Misfits

A.K.A. Los Extremos. I’m not saying that they’re misfits as in they don’t belong. I mean this like I’ve got a bunch of kids who aren’t the same at all on the same team. Every time we go to play a game, I imagine like we’re the team from The Sandlot and every other team is that nice team who shows up with their uniforms, acting like they’re all that and a bag of Sabritas. We’re the team who has kids from different parts of town, some of them being friends, some of them barely even knowing each other, while the other teams formed from their little groups in school or from their street, so they all know and get along with each other. Just about every kid on the team has joined from seeing us practicing in the soccer field, and then they might bring a friend they know. Three of the past four games, I’ve had several kids give up mid-game, angry kids throwing their goalie gloves on the ground while playing goalie, and even one kid get a yellow card pulled out on him for running his mouth. These things, unfortunately, are all caused because one kid on our team says something offensive to the other, causing a quarrel which ends up not too good. I’ve talked to them all several times about how we are a team and that if someone messes up, we mess up as a team. If someone does well, we do well as a team. There’s no individual glory. Yes, there are some kids who score almost all of the goals, but we do so as a team. There has not been a single time where we have won due to a single person doing everything. The truth, this season, we haven’t won many games at all. What I can say, though, is that the games we have won, they’ve been beautiful games: hard work, not a lot of conflicts, teamwork, the definition of a winning team. This past game, it was just that. We had gone to play with only five players from our team, and we grabbed another player from another team who just happened to be there to play with us for just that game, making six in total. The games are 7v7. The other team, not caring about the unfairness (although it was our fault for not having the players) played against us 6v7. The extra kid we had from another team seemed to know a lot about teamwork, and we won 6-4. I wanted to cry and steal that kid for our team all at the same time.  He wasn’t the only reason we won that game, though. Our goalie was finally guiding his defense so that we had a nice defensive set-up. Jonathan and the new kid made some really nice plays passing the ball back and forth, making their way through the other players. Samuel and Alberto did a super awesome job at defense, blocking a lot of balls from going into our goal. There was a team. Even though my kids come from many different walks of life, ranging from having that little extra money to “Let’s see if we’re going to eat something different rather than beans for dinner,” from having that homework and life help when necessary to defending for their own, from confident to really insecure due to their poor family life, they are truly such an amazing team. If we played every game like this last one, we’d be unstoppable. I mean, we didn’t win that last tournament for doing nothing. Separate, they may just be like a bunch of random puzzle pieces, but together, they make that beautiful team I like to call Los Extremos. They’re no longer “Misfits,” but a family, a well-running family. I just wish they’d stay that way, not just when they win, haha. Pray for Alberto, Samuel, Yahir, Jonathan, Jhon, Octavio, Oswaldo, and Alexis to stay a team, in the good and the bad, and to always be lifting each other up.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensible, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor…But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.” – 1 Corinthians 12:21-23a, 24b-26

There's no newsletter for this month due to me being out-of-state without the correct equipment to do so, but I will be writing posts like this to keep everyone informed!