Introduction

I reside in Austin Texas and, for AWANA, I go to Grace Covenant Church. My name is Marcelo Gonzalez and, somehow, I ended up being the games team captain for our team. Two years ago I would have never thought that I would be in the position I am in now. But through different circumstances, change in leadership and rising interest in Summit, I ended up having a lot of responsibilities.

I don’t know how any of your churches have run things but this is the first time Grace Covenant has done this. We are taking a 25 passenger bus. One seat is for the driver, two for our leaders, and twenty two for participants. We are going to be taking two games team, eleven people on each team. The only time we ever took two teams, we split the talent up onto the two teams so that they were “evenly” matched. Since then, we have undergone a mass change in leadership. The new leadership is concerned about two things: doing well and enhancing the students’ abilities in life. They know that we aren’t going to do well if we split up the talent so this year, we are going to have one team that is full of the people who are best at games, and then another team for those who did not make it but still want to compete.

I, the youngest senior in our club, was chosen by the two leaders going to Summit, Frank and Everett, to be the games captain for the “stacked” team. When they told me this, I was excited and forgot to ask what exactly that entailed. I was assuming it would be to make sure everyone’s feet were behind the color line and that we were cheering our team on. I asked Frank what being “captain” meant. He told me that I would be in charge of the tryouts for which people made it on the good team and which ones did not. In addition, I am in charge of picking what people who make the team end up in what event.

At this point in time, it appears that I have unbridled reign over the good games team. It is exciting, terrifying, and upsetting all at the same time. Exciting because I will have the things I have wanted since I started Summit, terrifying because I want to do well and now that so much rests on me, if we don’t a lot of it is my responsibility, and upsetting because, from the looks of things, there won’t be a whole lot of seniors on the good team. I feel sorry for them because I know they want to do well, but they way I am going to end up setting up the team, they won’t fit in that plan. This is long enough for my first post. That gives you the basics of what my year of Summit will be about and where I am coming from.

…131 days until the first test…
…191 days until Summit…
…194 days until the finale…

My hourglass is running down…