had taken his brother Nolan out and they were coming back. You can see them in the distance. The next picture is of me, Kathryn, and Ryan.

After Ryan and his whole crew left, Kathryn, her friend, me, and Peter all wanted to get in the canoe together. We set up chairs in it, and rowed out. Then my stepdad, Mike, dove in the water to try to tip us over. (He does that sort of thing.) For a moment fear of getting my David Beckham shirt wet in the pond water paralyzed me, but then Mike realized that he had jumped in the water with his cellphone still in his pocket, which was now soaking wet. So he got out to dry his phone off without tipping us over.

When we finished swimming, we decided to play "ring the innertubes around Peter". It was a delightful game and we got all three rings around him!

We ate s'mores and roasted strawberries on graham crackers (sounds disgusting, but it's really not! It tastes like strawberry pie!) over a fire after dark.

Then it was such a clear night that we climbed up on the roof of the shed to look at stars. We took pillows and blankets up with us and a stuffed dragon for protection from swooping bats and other such creatures. I figured a dragon could be kind of like a scarecrow. We saw a ton of constellations, Venus, and some of the clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. If only we had had a telescope...

Weekend of Soccer: 3rd, 4th, and 5th Stops

Wow so this was totally a weekend of soccer! I wish EVERY weekend could be like this one! In total, I watched 4 soccer games and played 2, so 6 all together! It was great! I went to see another UVA soccer game on Sunday night. Wilson and his dad came, so I got to speak Spanish to them again! And my friend Ben and his mom came too! It was a great game, although painful for the goalies, and UVA won against the Richmond Spiders 2-0.

At halftime, a bunch of kids I know played a soccer game on the field. They're on the Challenge team of SOCA and
they played really well! It was fun seeing them play on the big field!

4th and 5th Stops: Sunday night and Monday night I played soccer games until after dark! We couldn't even see the ball anymore! It was really fun! Once my team had to throw the ball in from out-of-bounds and I headed the ball in to the goal! In fact yesterday, I played soccer with some friends for 2 hours, then went to the skatepark with some more friends for 2 and a half hours, then went BACK to play more soccer for another hour and a half. Tomorrow night I have to take some kids to soccer practice and then I have a test in my Spanish class. Let's hope that all the talking to Wilson's dad helped!

Weekend of Soccer: 2nd Stop Richmond Cup 2007

The second stop in my Weekend of Soccer was yesterday morning in Richmond for the Richmond Cup 2007. One of the kids I know from school (and who went with me to see Beckham play in the DC United/LA Galaxy game), Wilson, is playing on the travel team called SOCA Metro. They were playing in the tournament in Richmond so I went to watch him. They had two games, one with their blue uniforms and one with their white ones. They won the first game 5-0, but lost their second game 3-1. Wilson had the assist for their solo goal in the second game!

The best part about going to the tournament was that I got to talk to Wilson's dad for a long time. He doesn't speak English, so I had to speak in Spanish in order for us to communicate. It's the first time I've ever had a conversation with someone in Spanish before! I got to talk to him for 4 HOURS! It was awesome because a lot of what he said I could actually understand! His dad was so nice and patient with me too, waiting for me to put sentences together that made some degree of sense with my limited Spanish vocabulary. It helped when I learned how to say "game", "off-sides", and "points" in Spanish! I think that Wilson and his dad are going to come to the UVA vs. Richmond game with me tonight!

Weekend of Soccer: 1st Stop UVA

My weekend of soccer began with UVA's first home game on Friday night against Columbia. UVA won 5-0, despite the fact that Columbia was doing everything they possibly could to take out UVA's players. Talk about playing dirty... They were doing slide tackles all over the field, but right into UVA's ankles and knees. By the end of the game 6 different UVA players were injured!

It rained for the whole first half also, which did not help the players' ability to stay on their feet. The whole game was basically a game of falling and sliding! UVA played really well though and it was a great first game of the season. I'm going to see their game against Richmond tonight at 5:00!