2 Week Missions Tour of Mexico

ICTA Women's Pro Team
Mexico Missions Tour

Rach and Mel's flight delayed in Atlanta 10 hrs! Still smiling, though!

Hello! And welcome to the International Christian Tennis Association. Great to have you visit us. Recently our 4 member ICTA Women's Pro Team journied through Mexico on a 13-day missions tour to ITF Pro Tournaments.

This missions tour was amazing! A highlight for sure was God using His tennis missionaries to rescue a 16 year old girl from a sexually abusive situation with her married tennis coach. In addition hundreds of Christian tracts and New Testament Bibles written in Spanish were handed out! This was such a God-blessed time for our 4 member missionary team!

A 10 hr flight delay means lets visit downtown Atlanta to hand out Christian tracts!

The journey began with the ICTA Women's Pro Team splitting into two groups. One group flew from Daytona Beach to El Paso, the other from Orlando to El Paso. They all stayed with a great friend and supporter of ICTA named Andy. His son, Rob, trained with me and went on a large-scale ICTA mission trip to the Int'l Tennis Hall of Fame last summer.

Atlanta's airport is huge. Much work and travel is involved in pro tennis and missions.

Breakfast at Andy's house. Already tired from the time change and flight delays, the girls prepare to drive to Juarez w/ Andy!

This Christian missions journey will take the girls from El Paso, Texas to Juarez, Mexico. Then from Juarez to Mexico City. From Mexico City they will take a bus to San Luis Potosi. Plans had to change, though! Bigtime! You'll see what I mean in a bit.

Neat dog living next door to Andy. Click on the pic to see it enlarged!

The gang saying hi, and the dog slobbering

Andy (in front) leading the group to the Rio Grande River, which seperates the USA and Mexico and is right next to his house.

Mosquitos in the grass... ouch!

Diving into the Rio Grande... not.

Andy drove the team of tennis missionaries to their hotel in Juarez. Here is a view from their room.

The main missionary work of the ICTA Women's Pro Team tour began in Juarez, Mexico at an ITF $10,000 tournament. Juarez, Mexico is 10 miles away from El Paso, Texas. Juarez can be a dangerous place. It is known worldwide for the 342 women who have been murdered there in the last 12 years.

Our missionaries were safe the entire trip. The tournament is in a nice location. I prayed and fasted for their work to be effective in letting people worldwide know Juarez is a place in need of Jesus. They were amazing examples of women standing up for Christ.

Breakfast at the hotel.

Finishing breakfast before their first match at the International Tennis Federation $10,000 Tournament, the Copa Blues in Juarez.

The tournament was held at a beautiful tennis club in a really nice section of Juarez. The girls safely walked from the hotel to the club each day!

Our mission trip to Juarez was a last minute addition to the schedule. Honestly, mission trips are expensive and though we wish we could go to every tournament in the world, we can't. But, I felt we were called to go to Juarez. Sure there were tennis benefits, but I felt something bigger was in store! Though I could not have ever know just how big it was. Even as I type I am in amazement at how incredible our God is and how He uses His people for His purposes. Want to know what happened? You'll have to wait...

A quick pic upon arrival!

Winning a main draw match and serving hard for Jesus!

Taking a break!

Tennis missionaries and friends hanging out. God is working in the life of one of these girls in an amazing way.

Awesome experience to see the sights in other countries.

The girls gave this bus driver a Christian tract. Notice he placed it on his dashboard just to the right of the stering wheel!

Lunch with an atheist friend

Nice match!

The girl in the middle is now here with ICTA fulltime after being rescued from an abusive situation with her tennis coach.

This is the beginning of a life changing experience. More later in ICTA Video!

Rach & Mel lost a close doubs match to the #1 seeds.

Go get em Rachie!

You get em too, Newgy!

Nice match Mel

Newgy and rach seeing the sights.

On to Mexico City!

The missionary family in Mexico City (mark's parents) own this 1991 Beetle, which are still being made just like the originals!

Mark's dad, Jim, who lives in Mexico City as a missionary who helps plant churches, driving the girls! Jim has been to our place in Palm Coast, though I was preaching in a church in Alabama when he visited.

Really amazing stuff to see in other countries!

Rach and Robin, Mark's mom and Jim's wife, passing out tracts on the streets of San Luis Potosi...

Rach getting a back treatment by the trainer while the chair umpire flirts with her opponent... but that's another story!

Newgy and Mel sharing Jesus with local girls

Tennis and missions... awesome!

Street missions in San Luis Potosi

A random pic from the bus ride from San Luis Potosi to Mexico City

Nice shot Mel

Robin, Newgy, and Mel

Downtown San Luis Potosi

Nice shot, Newgy Jo who has braces no mo'!

ICTA Women's Pro Team & Friends having dinner at the La Loma tennis club during the $25,000 tournament.

A view from the hotel room

Mel and Newg on the bus

Robin and Rach. So great to have someone like Robin be so heavily involved in the girl's mission trip!

The La Loma tennis club had an amazing fitness center.

Rach and Newgy napping at Jim and Robin's house.

In Jim and Robin's office, Rach is planning missions schedules while Newgy is talking to me!

A winning trio!

Some beautiful countryside in Mexico!

A pic of Rach in the plane flying home after a successful Christian tennis missions tour of Mexico.

Insane, huh?

Cool pic, huh!? I found it on Hubble.com.

Looking at the stars, along with occaisionally walking through a cemetery, always helps me remember my priorities, and my place in this world.

This pic then began to remind me of the super-intelligent, scientific folks we all tend to always hear from whenever an important question is being answered.

I am always amazed when I read stories from our geniuses (sp?) here on earth. You know the ones I'm talking about, right?

The super brains in our world who know everything. They have all the answers.

I often think about them when I feed my fish.



You see, in my house I have a big 120 gallon fish tank where I raise some rare species of Cichlids, which are an African fish.

As they swim around you can see them fighting, eating, pooping, defending territory, mating, sleeping. There is one in particular who is the boss. His name is Kujo. He is a Bumblebee Cichlid.

Under Kujo is the rest of the pecking order.

They have their own little world that I enjoy watching and taking care of. In their own little world I wonder if some of them think they know everything, too, like our geniuses.


Yet, no matter what they are all doing... each one of them always watches me when I am in the room. I take care of them. You know, feed them and stuff.

Whether they know everything or not, they are smart enough to know that I am important to them.

A few days ago, I received an evolution/creation debate email from a friend. To me, it's a non issue. Slugs to humans or poof we're here or both, who really cares?

I don't.

Jesus didn't tell me to focus on that. So when someone brings it up, well, I'm not too interested. I'll let the geniuses debate all of that. They have all the answers.

Me, I'm too busy looking at the One who takes care of me.


Wondering about the pics?

Well, the one right above this sentence is a little snapshot taken by the Hubble telescope. It's a pic of an area of a galaxy next to ours. See the bright clusters... there's about a million stars in each one. Supposed to be billions of stars somewhere in this snapshot.

Supposed to be billions of billions of stars in each galaxy. That number is to big for me. I understand supersize from McDonalds, though.

Also supposed to be trillions of trillions of galaxies. Insane, huh?

You know, that's a lot.

I don't have the answers to all the questions, but I know that's a lot.

I also know I had some fun with a genius recently! I asked him that since he "proves" evolution explains everything, then how did everything start in the first place?

He looked at me funny.

Reminded me of when a fish sort of of just sits in the corner of my fish tank staring out through the glass into my living room.

So anyway, back to the pics!

I thought I'd just share with you a few pics sent by our Creator. Kind of a neat reminder of how big and powerful He is, and how small and stupid we are in comparison, as we stare out into His universe from our itty, bitty fishbowl world.

Which, I guess may not be something our geniuses want to hear...

But, makes me feel special knowing He is caring for me!

God bless!

Scott Paschal

Mexico Tour: Part One

Hello there!

Scott Paschal here... Ministry Director of the International Christian Tennis Association, a Christ-centered, Bible based sports ministry sharing the Good News of Jesus through the sport of tennis.

A quick welcome to our internet visitors today from 114 cities in 44 countries. So great to have you stop by and see the fantastic things God is doing with our sports ministry.

Guess what!?

Our group of wonderful Christian tennis missionaries will be home tomorrow!

So good to have them back.

I've really missed them around here.

These tremendous girls that make up the ICTA Women’s Pro Team have done a tremendous job. Their two week missions tour in Mexico was full of the expected, unexpected twists and turns.

Bible stories exploded into real life right in front of their eyes. There is one God-blessed, life altering story in particular I can't wait to share with you! But, you will have to wait because it will be released on ICTA Video.

These Christian tennis missionaries had an extraordinary experience compared to the average secular tennis academy player for sure!!

From rescuing a 16 year old female player at the tournament in Juarez, Mexico, a former #1 in her country and certain top 100 WTA potential, from her sexually abusive situation with her married tennis coach…

to journeying to San Luis Potosi via airplane, friend, bus, and taxi; and handing out over 290 Christian tracts and 60 New Testament Bibles in Spanish… these gals did an amazing job!

Oh, and by the way, they also played some pro tennis and everyone came back with WTA points! Rachel, with an injured back, even barely lost a close, nail biter of a match to a girl who just recently beat the #6 ITF junior in the world!

Was it all easy and fun!

Nope, not at all!

With God involved you know it's time to be ready to work for Him while being coached, shaped, and developed by Him for His will!

From delayed planes...

to complete flight schedule changes as they kept winning matches...

to rescuing an abused teen player from her abusive married tennis pro...

to Mel unfortunately drinking the water in Juarez causing her to have stomach cramps so bad she couldn’t hardly play...

to ‘Tell being refused entry in Mexico and being deported (hilarious story there!)...

to Rachel playing her heart out even with a back injury...

to a really amazing teen-aged Newgy playing her heart out in a 3 hr match and gaining valuable experience and WTA pointage...

to Mark’s mom, Robin, traveling with everyone and helping everything stay safe and smooth...

to sharing Jesus on the streets in San Luis Potosi...

to safe travel back home…

this has been a successful warmup missions tour to help prepare this amazing ICTA Women's Pro Team for the journies ahead!

Wow! And this really doesn’t even touch on all that happened. I can’t wait to share the pictures with you!

So exciting to see God working in and through the lives of young people! So rare in todays world to see world class athletes giving of themselves for Him. What a fantastic example for other Christian tennis players and coaches around the globe.

I’m really, really proud of these priceless tennis missionaries learning to reflect Christ to the world. God used them in incredible ways.

As this team gels into a stronger and stronger team, I can't hardly imagine what they will accomplish.

They’ve got a couple of days to rest before they start pounding the tennis balls and preparing their supplies for their mission trip next week… this time to Victoria, Mexico!

Please keep them in your prayers!

Scott Paschal