new england revolution exhibition game

On Saturday March 13th, the men's team had an exhibition game against the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. We were really excited about the game because it was a great way for the Eagles to get people excited about soccer in the area. Besides that, we are able to reach a new group of people who might not normally come to our soccer games.

Leading up to the game we had the largest pre-sale in Charlotte Eagles history, over 1500 people. Unfortunately the forecast called for rain during the game. We were a little worried that we would not get a good turnout but in the end we had over 2,000 people. The one problem was that about 8 minutes into the game we had a lightning strike. We had to clear the stadium because we were on an open aluminum stands. As we were doing that people assumed that the game was over so they left the game. What we were trying to tell everyone was that we had to wait 30 minutes and they if there were no other strikes we could resume the game.

Praise the Lord we were able to resume the game and played all 90 minutes of the game. In the end the Eagles lost 2-0 but had some very good chances on goal, including hitting the post once and sending three just skipping wide of the post. The team played extremely well for only being together for about one week. The NE Revolution had been together for almost a month now.

On another note, as we have mentioned in the previous post, Caitlin has been helping with graphic designs for the team. She was able to produce a great program that we distributed. The cool thing was that we asked one of the coaches to write his story on the back of the program. We were able to distribute over 1,000 programs to the fans and players from New England that had that testimony on the back.

That same player actually played against the Eagles many years ago and received a similar testimony of an Eagles player which helped eventually lead him to Christ. It was his idea to do this again, planting a seed that the Lord could use to bring a player, fan, coach, or official to Christ. It was an awesome thing to be a part of such a great organization who's focus is to serve God!

Thank you again for each of you who makes this possible for Caitlin and I to be here. We pray for you and praise God for you!

Prayer requests:

- Caitlin is still looking for a job

- My mother's mother took a spill last week and ended up with some damage to her arm and head. She is ok now but is recovering from a surgery to repair a fracture in her elbow.

- We are close to finalizing the roster for the women's team. Please pray for the women that are not sure if they should play or not and those that we have to say no to.

Take care and I look forward to hearing from you.

recruiting, tryouts, and more.....

One of my very first responsibilities was to start recruiting players for the team. Coming into the position, I was most nervous about this aspect because it has such long term effects. What if brought in the wrong person, or what if she did this or didn't do that. It was starting to weigh heavily on me. I had been praying about it and realized that God already knows who is supposed to come and how to get them here. I feel like I have these moments when I just sit back and know that it is totally out of my control.

One aspect of recruiting that fell to me was putting on an open tryout. Actually, 95% of the recruiting will normally fall to me, but because I came on staff in the thick of things it has been split between myself and our head coach. As for the tryout, we open it to anyone across the country who is able to come and who wants to be a part of our ministry. This year the tryout fell on Saturday, March 13, 2010. Normally just any old Saturday, but this year it was also the date of our Men's team exhibition match against the New England Revolution from Major League Soccer. (Look for more on that story another time!)

So as the date approached, I was starting to get a little anxious because of the small number of women committed to coming. Yet again God shows His goodness, and we had over 25 women show up, as well as 4 players who are veterans on our team. For us, 25 is a great number and more importantly, the level of play was the highest it has ever been. That is the good part; the difficult part is that it falls to me to make the phone calls to the players who do not make the team.

Both myself and Lee (our head coach) wish we could take more players than we are allowed because we know that if we could just get the women in our environment, then God will change them in mighty ways. Let me clarify what I mean by "allowed". Per the rules for the league we are in, the United Soccer Leagues W-League, we are allowed to roster 26 players at one time. (Meaning we can have a player rostered at the beginning of the year and then switch her out for another one at the end.) We are only allowed to dress 18 for games, meaning only 18 girls have the chance to play in a game. Because we are a ministry, we usually only have the resources to roster 24 players and then have another 3-4 players as what we call "non-rostered" players. The 3-4 players are women who have a strong desire and call to sports ministry and specifically to the Lady Eagles. We allow them to practice with us everyday, to participate in our ministry training and small group studies, to go on our mission trip if they desire, and to serve in any other way the team is able to. The only thing they are not allowed to do is play in any games.

To some of you who are reading this, that might not seem like a big deal. But to women who, more often than not, have only ever felt good about themselves when they are on a soccer field, it is a big deal. You have to understand that more than anything, the team exists to bring women in to train them how to use their faith on the field and how to share that faith with others. Before we can show them how to do that, we need to help them grow in their own relationship with Christ.

Each of the women that come onto the team are at a different point in their spiritual walk with the Lord. We try and do things that will be able to encourage and grow each woman specifically in their own walk with Christ. As you can imagine, that is a very difficult thing to do, but we know that it is nothing that we as leaders can do to save someone; it is only through Christ one can have life eternal. So we try to point them to Christ and be a support group and talking board for many of them.

Wow, I just realized that the last three paragraphs stemed from me trying to elaborate on what I meant by "allowed". Sorry, back on topic now.

So we wish we could have more women come and be a part of the ministry because we truly believe that it would change anyone who was a part of it for the better. But, alas, we cannot, and that is what leads us to where I am at today.

We have just completed the tryout and, as I mentioned before, had a great turn out of quality players. They not only ranged in age and quality of play, but also in spirituality. We had some women who came who did not know that we were a Christian team and who did not have much if any knowledge of Christ. God gave us a cool opportunity to witness to them during our lunch break of the tryout. I opened the time up with prayer for our food and then when they were done eating I showed a video about Missionary Athletes International. After the video, I was able to share about how God called me to MAI to be a missionary and told them that people like you (who are reading this right now) have sent me money so that I can hold a tryout so that they could come and have an opportunity to play soccer. That definitely turned some heads!

I told them about the different ministry outreaches we do and that we are first a ministry and second a soccer team. Yet, we want to glorify God in everything that we do and do the very best we can; meaning we are not going to use our Christianity as a crutch or excuse so that we do not have to try. After I spoke, I had a former player speak and give her story of how Christ led her to the Lady Eagles and then I had a current player speak. When they were speaking, you could see each lady in the room fixed right on them and eating up each word. So many of them could relate to what our players where saying, it was awesome to sit back and watch God work. Then Lee spoke about the team, and when he was done, it made me want to play.

I truly pray that each of you reading this will be able to someday come to Charlotte and see what you being involved in this ministry actually does. We could not do any of this without you, and I wish there was a way I could better show you that. I love and appreciate all of you, and I pray for you as you pray for me. I am sorry this was so long; it was supposed to be a short post, but you understand.

I will hopefully be posting again soon. I am working out the kinks of how this all works and the best way to inform you all, so please bear with me. Thank you again, and please give me a call or shoot me an email. I would love to hear about you and what you are up to. I am going to be trying to give each of you a call in the coming month before the season starts. If you have not heard from me, please give me a call when you have a moment. I always want to hear from you.

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for me as I have to call the women who did not make the team. Pray that God will give me the words to say and that each of them will be able to know that God has a plan for their lives.

- Pray for Caitlin as she is still looking for work. She has been doing some graphic design work for the Eagles which is awesome. (You can check out all of her stuff at www.theboxcardesign.com, which is under construction but does have the majority of her Eagles designs.) Let us know if you need baby announcements or wedding invitations, she is your girl!

- Pray for each of the players on our team. (I am going to post the roster when we finalize it and I would like everyone to pick a player to pray for when you pray for me!)

Praise: Levi Peter Auyer was born Feb 23, 6 pounds 10 ounces 18 inches! His parents, Rachael and Jason Auyer, and big brother Sam are doing great, and we just Praise God for His awesome creation!!!