To the South, Ohio, and congrats to Burak Boys

Exciting news we are on our last 10% of support and have just booked tickets to what we are hoping is our last big support trip to Texas and Oklahoma March 20th to the 29th, and Ohio raising funds and looking at housing from March 29th to April 3rd. Please be praying for the details of the trip, that we could find people to meet with who are open to the possibility of partnering with us, AND that we would be able to get an idea of where God would have us live in or near Xenia, Ohio and the AIA HQ!!!




Also congrats to both Gabe and Micah Burak(son's of Steve Burak AIA Wrestling Camp Director)

who qualified for the NCAA tournament in St. Louis March 15th to 17th. Both boys were a match away from All-American status last year and we are praying for strength and that they would continue to honor God as the compete. They are such great examples!

Northern Colorado wrestler's Faith is key to his drive

"Faith" is the word that best describes UNC senior wrestler Gabe Burak.

Burak, who won three Colorado high school state championships at Coronado High School in Colorado Springs, transferred to the University of Northern Colorado for his fifth and final year of wrestling from the University of Pennsylvania, and the move influenced the Bears' wrestling room from day one.

"Gabe is a quality guy," UNC head coach Ben Cherrington said. "He practices what he preaches in every walk of life. That's the type of person you need in a leadership role. We are very fortunate to have him on our team, even just for one year. He has made a huge impact on our young guys."

Redshirt freshman Charlie McMartin, Burak's roommate, said Burak challenges people around him to have big goals.

Burak, who was raised with a strong faith in God, has applied that faith to every facet of life, fueling the fire that propels him to succeed. Belief is one thing that Burak said will always sit inside him.

"My faith is the most important thing in my life," Burak said. "It allowed me to seek and guide every aspect of my life."

Burak has gone 19-2 for the Bears this season, which is not surprising considering how athletic his family is.

His father wrestled at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, his mother was a gymnast at the University of Minnesota and his two little brothers both wrestle. A devout religious family, the Buraks were taught to know God personally. Burak attributes his successes in life and athletics to the Lord.

His teammates and peers easily notice that belief.

"Gabe is a guy who cares a lot about people," McMartin said. "The qualities of the people around him are enhanced when he is around them. He doesn't domineer or overshadow them but encourages them to be who they are."

With teammates and coaches, and much of his family and friends, watching, it is difficult for Burak to please everyone, although he said would like to. But Burak said he looks to please more than just them.

"When you're just living to serve and please those around you, if no one is watching then you might not give your best," he said. "I still struggle with that, but I know that God is with me wherever I'm at, so I want to seek to give my very best, to have a passion, whether that's here in the wrestling room, doing school, whatever area it's in, to do my very best that is done to the Lord. As I'm doing that, I do hope that others see a difference and it affects my teammates."

Burak will look to earn All-American honors at the end of this season, a distinction he's fallen just short of in years past. Cherrington found himself in the same position as Burak at Boise State but managed to earn the status in his senior year. Burak looks to follow in Cherrington's footsteps.

"This is his last chance, and he is going to throw all the cards on the table," Cherrington said.

With high goals for not only himself but also everyone around him, Burak heads into the upcoming Western Wrestling Conference Championships with few worries.

"He's is not a guy that is afraid, or (shies) away from the hard things in life," McMartin said. "He'll face those head on.

Oregon State Wrestling Tournament

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!

Seasons of Waiting Feb 2012

In seasons of waiting, it is so easy to become discouraged, but there is great HOPE & encouragement when we take our eyes off our situation, look to God & invite His presence into our waiting. Just as when light begins to break through a dark storm a beautiful rainbow becomes visible. So it is also true with the storms of our lives, as the light of Christ shines in, we begin to see the beauty He has for us right in the middle of our circumstances. We are finding this to be true as we continue to live in a season of waiting. We have asked the Lord to shine into our circumstances & He has given us many opportunities right here in Salem to share His love & life with those around us.

One of these opportunities is volunteering at South Salem High School (SSHS) with their wrestling program, as time allows. As Rob’s role has moved from teacher & coach to missionary & coach, day to day life conversations have come up where he has been able to share stories from the Bible as well as stories from his life. Recently one of the wrestlers asked Rob how he prepared for matches. Rob was able to share with him that as a young wrestler he was very stressed, always worrying about winning & losing, and that after becoming a Christian his focus was on competing to honor God. In turning his life over to God he did not become a better wrestler automatically. It was a journey of casting his cares on the Lord & knowing that his self worth was not wrapped up in winning, rather in living his life for Christ & competing as a testimony to God’s love. As his faith grew so did his wrestling.

Recently Rob has been able to have these types of conversations with two particular athletes, Dan & Jorge. Both sophomores when Rob started coaching; now seniors.
We asked Dan to speak about how God is using wrestling in his life during one of our ministry presentations at church. Dan has grown up in a split family, where neither of his parents are very involved in his life. He invited Christ into his life his sophomore year through the ministry of Young Life. Dan talked about how he was skeptical of the new coaching staff his first year, they had an intensity & passion for wrestling that had not been present at SSHS in the past. Dan said as he grew in his faith & learned more about the coaches he was not surprised to learn that they all have a relationship with Jesus. “The coaches have passion to make us into the best wrestlers we can be but also a passion for us to be the best men we can be.” Dan also said he had never had a group of men build into him the way our coaching staff has.

Just before his first match almost 3 years ago the coaches were told that Jorge was academically ineligible, having passed just one class as a freshman. Rob & the other coaches sat down with him & set out a plan to get him caught up & on track. They wanted to let him know that being a good wrestler was important to them, but so was his life & graduating was key. This year Jorge has over a 3.0 grade point average and is 21-6 this season, 3 of his losses were to #1 ranked wrestlers in our division. Rob has been able to share with Jorge the AIA DVD “Unfading Glory” & have many conversations about his relationship with Christ.
We are continually reminded of how God is using wrestling & our lives to grow people in their relationship with him. To Him be all the Glory!

Please continue to pray that he would have more opportunities to share with Dan, Jorge and the other guys on the team.

Pray too that the Lord would continue to open our eyes to see what He has for us in Oregon while we continue to wait to report to our assignment in Ohio. We are praying for a moving date by March!

Russias republic of Dagestan and wrestling

Great video talking about how ingrained wrestling is in the culture of Russia's heavily Muslim republic of Dagestan. 3 million people and over 30,000 wrestlers in elementary school!

South Salem Coaching Staff

When someone takes their first head coaching position, the hardest thing can be building a coaching staff they can trust. When Stryder Davis took on the task of turning the South Salem High School wrestling team into a winner, he didn't look far for coaches.
The coaching staff he assembled is made up of Stryder's North Idaho College roommate and long-time friend, Jesse Davis (no relation), Stryder's brother, Keegan, brother-in-law and Montana State-Northern teammate Dale Seley, Stryder's father, Dan, and Rob Bronson, who coached Stryder and Keegan at Sprague.

They're all former college wrestlers who were successful on the mat.
"We're all either brothers or best friends or family," says Stryder, who wrestled at Sprague and formerly was an assistant at Oregon State and Sprague. "It makes your job fun. I do trust every single one of them with everything."
In Stryder's third year as head coach, the Saxons are making progress toward being competitive against the Central Valley Conference's top teams.
Teams such as Sprague and McNary place in the top 10 at the state tournament on a yearly basis.
Much of the challenge at South Salem is that other sports such as football, basketball and soccer are more closely identified with the school.
"It's not known (as) a wrestling school like McNary or like Sprague or even like McKay, that tradition they have," said Jesse Davis, who formerly spent five years on the staff at McNary.
To better develop the wrestlers before they get to high school, Stryder started Capitol Crew Wrestling, a club for children in eighth grade and under, last year.
The club already has grown to where some practices have 30 kids, and the club is what Seley and Dan Davis focus on.
"(Stryder and I) both have sons that are in the Capitol Crew wrestling program," said Seley, whose wife, Amber, is the twin of Stryder's wife, Kimmy.
"They're my nephew and his nephew. It's fun to watch them grow and learn what Stryder and I learned through this sport."
The hope is that by the time the kids reach high school they will be prepared to be successful.
"It's hard to make a state champion out of a kid who started when he was a junior," said Dan Davis, who wrestled at Boise State.
The tight-knit staff members have similar philosophies about what it takes to be a successful wrestler.
They preach that pushing the pace of the match is key and that each wrestler needs to believe he can win no matter the odds.
And if a South Salem wrestler wants to know what it takes to be a champion, he doesn't have to look far to see the faces of champions at multiple levels on their coaching staff.
"Sometimes I think I already know every single move out there, but sometimes they surprise me," says senior Jon Pena, who is ranked No. 8 in the state at 106. "They always bring new moves in. I don't think there's anything they don't know."
What many of the wrestlers speculate about is who among the coaching staff would win on the mat.
Dan Davis is the popular pick among the staff members.
"I would say in a wrestle- off against any other coaching staff we would crush," Stryder says.

A glimpse of an AIA Wrestling Summer Tour

2 min clip on a University of Minnesota wrestlers experience on an AIA summer tour to Moldova and Russia!