AIA Summer #4: Can You Field the Love Tonight?

CAN YOU FIELD THE LOVE TONIGHT? 

     In an effort to join the 21st century, I have taken the liberty of throwing in some pictures to flesh out my semi seasonal musings.
  

     My summer is going to look a little different than previous ones for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I got married between the end of my winter semester and the start of my internship with AIA this year, so I got started a little behind the rest of the summer camps team.  Second, my role this year is more of a mentorship role for both new and returning coaches, which means I get more of a supervisor-style role over the other interns without really having any extra authority or pay.  So basically a dream come true.  The third and maybe most obvious difference between this summer and last is that I'm awaiting a date for a reconstructive ACL surgery.  It's been two years since I hurt my knee, and I decided that playing at partial strength with a substantial brace was no longer the best option for me.  All I know thus far is that my surgery is happening at the end of August, likely within the last two weeks.  

     We just went through a week of training with our coaches for the summer.  The focus of this year was how to run camps and coach soccer in such a way where the values of God's Kingdom are clearly implemented and communicated.  This covers everything from the way we set up stations to the questions we ask when we are debriefing a station with our players.  This all starts with the belief we have at AIA that God's Kingdom is something that ought to pervade all aspects of our lives.  

     In my own life I have too often seen myself, often subconsciously, sometimes explicitly, justify things that I've done in a sport context that I would never even consider doing off of the soccer field.  Church leagues are notorious for having dirty and overly competitive players who have little respect for the officials, opponents and even their own teammates.  There is an overarching problem with the way that the church interacts with the culture surrounding sport.  So this is what we have spent time structuring our Church Partnerships around.  The training that we use to equip our coaches interacts heavily with their own attitude towards and within sport, and then look to explore how we can coach in a way that brings life and truth.  I got the chance to lead sessions on our spiritual curriculum for the summer, as well as a commissioning activity for our teams.  

     Camps are fast approaching, and the first week is the first week of July.  There is a lot of administrative work that has yet to be done, so if you are looking to include me in your prayers, my main requests would be focus and wisdom in prioritizing.  Also pray for wise amounts of rest and a continual and conscious reliance on the Holy Spirit for the ability to better worship God through what I'm doing this summer.

AIA Summer 2.0: Internship Reloaded

     For all of you who have been eagerly waiting for this very moment, where you get the chance to once again read about all the emails and paperwork I do, here you go.  I've started an internship with Athletes in Action soccer camps as of two days ago, and it occurred to me that this is exactly what all the good blogs do; they don't forget to post for a year straight.  I couldn't figure out how to rename my blog unfortunately, and so I'm stuck with a name that I thought was playful and somewhat sarcastic last year that I am no longer as happy about.  But I soldier on, amidst such inner turmoil.  I also went back and read one of my old posts, and it was kind of like looking at a middle school yearbook.  Every attempt at humor seemed awful, and it was really a literary trainwreck.  This year will likely be no different, but I do hope to be more faithful in my updates, so as to keep my huge audience posted.

     This year, before I started in the office here, our team for the summer spent two weeks in Edmonton for a combination of this thing called NTC (National Training Camp) and also a week of head coaches training.  NTC is a week long intensive camp designed to create scenarios where athletes from across the country can intentionally integrate faith in sport, while at the same time dealing with idolatry in sport and addressing various motivations that they have for playing at all.  There were around 60 people there from across the country participating, and it was a sweet time to meet people that shared the same desires for their sport.  The conversations may have been my favourite part of the whole experience, as we got to reflect on what we had experienced and talk about how we were feeling challenged and convicted as the week went on.  The week consisted of a combination of classroom/theory sessions as we looked at what the Bible has to say about competing allegiances/motivations, and then we took to the court for on-court labs of either basketball or volleyball, and played in various scenarios designed to encourage us to address the reality of what we were thinking and our motivations on the court.  We did things like compete in complete silence and with no communication with our teammates at all, or we played volleyball where the best player on our team had to wear hockey gloves during the game.  I went into the week with a mindset that I was only there because it was made mandatory for the summer camp coaches.  But during the silent/no communication volleyball, I was extremely convicted.  This was the first time I had ever experienced 'deafening silence', so to speak.  The only thoughts I had throughout were self-condemning, and I was really challenged in that to reconsider the stance I had coming into the week.  I am very competitive, but I thought I had it fully under control, to the point where my identity was never tied to how I did in a game.  That pride was ripped up at NTC, which was humbling, devastating, and fantastic all at the same time.

     NTC was an exhausting week, but all of the people who would be at head coaches' training the next week were also there, so we got to build some pretty solid relationships before the week of training we would be participating in together.  There were four new head coaches across the country this year, which is sweet.  Saskatchewan was having a summer of camps for the first time ever, and so for the first time there is going to be seven teams of coaches going across the country.  I had the privilege, as one of the returning head coaches, of leading some of the training sessions.  They went okay, but it was a cool opportunity to get the chance to help inspire new head coaches with the vision AIA has for its head coaches.  There were some changes made to the schedule and flow of soccer camps this year, and so much of the week was spent working through that, and addressing questions that arose.  The week was an overall encouraging time, and I'm excited to see how the new changes will play out over the course of a summer.  I'm also stoked to stay in contact with the coaches I met as we work together across the country to share Jesus and redeem the world we live in.

     Now I'm back at home, which is delightful.  I have much to do before the summer begins, and I am excited to do so.  Thank you for reading this unnecessarily long post.  I know sometimes when you read this much it all turns into "blah blog blog", but thanks for sticking around till the end.

My Quite Late Third Update

Week. Three. Complete.

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted last (Read my previous entry here), and those have been a crazy couple of weeks.  Three camps have been completed, and they were nothing like I expected them to be, each with their own unique situations and circumstances.  We've had great opportunities to connect with churches and communities wherever we have gone.  

Our first week was in Nanaimo with First Baptist Church, and it was a camp of right around 100 kids.  There were fires just north of Nanaimo while we were there, which caused a bit of a problem with the air quality.  We prayed about it Sunday night, and Monday morning, and thankfully a bit of wind came Monday, and the sky was cleared up pretty quickly.  The weather was hot all week, and we had a great field to work with.  We had a huge number of volunteers from the church, which was sweet.  They were super capable and willing to take on leadership roles, and so there was a lot of opportunity for them to grow as leaders and coaches.  We also had a few coaches from an AIA Touring Team join us for the week.  We didn't have a ton of time to get them up to speed, but they did fantastically well with all the info we gave them, and were remarkably adaptable and immeasurably helpful. Our days ran reasonably smoothly, but there were some bugs we were sorting out, what with it being our first week.  Overall the camp went pretty great.  The kids had a great week, and there was tonnes of opportunity to share the gospel to kids who had never heard it, and plenty of changes to help grow the kids who had already heard it.  The church we were with was really pleased with how the week went, and got a lot of positive feedback from parents and kids alike.  It was a really great way to officially kick the summer off.

From Nanaimo, we went to Northview Community Church in Abbotsford, my home church.  This summer marked the fifth time I had helped out at the soccer camp there, and it was bigger than it had ever been.  We ended up having 120 kids registered, which is the biggest camp I've ever done.  We had to do some adapting, to try and meet the kids at their skill level so that they could be challenged, and to help them to grow as much as they could.  We split the camp into three different camps, which is something I've never done before.  Two camps is semi usual, but three is unheard of.  It ended up working out quite well, because of the quality of volunteers we had, and the quality of coaches too.  We had a few extra coaches with us, as one of the tour girls stayed on for an extra week, and we had a new coach do his first week of the summer.  They brought much needed experience and energy, and it was a real help to have them with us. This camp is a partnership between the church, AIA, and the Abbotsford Food Bank, which is a really cool situation to be a part of.  A lot of the kids who I've known for a few years now come from tough backgrounds, and may have broken and hurting families, and so they come to camp really needing love and attention.  This isn't a particularly skilled camp, but it is one of my favourite ones I've ever been a part of.  We have to be constantly investing in the kids, which is very emotionally and physically draining, but seeing the kids change even over the course of a week is really cool.  And being able to see these kids year after year is a lot of fun too.

The last camp we've done so far is in Langley, with Northwest Baptist Church.  It was a pretty massive adjustment to go from Northview to this camp, because there were only 30 kids registered, so about a quarter of the size of the camp we had just finished.  We had a couple of new coaches join us, and they did remarkably well.  As far as first weeks of camp go, they were outstanding.  They welcomed opportunities to lead, and picked up on areas where they could help, and really acted as though they had already done years of soccer camps.  And what this camp lacked in size, it made up for in entertaining kids.  There were so many kids who were ridiculously hilarious that we seriously considered making a list of all the crazy things that were said.  One kid brought a Kermit the Frog puppet and entertained over half of the camp at every lunch break.  We had a bit of an adjustment period, going from having no time the previous week to stop and rest during the day, to having plenty of time to hang out with kids and make sure that they were all getting the love and attention that they needed.  But by Tuesday of the week, we had made the adjustments we had to, and camp ran smoothly from that day on.  Thankfully the field we were at had a gym we could use if the weather got bad, because it did.  It rained pretty hard late Thursday night and all of Friday, so we wet inside the gym for the day.  It was definitely a more chaotic day because of it, but it was a really rewarding day too, and the kids had a lot of fun.  We had to dry and run group games in a compressed area, but it ended up being far smoother than I had originally thought it would.  

For those of my readers (that sounds rather pretentious, but I can't come up with a better way to say it) who are wondering, this is the halfway point of my summer.  We've got three camps left, and then I have a couple of weeks before I go to Columbia Bible College in September.  It's going by so quickly, and I camp believe I've only got three weeks left with my team.  I'm looking forward for more opportunities to show kids the love we find in Christ and what he's done for us, and I can't thank the coaches I've worked with enough for teaching me so much and helping me to grow as a coach.  

Thanks for reading, if you've stuck with me this whole way, you've read four paragraphs of my musings.  Thanks for taking the time to catch up with me.  As always, email me anything you might be wondering of want to say, at levi.friesen.17@gmail.com, and I'll be forever grateful to know that there are actually people out there who read all this stuff that I write. I'm having fun, God is good, and each day if a blessing and an opportunity.  Thanks for reading!

Second Musing Session

Thanks for taking the time to keep up with what's been going on in my life these past few weeks.  If it's your first time reading one of my entries, welcome, and my this is the link for my previous post (My semi weekly musings). If you've read my last one, welcome back.

These past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic, and it's been both draining and invigorating at the same time.  Last I wrote, I was getting ready for the head coaches training I would be doing at the Athletes in Action offices in Langley.  There were a couple of guys staying at my house, and we were preparing for the work we do in the summer with a bunch of different mini seminar/discussion/workshop type things.  The week went really well.  I met a bunch of really rad people from all across Canada, from as far away as Ontario.  We got to spend a lot of time looking at what our roles would be in the summer, as we were going to all be leading different teams in different provinces.  We covered everything from dealing with conflict, to presenting the Gospel in a way kids can understand it, to how to effectively teach and set up soccer drill stations.  Our on field work was done on a turf field in 30+ degree weather, so it was basically a frying pan with rubber pellets everywhere.  I actually got one in my eye, and it ejected my contact onto the field, and I couldn't find it again.  But other than that little episode, it was a good week.  We were challenged by the topics, talking about how we can approach coaching in a way where we are focused on so much more than just making the kids we deal with better soccer players, but how we can grow them spiritually, emotionally, socially, and physically.  There was a lot of stuff we talked about that was way beyond me, but overall I felt like we grew a lot as a group, and really got to know each other better.  We got the chance to go to Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver, and play some volleyball and stuff.  I got a parking ticket, but I managed to get it withdrawn, which was absolutely delightful.  It was pretty disappointing to get to know some of the people really well over the week, only to have them go back to their provinces, but it was really rewarding and a lot of fun.  

We spent the next week at the offices in Langley as well, but 90% of my days there were spent reading emails, and picking on the guy I shared a cubicle with.  But we did a lot of good preparation work for the training sessions we would be running, and got a lot of stuff ready to go for the summer.  And we hit up Mucho Burrito, which was a party in my mouth.  Nachos are underrated in my opinion. They're nacho typical go-to food choice. 

At the end of that week, we attended a coaching conference for all the different sports ministries that AIA does.  There were people from soccer, volleyball, basketball, and hockey there, among others.  We got to hear from some really good coaches, who had a ton of relevant stuff to tell us, and a lot of practical ways to increase the quality of our coaching.  More good, challenging stuff.  We were on the most uncomfortable bleachers on the planet, but I guess that's a major first world problem.  We ran a section for church volunteers at the camps we'll be doing.  I got to share a bit of my journey from being a volunteer, to a paid AIA coach, to now co-leading a team of AIA coaches, which was pretty sweet.  I'm really learning that God has different pieces of our stories for each of us to use for different reasons, maybe as a warning for people, or to inspire people.  I think testimonies are super valuable to share, and I love to hear about peoples' lives.

Now this last week we had more training, but I promise this is the last training I'll be talking about this summer.  We got all of the AIA coaches who will be working in BC this summer, and we went to a retreat center/camp in Chilliwack for like four days.  We spent time reading the Bible, worshiping through music, explaining different roles that we'll all do in the summer, and a bunch of time hanging out.  I got to lead a couple of these sessions, and to take part in a bunch of discussions to do with Biblical visions of winning and losing, what our goal was for the summer of camps, and coaching strategies in general.  We took a couple of afternoons to go over what different parts of camp would physically look like, to better prepare ourselves, especially for the first week or two.  I have a small ACL tear right now, so I did all the active stuff with a massive retro knee brace on, which was kinda cool.  I had braced myself for the worst when I was about to start wearing it, but I really didn't kneed to do that.  It worked quite nicely. There was also time spent working on our curriculum for the summer,  AKA Coaches Corner, where we do skits and give demos/parables, and designate time to present the Gospel.  We spent a bunch of time hammering out the details of what that would look like, and we got a really good chunk of it done.  I'm a pretty bad actor, so I sometimes get a little skittish during the plays.  We also got to play some indoor soccer tennis, and really had a ball.  

So that's what's been going on of late.  Lots of prep work, teaching other coaches what the summer looks like, and spending a lot of time in community, praying for the summer ahead, and thanking God for what He has done, and will continue to do.

Again, thanks for your time, if you stuck with me this whole way, congrats, you made it.  Email me anything you wanna say at levi.friesen.17@gmail.com.  

Hope you're all enjoying your summers!

First Career Blog Attempt

       Hello to all of you who are checking this out for the first time. I have no prior blogging experience,  so this is gonna be a bit of an adventure for me. I'm typing this on my phone, so I apologize for any mistakes I may make. Thanks for taking the time to check this out, and I hope you continue to as the summer rolls along.

       For those who are wondering,  I'm starting a blog to chronicle the work I do through the summer with Athletes in Action. I'm a part of the Gospel outreach soccer camps that they run all through the summer,  and I love it. We get to go from church to church each week,  and tell people about Jesus and how important He is in our lives today, using soccer as a tool to connect with kids.  The days are full of games and drills, and we have designated times to talk about the different aspects of the Gospel. We augment the Bible sessions with skits and memory verses,  and try to accurately convey the Gospel to kids who may very well have never heard of Jesus, or even Christianity in general.

This is my fifth year of involvement with Athletes in Action,  but just my second as a paid coach. I love the chance I get each week to talk about my faith, and to tell people the greatest news in the world. I've got a passion for kids,  soccer, and the Gospel,  and these camps are a fantastic opportunity to combine all three of these things.

       Right now I'm gearing up for our training that's about to happen in Langley.  I'm gonna be having a couple of other coaches staying with my family for the week,  and I'm stoked to get to know them and the other coaches who will be trained with us. The training we have is a fantastic time for team bonding and unity development and all that cliché stuff, but it's super valuable,  and I love how much knowledge gets thrown at us in that short time.

I'll be trying to update this at least once a week, with highlights from the camps,  and really with whatever happens to be on my mind at the time when I'm writing this. If you've got anything to ask me or anything like that, feel free to email me at levi.friesen.17@gmail.com. I don't know if theres a spot for comments on here, but if there is, feel free to say what's on your mind. I'm also looking for people who want to pray for me this summer,  so if you're interested in that, email me,  and I'll get you involved in that.

       That was far longer than I thought it would be,  and by far the most I've ever tried on a phone. Thanks for taking the time to read this,  and enjoy the rest of your day!