Brincar: To Play

So the other night there were about 6 or 7 kids from our alley hanging out on top of the wall that lines our patio. Because the alley is on a hill, the top of the wall on the left is even with the ground. So they are all hanging out and talking with us, while Cindy takes in her laundry. In our limited portuguese, we ask ages and what they study in school. We have them write down their names, because the pronunciation is so different, its easier to remember it once you see it written down. We talk favorite colors and if they play any sports. We talk about Baseball. They don't know it. Cindy brought a ton of stuff down from her church to use for ministry with kids and has a bat and ball. It's one of those giant plastic ones, probably just a step down from wiffle-ball. Well we make plans with the kids to meet up at our place after they get out of school on Wednesday, today, and we would go to a nearby park and learn baseball.

Today, only three of the kids showed up. Which was cool. We walked down to what was really an asphalt soccer court. About the same size as a basketball court. And started to play. Before long, Cindy noticed a kid watching from outside the fence. She invited him to join us. This continued to happen. And anyone new, we had them take several turns at bat straight away. I don't know if you have ever had the unmitigated joy of teaching someone how to run bases and then getting to cheer their first ever home-run, but it is awesome. They may not know what theyve accomplished, but they know whatever they just did, it was epic.  Soon we had enough kids for two full teams, but since the kids spoke less English than we spoke Portuguese, explaining to the new kids the subtle rules of baseball and keeping score and playing to first base seemed beyond our scope. We switched to tag.

Sharks and Minnows actually. Well kind of. In Sharks and Minnows you have two people be "it" or Sharks (" Jacare´ ") and everyone else lines up on the wall as Minnows ("Peixe" or "fish") The idea is that when someone yells "Go!" you run as fast as you can from one wall, past the sharks and get to the other wall without being tagged.  Whoever gets tagged becomes a shark and waits in the middle for the Minnows to run back to the first wall when someone yells "Go!" again. I got nearly ALL of this communicated in my limited Portuguese. All except about running straight to the other wall and stopping. So they just ran around tagging each other until EVERYONE was a shark. It worked.

Then one of the girls had brought an American football and wanted to play. We chose teams and told them essentially if your team has the ball you try to get it across the line. If your team doesn't have the ball, you go after the one with the ball and touch them with 2 hands. Then we stop play and hike the football from that distance. On the small court it became a cross between Arena Football and Rugby. If a kid got into trouble, he or she would just forward pass to another, then another then another. One kid, had really soft hands and caught it nearly all the time. They also loved Hiking the foot ball. They laughed and laughed while we were teaching that part of it. I mean think of it, throw a football upside down between your legs? That's crazy. We didn't keep score, but it would have been very high.  Finally at 5:30, we called it a day and headed home. Several kids wanted to know when we could play again. We're trying to re-arrange our schedules so that we can go back tomorrow afternoon. But regardless, we want to make it at least a weekly thing.

Isn't it strange that "ministry", which we consider this lofty self-sacrificing thing can be playing with kids? But it IS!!  It is incredibly important to a child when an adult looks into their eyes, knows their name, cares about them, finds them funny, tells them what a great job their doing, gives them a thousand high-fives and basically says  through action "You are worth my time." I was so fortunate to have many many adults make me feel worth their time when I was a kid. I thought everyone grew up that way. But I know now that I was one of the lucky few. I really want to build on what started tonight with limited language, a ton of smiles and a ball and a bat. I hope to invest in something here that continues even when I leave Brazil. Also next time, we are taking a soccer ball with us, so I hope to get really good at soccer (futebol - pronounced "foochibol"). Like world cup good. Like "I play with Brazilians so don't mess with me" good. I have five months. I can do it.