• This past week, a story broke about an incident a few years ago at the University of North Carolina where a student-athlete was awarded an A- grade for a ten-sentence paper. The story went viral as did the criticism surrounding the "paper classes" that seemed to be part of the college landscape to prop up collegiate athletes and keep them on the field in spite of poor academics. In recent days, further details have come to light on the story. The stories themselves beg a couple of questions, firstly we might ask, "What is truth?" in the same vein that Pilate once asked that famous philosophical question. I have come to learn in my time in the world that the truth (as

    Apr 06,
  • Native Indigenous Boy’s Team in Amubri gets uniforms Luis Alberto Leon is a quiet, unassuming business Chinese Costa Rican who has been involved with the indigenous Native Indians of the Amubri community in the Southeast Region of Talamanca in Costa Rica for years. He has privately collected toys and gifts from friends in the community to take Christmas gifts to the children of the community and sponsored many teenagers to achieve their educational and soccer goals. Luis, who was himself a soccer star in high school, was pleasantly surprised to know that CrossTraining wanted to donate uniforms for the boy’s team in Amubri. When Associate Chaplain Hugo Venegas was in Costa Rica, he connected with Leon, whom he had known in high

    Apr 03,
  • Whilst scanning the Twitterverse a few weeks ago, former Colorado Rapids Forward Andre Aukpan (@auakpan), now with New York Red Bulls, highlighted a story on the National Football League's Rashard Mendenhall retiring at the age of 26. The story (written by Mendenhall) presents a odd perspective that rarely exists in professional sport these days. To understand that the world sees him more as an entertainer, and to make a decision not to continue to punish his body for the sake of entertainment shows a depth of wisdom and insight for someone as young as Mendenhall. While perhaps not a player with the same professional athletic achievements as Mendenhall, Rapids defender Kory Kindle's retirement earlier this year was along the same

    Mar 30,
  • Youth at Getsemaní Baptist Church get prayers unexpectantly answered. Many of the young males and females at the Getsemaní Baptist Church in Limon, Costa Rica, are passionate soccer fans, whose passion translates from the stands to the field and from the pew to the prayer closet. With this passion for football, many of the youth and some of the adults in the congregation formed a team and started playing against other church teams and secular teams in the Caribbean town of Port Limon. Though they enjoyed playing, doing so without uniforms was a major concern. Was God interested in soccer uniforms? Was this something they could pray about? They did!!!   After over a year and a half of praying for

    Mar 27,
  • With World Cup 2014 Brazil, just a few months away, millions are preparing for the largest event in the world to capture the imaginations and dreams of people young and old, from hundreds of different countries, and many different backgrounds. In advance of the World Cup, there are many different groups and organizations looking to leverage one the largest sporting events in the world (next to Olympic opening ceremonies), and if the last World Cup (2010) viewing numbers - estimated close to 1 billion with TV and internet viewing - is to be believed, the 2014 finale will probably grow beyond. It is probably safe to say that the World Cup has significant influence globally. But while some will use

    Mar 25,

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