Praying with Pirates

What a great week for Melissa, my Varsity Catholic teammate and I at Seton Hall. The fun really started on Friday with the women's volleyball game which they won in 3 games. From there I went to the men's golf meet at Rutgers University. I got to see all 5 of the Pirates players out on the course, after day 1 they were tied for 1st and they finished in 3rd place, 3 of the men placing in the top 10! It was very impressive to watch them, I like to golf, but wow those guys hit the ball well and far!

I rushed back to the Seton Hall campus for a meeting at 4 that Melissa and I had with the softball team. NJ traffic had other plans. I didn't get back to campus until about 4:30, so Melissa waited outside of the team meeting room. We waited there for about 20 minutes as we didn't think it was appropriate to interrupt coach during his rules meeting. Just before 5pm the women's soccer team started showing up, they had a game at 7. They were a little loud so one of the softball coaches peeked out and asked them to quiet down and at this time Melissa and I were invited in to speak and share what we offer as FOCUS Varsity Catholic missionaries. We have been blessed to have shared ourselves with half of the teams here.

As we left the meeting one of the soccer players asked us if we could "pump" them up before the game. Melissa and I laughed and kind of hesitated and I said, "we could pray with you." The soccer player thought that was a great idea. Melissa and I were really surprised since last year no one on the soccer team was involved in our Bible studies or other events that we held, we really didn't even know more than a girl or two on the soccer team. We went in and prayed with them for a few minutes, many of the players thanked us as we left and we wished them good luck.

After that we went to the 2nd volleyball game of the day as the women took on Boston College. Melissa played volleyball at Pittsburgh so she is a volunteer assistant coach for the volleyball team and gets to sit with them on the bench. This match went to a 5th game and during a timeout in the 5th game Melissa got in the middle of the huddle and fired them up with a pep talk that really pumped the girls up. The girls went on to win the 5th game and the match.

Immediately after the volleyball game I rushed outside to catch the end of the soccer game. I got outside just as the Seton Hall women scored a goal to untie the score at 2-1. A few minutes later Georgetown scored a great goal on a cross pass to tie it up at 2-2 and the game went into overtime. Almost 6 minutes in to overtime the Seton Hall women scored a goal from just outside of the box, the girls rushed the field, it was really exciting.

I went home and got to bed because in the morning Melissa and I were scheduled to speak to the men's and women's cross country team before their meet in Delaware. We spoke to the team on the bus at 8:45am and prayed with them before we left. After that we grabbed breakfast and went to the park where the teams would be running.

We walked from the finish line back into the race about a quarter mile. We found a spot where they would run through just after they started. From there the track looped around but we cut across to where they would run through again as they neared the finish line. We had a lot of fun cheering on the men and women as they competed and I think that the team and coach really appreciated our support. We had a great time.

Just another tough weekend on the job!