Towards the end of May I took a tour setup trip with Mark Schrock, one of the head honchos of the Seahorse organization, to Rosarito, Mexico to prepare things for the soccer PDL tour (the team I play with) we were taking there on June 2nd. Our goal was to team up with the Godwin’s (a missionary family who had recently moved to Mexico about a year and a half ago) and partner with their recently planted church “Hope Chapel Rosarito.” I was very excited about this opportunity because I had lived in this area for two years after I finished college and was going to get to see some friends I used to play soccer with. The plan was to do soccer clinics with kids at schools and local neighborhoods. We would also set up a friendly scrimmage against the church team and an indoor soccer tournament with eight teams playing single elimination for the trophy. Outside of the schools, we were free to present the gospel and we were planning on doing that during the scrimmage and tournament. We left feeling good about the partnership and excited about being part of God’s work in Rosarito. 
The first week of June and our Mexico trip came really fast! It was strange because many of us felt that we were there simply having fun playing with kids and playing soccer, but God used us to open doors in sharing the gospel to this area in desperate need of Jesus. One of our other goals was to get Angel, a member of Hope Chapel Rosarito who loves soccer, excited about sports ministry and train him as much as we could in one week. He came with us everywhere and was very thrilled about sports ministry when we left. 
One of the highlights of the trip was going to an elementary school and providing a clinic to the kids. There were hundreds of kids and they loved the games we played with them, as well as hanging all over us. It was great! The indoor soccer was also a high point since we played on my favorite field in Rosarito. It was a hard fought final, but the Seahorses came back with the trophy in the end. When the game finished I got the opportunity to share my testimony with the players and the crowd. It was cool because Edgar, one of the refs that used to ref all the games when I lived there, came up afterwards and was interested in attending church and learning more about my faith.
The Godwin’s did an excellent job documenting the tour. They have posted a concise day by day recap on the tour as well as a ton of pictures. You can check them out at their blog by clicking here.
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