Here is a short little video that I made after my last trip to Guatemala. I got sidetracked and never finished it…but perhaps one of these days. The video actually ends around the 2:30 mark FYI.
April 29, 2008
W.I.N.D. short video
April 25, 2008
Sometimes it’s better to ditch the plan
I never go into a swim practice without having a specific workout planned out for that day. What we do depends on many factors such as: the time in the season, work done in previous workouts that week, what I feel my swimmers need to improve on, etc. Today I walked into practice and a couple of my swimmers begged me to do 20 x 100s @ 1:30 (20 times through 100 yards beginning every minute and thirty seconds). This also happens to be the test set in which swimmers need to pass in order to move on to the next level on the team. Now, I didn’t plan a very aerobic workout. My plan was to do more drills to clean up strokes with the longest set only being 800 yards or so. But when kids beg you to work hard (this doesn’t happen very often, believe it or not), it’s hard to say no. The right mix of kids were there to do it so I had everybody in my group attempt the grueling set. And I was shocked at how well everybody did. Everybody made more of the 100s than I thought they would. They were cheering each other on, congratulating each other, and they all worked their tail off. It was beautiful. Now, we didn’t do one thing in my original workout plan and it turned into one of the best practices of the year. Everybody left feeling good about themselves and motivated to do better next time. Man, I love coaching! 
April 20, 2008
Influence
It’s 1982 and Skip is being dragged to a missions conference by his wife. The keynote speaker gets off topic and talks about the billions of dollars the government is spending in weapons to stop communism in Central America. Then he says “with all that money we should just buy all that land and give it to the poor and get rid of the communists once and for all.” And then he said “As people of God, we SHOULD do this.” Then, he went on with the rest of his speech. That little diversion of his speech changed Skips life.
It’s 1999 and Fred partners his church, Westminster Chapel, with an organization called Agros. Agros is an organization that buys and then loans land for indigenous villages in Central America. Agros then helps these villages pay the loan by educating them on for-profit agriculture and other ways to adapt them to the ever increasing capitalistic world. A new Agros village, Cajixay, needs a church partner to begin the sustainable process.
It’s 2003 and Fred has led several different teams to Cajixay, helping the village and building relationships. The villagers are hesitant to trust the new foreigners. Children hide behind their parents. With increasing trips, the trust builds. Kids begin holding the new people’s hands. The foreigners are invited into homes. Fred brings in several new people to bring down on trips to the tiny village.
It’s 2005 and Bob has been so touched and changed by his journeys to Guatemala that he decides to get his whole company involved. This results in many new houses being built in Cajixay. Many people in his company visits the village and experience life changes.
It’s 2006 and Nancy, Kevin, Rich, and Maurina have been so moved by all their journeys to Guatemala and have seen so much need that they start their own organization called W.I.N.D. of God. They work with a bible institute that educates pastors and partners them with sponsors in the U.S. Baltizar, the first graduate, is a pastor in 10 villages.
Benjamin, because of the relationships built with his friends in the the U.S., decides to take a risk and grow lettuce in his garden and build a greenhouse to grow tomatoes. Others in his community see his success and decide to follow.
Agros works with 33 villages and has partnered with just as many churches. The amount of lives changed from both Central America and the United States are staggering. It all started with a random thought shared by some speaker at a conference. How crazy is that? We all have a lot more influence than we give ourselves credit for.
As a coach, I am in a position to influence children’s lives everyday. Any little thing that comes out of my mouth, or any little mundane action that I do without thinking, can influence behaviors, hopes, dreams, etc. Then, from there, what I influence in that person can influence somebody else. There is no limit to how far it can go. So I have to ask myself, what kind of influence am I leaving on others’ lives and thus, on the world? Is it positive or negative? If I were able to know the difference I made in people’s lives (and we ALL have made some sort of difference), would I be proud or ashamed? Every action we take everyday has the possibility of making a much bigger difference than we can ever imagine!
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