Yesterday I was able to head over to the fieldhouse and "play" a little basketball with my good friend Andy Tao. I say "play" because, well, let's be honest... I'm a runner, not a baller. Anyway, back to the ridiculousness- Andy and I were basically the only two in the entire gym, minus these two other guys at the far end. It didn't take them but five minutes to approach us and ask if we could all play together. We welcomed the challenge, and played a little 2-on-2 for a while. The guys names were Raul and Goto... from Brazil and Japan. SO- we had Andy, from China, who has been here for 4 months, Raul, from Brazil, here for 1 year, and Goto (go-toe), from Japan, who arrived in the states 6 months ago. Oh, and me, the token tall white American. Talk about incredible! I love Iowa City, I love the "melting pot" that it is (thanks go to Mrs. Gomez for teaching me about the melting pot of America in 3rd grade), and I love how only the Lord could orchestrate something crazy like this on a Tuesday afternoon. To make a long story short, Tao hit a long range bomb to win the game for us (always nice to win), which was followed by a sit down pow wow with all the guys. We talked about life, why these guys are all here in Iowa, etc., and then exchanged emails (their idea!). Yep, going to the nations is as easy as going to play basketball when you know you're likely to get embarrassed. Excited for what's to come out of this one.