Thank you for your prayers for the ETBU Softball team and staff on their Tiger Athletic Mission Experience trip to Australia. Please see below a final recap and reflection from Head Softball Coach Janae Shirley.
Today our journey came to an end with our 30 plus hour trip back to Texas. In reflecting on our time in Australia I am in awe of how God perfectly scripted the trip. I know personally, He used this trip to slow me down. Though the delays, travel challenges, and other hiccups would have normally thrown us all for a loop, from the beginning I know He kept telling us and showing us, to slow down, take a look around, enjoy the people you are with, and the things you can see and be where your feet are.
This year our team focus has been on identity and we have been collectively reading a book together. Most of the players read it during their travel on this trip. The whole focus of the book was to take a step back and not allow our identity to be in a game, in a sport, in our results, but for our identity to be in Christ. Through our time on this trip, little by little, God opened up doors for us to show us what that looked like. Some of the doors were travel changes, some of them were in game failures or mishaps, some were in the form of small children after hours in the sun playing softball. Each of these little intentional and scripted pieces of our trip crafted by God, opened up our teams heart to shifting our focus to Him and not to our sport.
On Sunday, my eyes were truly opened to what He was doing. We were worshipping as a team at Hillsong Church and there was a moment when I could just feel Him speaking to our team. I was sitting behind the team during church and everything about the songs we sang, the specific people that were prayed for, and the message focused on identity, I know He had us there for a reason, He needed us far from what we were accustomed to and separated from our comfort, to allow us to grow as a team and grow closer to Him.
