Ben Norcia’s Blog (Chronicles of Norcia) Ch 2 Ep 3: Gringo?

 

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,”
‭‭Titus‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬

 

First and foremost I need to thank you guys for all the love on the Santa Martha basketball project, it really means the world to all of us down here!! You guys have absolutely blessed the kids down here and I am so excited to say that in less than 24 hours of the GoFundMe being published, we have raised over 500$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your generosity is so incredible and I thank God for all of you and for your prayers! I really have been blown away by how incredible you guys are. Praise God!

Situation update: We are still looking for nets but we have reached out to a few people from around here who are going to find us a pair. The Lord provides!!! Again I just want to thank all of you with all of my heart for how supportive you’ve been. I cannot express how grateful we all are down here. Thank You!!!

 

This blog now is kind of a more standard Chronicles of Norcia episode compared to the last one which was uncharacteristically short so as not to stain the purpose of the post with unnecessary fluff, bizarre stories, and Bloggy rants. This episode, however, has no such deeper content, meaning I have free reign to tell whatever stories I want, pour out whatever random ramblings I want, rant about whatever corrupt Blog award show I want, and most importantly, write it however I want. It is going to be a collection of random moments, tales, and stories from my first two weeks here in Guatemala. Please enjoy reading about all this crazy stuff because I’ve definitely enjoyed living through all this crazy stuff.

 

Aventuras en Misiones

 

Some baseline Guatemala stuff: they call us “Gringo’s” here which I guess is supposed to be an endearing term for us whiteys. All the bus and van drivers know exactly where to take us when they pick us up, when they see white teenagers they come by, “Missiones? Missiones?” and know to take us to the base. A lot of the kids call us “proffers” which I guess is short for professore and they’re not calling me “prophet”. *sigh* One day maybe. They pronounce my name here like “Bin-yah-mean” which according to one lady is a “really Gringo name”.

The whole squad is staying on a base called Aventuras en Misiones. It is incredible. Its a large square base with an L-shaped building consisting of a cafeteria and eight bedrooms, complete with a footy field and electric fence around the complex. Each time stays in a room together, meaning all eight D.O.G.s are staying in one bedroom across four bunk beds.

Laws and regulations for the bathroom we share emerged quickly, and any violators are swiftly and efficiently dealt with. For your sake, I will not go into details about bathroom regulations, and I will leave it mostly up to your imagination. (Privacy does not exist. At. All. I’ve never seen so much underwear.) It’s really all awesome though, and the joy of Doug’s shower singing has blessed both our room and the next few rooms down from us on a number of occasions.

 

On a high note, I’ve stepped out among the squad in ways I never ever (ever ever ever) would have expected to before being here. On Saturday, the squad had a worship session after dinner leading into our Sabbath. Said worship session was led by none other than the greatest missionary rapper himself. This was not something in my comfort zone. At all. Truthfully, I really love worship and when the worship team said they want someone other than the same few people to lead on Saturday, well I’m sure you can imagine the rest. I jumped on the opportunity faster than I had time to realize what I was agreeing to. I told them I would not, and could not promise I would sing well, but I did promise I would sing my heart out.

So in a fashion classically associated with Ben Norcia, the whole thing that I had a week to prepare for got put together at dinner right before. I recruited an All-Star cast of Jackson and Dawson, and I have to give a major shoutout to these guys because they really put the whole thing together because I had no idea what to do. It was awesome. I was inspired to share a random poem of praise I’d written a few nights before and I’ll be adding it on the second page of this blog because a couple of you guys asked me for it. Honestly the love it got was really awesome, shoutout dub squad for supporting me so much. Love y’all for real.

After worship ended Dawson had a gleam in his eye that I knew meant something was about to happen. He connected to his speaker, started playing some hype worship music, and the cafeteria turned into a dance party at 9:30 pm. It was awesome. Pentecost Daws came out in full force and the whole room was going nuts dancing and praising. I’d pay for front row seats to a Dawson concert any day of the week. That man’s energy when he gets into it is unparalleled.

Secondly, we had squad church on Sunday and I gave a sermon. To be honest, it was kind of just a word I was giving to Sam and Clayton and then Mr Hospitality decided it was worthy of organizing a squad church for. Shoutout Sam, I was super excited to share it because I think it’s a really good word. I have a voice memo of it and it’s about 15 minutes long so if you’d like to listen, shoot me a Whatsapp text and I’ll send it if I ever get wifi in the next week or so. I was super excited to share it though, and it was received so well I really had a great time with it. Rabbi Ben they joked. Would you have ever guessed I’d be here in Guatemala giving sermons to missionaries? Yeah me neither. And yet, here we are, standing in a missionary base, amid the gorgeous Guatemalan mountain ranges, preaching to a couple dozen of my peers about Jesus. His ways are truly greater than ours. 🙂

 

Tiki-Taka Norsh

The first order of business is probably the downloading of tiki-taka Norsh. The first day we arrived at the beautiful base here in the gorgeous Guatemalan mountains we got our first game of international W squad footy going. Everyone had a blast and it was a great moment of team building, recreational fun, and laughing at Norcia. For me, it was a disaster. Please read this in the tragic tone it was written in, it is painful reliving these moments. That first day of Guatemala footy I put on a performance so laughable that my lowlight reel has been circulating comedy clubs around the country and putting stand up comics out of business.

I was drafted early to Team Valverde (shoutout Sam for believing in me) (terrible pick though) and I will neither confirm nor deny if I was worth the pick I was taken with. Benjamino (as some fans like to refer to me as) was wisely (this was not thought through well in the slightest) placed at striker. My shooting percentage mirrored that of playoff Ben Simmons, a comparison I thought I would only experience in nightmares. By the conclusion of the first half (Doug kicked the ball over the fence and had to trek out into the unknown to recover it so we had an impromptu halftime) I was scoreless, despite taking about a dozen shots. This is not an overstatement (it was a performance worthy of a swift end to a promising career).

The cheering section that had built up of various characters, mostly consisting of the girl team leaders, had become huge (100% out of pure pity) Benjamino fans. I boldly predicted a second half hat trick (I was about 0/12 at this point and only a rare few had even been on goal) and a comeback victory (we trailed 5-2).

If my first half blues had not been enough reason for my fans to desert, the failure to fulfill either promise should have done the trick. Despite a valiant effort from Benjamino, who scored two electric goals that shot the bleacher mobs to their feet and kept them there, the late surge was not enough, and Team Valverde fell 7-5. I was humiliated.

Despite all my footy blues, the best fans in the world refused to desert me, despite my being at the lowest point of my career (Shoutout Emmery, Grace, and Ally, the most loyal fans in the world. Yall make me proud to be on the pitch every time I fail to score a 1 on 1 against the goalie, get knocked over by center-backs as they steal my dribble, and whiff on wide open shots while standing right in front of the goal).

After my demise (the match) concluded, I valiantly stood before fans and critics alike and boldly declared that tiki-taka Norsh will be fully loaded by Thanksgiving. Consider staying tuned for updates, if not you can just wait for the documentary that’s probably coming out on ESPN about it sometime soon.

 

Kid’s Ministry

 

Working with REINDOM, a huge part of our ministry has been working with kids in the villages we go to. In Santa Martha, the village we go to a few days a week, we mostly help out at the school with various tasks. So far, I’ve gone out with a team into the village to share the Gospel and pray for people, cleaned the school, helped prepare lunches for all the kids, helped out with PE class, played tons of soccer, bonded with a bunch of little guys, learned zero Spanish, and assisted Bible and English classes.

These are really the sweetest kids ever they are so cute. They always want to run up and hug you and they are obsessed with piggy back rides. They have so much energy and they just get so excited when we show up every morning. It is so heart warming to work them and they are so easy to love. I’ll put a picture of me below with one of my little buddies, he’s adorable!

As you know from the last blog, I got to coach basketball class one day and my new favorite project has been laid out before me. I have unlimited creative space to bring basketball to this village and I have never, in my life, been more excited about anything. The moment I realized how much I had to share with basketball at the school was when they asked me if I could give them a training program to continue after I leave. This is the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me. Shoutout Jesus for putting me here, Love that guy.

Co-leading the Santa Martha Basketball Project is truthfully the most honored I’ve ever felt. Huge, colossal shoutout to John Teter for leading it with me. Massive shoutout to that guy, this wouldn’t be happening without him. Also huge shoutout to REINDOM (the best ministry host) for their allowing us to pour out. All the guys on the team are being allowed to use our gifts and abilities to help build the place up and REINDOM has been such incredible hosts.

 

The AIM Base Ball Scene

 

At the AIM base there is an 8 foot hoop that, to my severe disappointment, has barely been used. Until now. Four teams have been drawn up for a 3v3 tournament taking place on Thursday. It. Is going. To go. Down. We had a sneak peek of what 3s on the short net looks like last weekend, and fans of action were fed all the excitement they could have asked for and then some.

The teams were drawn Chicos v Chicas, and the bout began. Team Chicos consisted of Malachi, Sam, and myself. Team Chicas consisted of Ally, Hannah, HoopTown USA’s very own: Wallace. All three chicas are ball players I seriously respect and I don’t say that light heartedly. Ally played every year of high school and she’s actually really shifty, and Hannah’s jumper so pure I don’t think I’ve seen her miss a mid-range to date.

Unfortunately for Team Chicas, the 8 foot net was not kind to them.

The third play of the game, with Team Chicos leading 1-0 Malachi set a monster screen on Ally who was guarding me. Hannah picked up high on me, and Ally dropped to Malachi. At this moment, the course of AIM base basketball changed forever. The ball materialized in Malachi’s hands and he threw down a Monster Jam with so much Boom he couldn’t have faked the funk on that nasty dunk even if he’d tried. The pass that got it there? A bounce pass between Hannah’s legs so precise and so accurate that the ball was entering Malachi’s hands before anyone on the court realized what happened.

The game was a massacre.

It turned into Slam City after that, and Malachi was indistinguishable from Dwight Howard the rest of the game. The dunk of the game came from me Yamming a poster on Ally so vicious I had to draw the moment during breakfast the next morning. The drawing is attached at the bottom and I can assure you the word SLAM appearing in the sky and cement cracking from the might of the dunk are not exaggerated, as all the surrounding mountains shook from its ferocity. The Jam was so vicious that 43% of all Guatemalan boys from ages 4-16 have the poster on their wall now.

Teams for the tournament on Thursday (fortunately for the Chicas) have been made much more fairly, with two chicos and one chica per squad. There will probably either be a blog post on Friday commending a valiant victory for my team or radio silence for weeks as I recover from a crushing defeat.

 

Conclusion

 

So yeah this is how life is going! The footy matches have been fun despite my humiliation every time I step on the pitch, the basketball scene is starting up and it’s awesome, ministry has been amazing and the kids are just so sweet, I’m learning how to tell strangers about the Gospel, I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone within the squad, and life in Guatemala has been overall fantastic. Enjoy some of these moments below and the poem on the next slide. God Bless!

 

(from left to right: Dom, the greatest missionary rapper, Dwight Howard in 2009, McNick, John Teter, God’s Gift to Women, Luke, and Bankitos)