Inaburra High School

Jason and I set out early Wednesday for a long "morning" at Inaburra Christian High School in the southern suburb of Bangor (outside Sydney). The appearance was to honour a promise to Inaburra to provide a clinic for their school if they brought more than 70 people to the Jason Smith Fan Day last November. (I think they were actually top school with over 85!)

We did a last minute preparation and prayer during our 20 minute drive over and then met Lisa (volunteer prayer warrior...and mum of one of the students) at the car park. Checked in and met the Principal of the school and then headed down to the basketball gym which was set up for over 500 students.

Assembly...An unbelievably attentive crowd sat through introductions, my challenge to choose Jesus as their personal champion through life, and Jason's very effective sharing of his life journey...along with the prayer he said to become a Christian (as a model of the "how to"). The feedback was extremely positive...and especially reports that we heard from a couple of students regarding their not-yet-Christian classmates. Jason spent about 20 minutes of a 30 minute morning tea signing autographs. He was basically signing a personal photo/journey story player card published as a joint project of AIA and the Bible Society. With his autograph the card becomes a valuable item to his fans and hopefully they will read his story many times...and therefore think of Jesus often.

Clinics...Jason was superb in two back to back clinics--one for the boys and one for the girls. Basically the basics...dribbling and shooting. Jason said he didn't need to apologise for that since it is what the professional teams still practice at almost every training session. Some good coaching but mostly it was rewarding just to see the kids having fun.

Training session...Jason finished off the long morning with a team defensive training session with the school's senior men's basketball team who have a big inner-school tournament next week.

All in all it was a great day. We have another big outreach type appearance on Saturday night!

There are a couple of amateur photos of the event posted below...

Inaburra Assembly

"Finger-up-nose" defensive drill

Inaburra Clinic

A Couple of Months Gap

Opps...been a while since I've "(b)logged in"...what's happened???

Trip to California to visit my parents, children, and grandson over Christmas...

Picked up on yet another "successful" Sydney Kings' season on our return. No national championship this year, but in the top four teams for the fifth year in a row...and our coach's 18th consecutive appearance in at least the semi-finals of the National Basketball League.I have been asked to officiate at one of the player's off-season wedding which is a real honour for me.

Started a new season with the NSW Waratah's--rugby union. I have "upped" my involvement with the team this year. Still leading a weekly team Bible Study (for three regulars at present) and I have been asked to start attending the weekly support team meeting with the coaches and management.

I am in intense negotiation for a pre-season evangelistic AIA tour in August in Oz between a USA Division 1 Uni All-star Christian Team and several Australian NBL teams (Kings and Wildcats are sure and Hawks, Dragons, and Razorbacks are showing interest).

Jason Smith has committed to working off-season on a number of evangelistic outreaches.