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Below
is an article written by one of LOUISIANA'S foosball players for their local
Foosball newsletter.
For
at least a month before the 2007 Kentucky State Foosball Tournament, I started
preparing physically, mentally, and spiritually. I tried to swim every night. I
would pray while I swam. I would pray asking that God would make me his
disciple; that I would recognize the opportunity to testify for him and do it;
that I would look for this opportunity around the people who needed it the most.
I would say the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, The Fatima Prayer and
more. I would try to medicate, pray, talk to God, and feel the Holy Spirit while
I was in the pool. I also prepared by playing Casting Crowns’ The Voice of
Truth over and over again. In addition, I moved my trophies over in my storage
room to make room for one more. I wanted to win a trophy so that I could say
that I had won a trophy every decade for the last four decades. My motivation
for winning and my prayers were not for the money, but to disciple for Christ
and a trophy.
In the Pro Singles event Saturday evening and night I won my first six matches.
Out of approximately 108 players I would be playing for the winner’s bracket
the next day. I was real excited; in fact I started telling everyone about my
accomplishment, including a guaranteed trophy, even calling friends and family.
On about four hours of light sleep I woke up the next morning, Sunday, and went
to church. After church I showed up at the tournament room at about 11:00. I
started getting real cold waiting to play. The longer I sat around waiting the
colder I got and the more I could see my chances of winning fading.
I finally got to play for the winner’s bracket after nine hours of waiting and
lost. While waiting to play for second place I walked over to the trophies and
couldn’t find the third place trophies. I then discovered that there were
trophies only for first and second places. In addition, I became very
disappointed at how cheap the trophies looked. I knew I was in trouble, I
wasn’t guaranteed a trophy like I had thought and I wasn’t hot like I was
the night before. I ended up losing my next match and not getting a trophy.
On the way home I decided to go to the Smoky Mountains. At the base of the Smoky
Mountains I walked into a Walgreens store to get something and next to the
register there it was, a box with disciple crosses for sale. I didn’t have my
reading glasses with me, so I had the lady at the register read to me what they
were and they were marked disciple crosses. I picked out the one I liked and
bought it. It didn’t realize it at first, but later I came to realize that
that cross was the trophy that God wanted me to have. God didn’t want me to
have a cheap plastic trophy; he wanted me to have that disciple cross. I prayed
for days prior to the tournament that God would make me his disciple and God
confirmed it with that disciple cross. I’ve never seen a disciple cross before
anywhere, but there it was at the base of the mountains after I had prayed for
weeks for it. God had spoken to me.
The cross is made of nails to represent the spikes that were driven through the
feet and hands of Christ. It is wrapped with wire to represent the crown of
thorns that were placed on his head. The strap that goes around my neck
represents the whips that were used to beat him.
My disciple cross is the best trophy and gift that God could have given me. 
Written by: Louis Barcelona
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