BloodBall

In the Lifelines ministry we are always trying to think of new and creative ways to reach out to students on campus- to get them involved in healthy, engaging activities where we can meet them, build relationships with them, and eventually get to share with them the hope that we have found in Christ. This isn't always an easy task- especially with men on campus. These days it can be pretty hard to get students away from their video games long enough to engage them in anything. So this semester Joe started a weekly outreach on Friday afternoons called "BloodBall." Joe bought this HUGE red ball (it's really big- I'm not quite sure the pictures do it justice)- and every week a group of guys from campus gather on the campus mall to play...I mean attack each other. From my limited understanding they play a game that is similar to rugby- basically there are two teams and each one is trying to get the huge red ball into their scoring zone (like soccer)- 0nly I don't think there are very many rules. It's just kind of a free-for-all with a lot of tackling, running, grabbing, etc... And the guys on campus are loving it. Pretty much every week they have guys who are just passing by come to join them. Most of the guys that play aren't otherwise involved in the Lifelines ministry. In fact many of them are from one of the fraternities on campus- and just recently a bunch of guys from the Rugby team have been coming out to play! It's been a great way for Joe (and our intern John) to get to know guys on campus and to introduce them to what we do with Lifelines. And like all the other guys Joe loves it- he comes home a little sore and beaten up- but it seems like a great way for these guys to get outside.

Lily and I ventured onto campus last Friday to try to get some pictures of them playing. As you can see it got dark pretty quick so I wasn't able to get a lot of great pictures- but I got a few to give you an idea. I also didn't want to get too close to the action (since there really aren't any boundaries or rules)! For some reason Lily was really intimidated by the guys- and at one point she said, "Mommy, I don't like boys." I'm pretty sure that this is music to Joe's ears!:)