Well, basketball season came to a close last Saturday. This was such a fun season! The girls really came together as a team this year. As coaches, Whitney and I were amazed to see how much they grew not only as basketball players, but as people. During the regular season we won two of our games and lost three.
Saturday we had a tournament with our newly formed league. We came in third place, winning two games and losing one. The girls were so excited about their trophy. However, they were even more excited when they won the sportsmanship trophy which was awarded to the team voted to have the best sportsmanship by the other teams and coaches. We are so proud of them for winning this award! As coaches that’s what we want for them – to grow in love for others as they grow to love their sport.
Here are most of the girls with their new trophies. Aren’t they cute?
There are more pictures here: Middle School Basketball
Basketball season is over. We had such a good time coaching this year. Both the boys’ and the girls’ teams grew so much during the season. My favorite example of this is the sweet girl pictured to the right who was scared to death to even be on the court at the beginning of the season. During our last game, she was on the bench next to me and she looked at Whitney (our head coach) and said, “Miss G. sub me in! I will box-out all those ladies!” It was fantastic.
I’m currently in the midst of basketball season with the middle school boys here at VCS. We’ve had a lot of fun in practice, games, and on road trips.
Our current record is 1-4, but that doesn’t reflect the massive improvement I’ve seen this season. Another team even commented on how much they’ve improved since the last time we played!
We returned only three players from last season, but the new recruits are catching on quickly. Our last two games against QSI Bratislava and DIS were lost by 3 and 5 points respectively and were very well played. A few breaks here and there and we’d be 3-2 instead of 1-4.
We’ve got three more games on our schedule during the last week of February. Please pray that we will grow as a team in the next couple of weeks and perform well in our games.
More basketball pictures can be found on our Flickr site.
Goodness! Time goes so quickly around the holidays. I can’t believe we’re already in the middle of January!
Christmas in Vienna was great. We hung out with friends, relaxed, and enjoyed the city. I even survived having Christmas without my family. That is definitely not my ideal, but like I said, I survived. 
Last Monday we had our first middle school girls’ basketball game. We lost 21-38, but for a team of girls who have never played basketball before, 21 points was an amazing victory! We have two girls on our team who have played league basketball for several years (Americans, of course), but the rest of our team consists mostly of girls who hadn’t touched a basketball before December. I was so proud of them!
Anne Redner is the head coach and as we were discussing our goals for the team, we decided that we want them to play their absolute best and to learn to love being a part of a team. If they win games we’ll consider that icing on the cake. Knowing that those were our goals made watching our first game that much better. After the game one of the girls, who begged us not to put her in, told Anne that she wasn’t afraid anymore and that she had a lot of fun. Yay! Mission accomplished!
It’s true. Something strange has indeed happened. I am now the Assistant Coach for our middle school girls’ basketball team. Yikes! I don’t know if my dad is going to be proud or very, very afraid for the world of basketball. As for me, I just think it means the world is a little topsy-turvy.
I’m excited, though, to try this new area of ministry. The girls are all very sweet. One of the great benefits is that I’m getting to spend time with some of the students who have moved on from elementary. I miss them when they head upstairs to the middle school!
The other really exciting part is that I get to spend some extra time with my dear friend Anne who is leaving at the end of this year to head back to the States. She is the head coach, and it’s out of love for her that I agreed to take on this little challenge.
Please feel free to pray for all of us.
