T.E.A.R.S. » Blog Archive » Getting Ready for Basketball Camp– when everything that should be easy is hard.

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

Psalms 126:5

Getting Ready for Basketball Camp– when everything that should be easy is hard.

Composed on July 21st, 2009 by Joy & Vidal Reyes

I used to think part of being a good host of teams that came to help us work was having everything in place so all they had to do was pick up the tools and get to work, but I noticed that it robbed them of the true accomplishment of not only getting a project completed, but completing it in the Dominican Republic. There are times as a missionary when, to be honest, I want our visitors to feel our pain. I want them to grow a little empathy for my seemingly lack of organization and inability to get anything done in a timely fashion. So I invite in on the process.

Everything that should be simple is complicated. We had planned for months to have our camp in the community court next to the school and to make it better by rebuilding the fence that was destroyed in the tornado last year. Apparently another group had been planning too and when we arrived at the courts to begin getting bids for the fence we had to think of plan B. No worries, we will fix our own fence and prepare it for youth basketball with lower hoops. We even got excited about how it had worked out.

The fence began to go up and our bid grew, as it always does. As our costs increased I started to wonder if we would even be able to afford hoops to hang on our new fence. I scraped up the funds and the guys went out to find the hoops…No luck after an entire day of looking. We went out one more time before settling for an old bike rim hung from our new fence and were successful, the last two on a back shelf. But with new hoops came new challenges: How would they hang? —More cement needed to go up. How would keep them safe from vandals? — A locking system would have to be created and until them they will go up and come down each day. What about the balls that Landon brought? There so cool everyone wants them so…Where will we store the balls? Who can have access to them? Who has a pump to blow them up????

We got the hoops hung in time to start on time. The kids looked great in their T-shirts hot off the printing presses. We had a whole new list of solutions to find for day two: how would we manage 40 wild kids without fist fights? What drills will keep their attention? How do we integrate the gospel into what we are doing? How do we get them to follow directions???? I’m happy Landon is there to experience the process. He is doing a great job staying positive and not getting frustrated or irritated. He is very “tranquillo” calm and collected. He’s practically Dominican.=)