Soccer Competition

Recently we had the opportunity to help put on a soccer tournament for orphanages in the Odessa area. Eight orphanages participated (some travelling as far as 3 hours), and the winner now gets to travel to Kyiv to represent our region in a national competition. It was thrilling to see so many people work together to give these young boys a chance to play organized sports. I enjoyed being on a team that visited 4 of these orphanages in preparation for this event. It was very interesting to mingle with the kids in their own setting & get a glimpse of what life is like for them. Sometimes on these excursions, after we got off the main highway the only traffic we saw was a lone bicycle or horse & wagon. But these kids proved you don’t have to live in the big city to play soccer well… on one occasion they used the muddy conditions of their “home field” advantage to great effect as they thrashed us adults!

For the actual tournament I was assigned to one of the teams to assist them with any questions they had. I was nervous with my language and copied down any soccer terms I could think of to carry in my pocket. When this team realized I was their coordinator, their expression seemed to convey that they were getting a raw deal. For the first half of the day they said very little to me, but by the end of the day they were asking me every question they could think of, from why an American would come to Ukraine when half of Ukraine is trying to get to America, to how many movie stars I’ve met (since Quincy is a popular retreat destination for Hollywood). When one of the boys found out we want to work in orphanages, he got very excited and asked which orphanages. I replied that we’ll go anywhere where the doors are open. His eyes got very big & and said the doors to his orphanage are always open! Now if we can just get the orphanage director to feel the same way….