This weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Wrestling State Championships inside Portland's Memorial Coliseum. The state tournament is filled with peaks and valleys as young men, coaches, and families spend 2 days battling it out to see who is the best in the state. I had the pleasure of watching some young men I have know since they were in diapers compete, as well as a few of the guys I have been able to coach the last 3 years. It is hard to see young men lose after years of hard work and not accomplish their goals. I saw coaches with broken noses, cauliflower ears, and broad shoulders visibly moved when their athletes won, and shed tears with them as they lost. Wrestling is unlike any other sport, coaches and wrestlers bond in ways that are often hard to describe, shedding blood, sweat and tears for 4 years or more together.
As I watched this amazing event, I couldn’t help but think(with some great advice from my wife) of what God sees as all this goes on. I think God sees a field ripe for the harvest as we talked about in our news letter last June. I was able to talk with wrestlers and coaches alike about God’s love for them, about God’s plan for them, and about what God is doing through the sport of wrestling. One conversation was with a coach from Hillsboro high school who mentioned a former wrestler now competing at North Idaho(NIC) Junior College who was the first of his family to go to college and needed to leave town to get away from the area to break some friendships that were not having a positive effect on his life. I don’t think either the coach or the wrestler have a relationship with Christ, but I was able to offer 2 resources to him and his wrestler. One is a church in Coeur de Lane(where NIC is located) whose head pastor is a former All-American, and the other was Trevor Prangley a wrestler who is featured in our AIA DVD(and a past newsletter!) who lives and owns a gym there in town. Praying that this young man will take advantages of these opportunities and the Lord would be able to use them in his life.
There were so many, many more conversations from this weekend I would love to share. It offered me yet another glimpse of how God is using wrestling, and how we can be a small part of it. It is exciting that God loves us and reaches out to us in personal ways even through a sport such as wrestling! THANK YOU again for all your love, prayers, partnerships, and support in this journey. We are on the final 10% of support and are excited for what is ahead!
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