8. Gymnastics All-Around Finals!! That's right people, dream come true!! The event was completely sold out, and my friend Sidney and I were able to get tickets!! The adventure behind this story is this random guy we didn't know was called into work, and could no longer use his 2 tickets. At 12:30pm we were ticketless and at 12:36pm we were on our way to meet a mystery man in a sketchy underground tube station...now folks, this is the part in the story where the ladies usually get kidnapped and Liam Neeson has to show up and show everyone what's up (reference from the movie "Taken") but luckily for me, I was wearing a large "uncle sam" type hat that drew the attention of anyone in a 5 mile radius and had my black belt with me. (maybe it wasn't a martial arts black belt, but it was nice leather one that looked great with my jean skirt) Anywho, we had a great conversation with this random guy that is now our friend and got to see the event of a lifetime! As you all may remember, that event was incredible and watching it live is so unreal. Each team is competing at the same time on different apparatuses, so it is fun watching each routine. When it came down to the last rotation, my heart was about jumping out of my chest, I was so nervous. The atmosphere was so crazy and I was in awe of everything "WOW, that music is so cool" "The floor is the coolest color of pink ever" "I love the way these seats fold out" "I don't think coke has ever tasted so delicious!" Then when it was time for the medal ceremony....I cried a little! It is amazing to think about how hard the athletes have worked and then get to watch it all pay off right before my eyes...WOW. So, here is a picture of me in front of the gymnastics floor after everyone had left, we were probably one of the last people to leave because we didn't want it to end! :)
7. Watching the USA Men's Swimming relay team race! My parents game me some money to go see an olympic event and I got lucky enough to get to watch swimming alongside my boyfriend Kyle! We even had matching Team USA shirts, thanks to the beautiful Laura Carter! It was fun going with Kyle because we would look at the athletes about to race and then guess who would get first, second, and third. I'm not sure how well we did in the end, but I'll just stay on the safe side and tell you all, we won. We guessed the most right out of everyone in the whole audience playing the game (seeing as we were the only ones playing, I'm going to give us the gold, silver, and bronze.) After watching Ryan Lochte and Micky (that's what I call Phelps these days...we are on a nickname bases :)) we were able to walk around Olympic park! It was cool seeing the world's largest McDonalds and looking at Olympic souvenirs that cost more than my arm and leg would sell for. We had a great time just enjoying the Olympic atmosphere and even got to chow down on some Mexican food (which is almost impossible to find in these parts of the world.) Here is a picture of us in our fantastic matching uniforms :)
6. Closing Ceremonies! On the last day of the Olympics, my friend Lisa and I found some fantastic sequenced American flag dresses (see pictures below, if you don't believe me :)) We went to the Stratford Mall, which is the Mall that is next to the stadium and the place the athletes hang out! As we walked around, people took pictures with us, commented on our wonderful fashion sense or just simply starred at the crazy americans walking by! The greatest moment you ask?? When athletes came to us and asked to take pictures with US! Hello? How many times does that happen in your life? Isn't it suppose to be the other way around? Whoo Hoo!! We even got Olympic boxing pins from a boxer from the USA team!! You check out the pictures and tell me if this isn't the dress I need to wear everyday of my life.
5. Getting a London Media pass. Yep, I had more pretend power with my London Media pass than I knew what to do with. It was amazing because not only did they give me a pass with my name on it and official picture but I got blown away by God' provision...London hooked me up with a 100pound London underground pass!! That's like 160 dollars worth of free travel...whoo hooo!! It was amazing just traveling around and reporting on team all over London, and it really opened up a cool door for evangelism. I got to share the gospel with people who would notice the media pass and ask who I worked for, or open up conversations with me in hopes of landing a spot in the national or international spotlight (but who can blame them, every camera crew set up, I purposely walked behind them, in case they were rolling and In case I recieved some international facetime....so if you were watching and thought "whooooaaa, that girl that just did a very poor attempt at the moonwalk in the background looks just like Dondi" then it probably was!) All in All, I felt pretty official, and tried to milk it for all it's worth, but apparently my credentials don't pass for Usain Bolt interviews :)
4. Athlete's Breakfast/Press Conference, I have had this dream for years of getting to be apart of a press conference with gold medal athletes and camera crews and news writers trying to get their questions in, but honestly thought it would never happen! HECK YEAH DREAMS do come TRUE!! I was asked to attend this Athlete's Breakfast just as a guest, but as I strolled up to registration they quickly ushered me into the line of Athletes. Do you realize what this means?? This means that they glanced at me, saw my potential of Olympic gold and assumed that I was apart of the national team!! I didn't want to correct them, but then I think it was obvious I wasn't one when I got star struck from seeing the USA Basketball team! I thought to myself..."You have a media pass Dondi, play it cool, play it cool!" but playing it cool was probably the last way I would describe my actions. Once I left the Athletes line, the head organizers saw my Media pass and showed me to the Media section, telling me that after the program was over, some of the athletes would be heading to the press conference room and they would show us to the room when the time came. I was so excited! The program was amazing as well! They had Eric Liddell's Daughters come and present an award for Athletes that play with heart and integrity. (Eric Liddell is the guy that the movie Chariots of Fire is based off!) The stories were so inspirational one quote they kept refering to from the movie was when Eric said "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." Wow! Such good stuff and so cool to think of God enjoying us thriving in the gifts he gave us! The experiences was really cool and then it was funny as we went to the press conference because people around me had big expensive reporting equipment and all I had was a pad of paper and a marker because my pen ran out. I was definitely a little fish in a big pond, using my coloring books to report! It was so great!
3. Going through the day to day outreaches. I was able to go to different outreaches everyday and see what God was doing! It was so cool that not only did I get to report on how people were getting to hear about true love for the first time, but I got to join in as well! Every day was a new experience, from passing out water bottles and hanging out in a cafe showing the Olympics to playing soccer on the streets and doing evangelism around Olympic stadium. It was really incredible that I was able to see so many different nations, doing so many different outreaches, in so many creative way, in all different parts of London, but the same God pouring his love out on people!
2. Watching the Opening Ceremonies with 30 different nationalities! That's right! The opening ceremonies and the parade of nations will never be the same! I sat in a small cafe and watched to Opening Ceremonies with some of my best friends. I had my face painted and USA gear that Kyle's family and church supplied me with (I wore my USA stuff all the time!) We sat as the Games were displayed on a big screen and were in awe of the artistic display. Then when the flags came in, we all either cheered for the nation we were from or nations we had been. It seemed that of the 50 or so people watching, we had almost been to every country. It was so cool to watch as the Nations gathered together in one place to compete, so were the nations gathered from around the world in London to share the gospel! I was thinking about how one day, this is what the party I will get to be involved in will look like! New Heaven, New Earth, All Nations praising in one voice God's goodness! Amen!1. Salvations and Healings! Whoo hooo!!!!! I don't know the exact number of Salvations and Healings because we sorta lost track counting around July 10th or so? At that time we saw over 120 people saved in just 10 days of outreach. So we don't know the final count from the last 2 months, but I can tell you that Jesus was made known through out England and the world and that beats any Olympic event or press conference! If you want to check out the stories we reported on, you can read all about the summer at www.forever2012.com
One of the best Olympic reports I have read so far! Definitely one of my favorites - written as only you could do! :)
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