I was up early on Sunday. The Champions League final sounded promising. Liverpool has had a wonderful season (much to my chagrin…) and Real Madrid had a wonderful ride into the final, beating the odds against the likes of Pep Guardiola’s might Manchester City (again, much to my chagrin…).
The match started late as there were, apparently, thousands of fans who had bought fake tickets that didnt work on the turnstiles. That clogged up the fans’ entry into the stadium. So instead of the 5am start I had prepared for, the match started at 5.36am (weird timing for sure).
Real Madrid won it, by a single goal. What a game soccer is. 90 minutes and only 1 goal. I have become more accustomed to footy scores, where you’d get either side kicking 2-3 goals per quarter at the very least.
Liverpool has been unlucky. They have now lost two Champions League final against Real Madrid within a few years. I remembered watching Gareth Bale scoring twice against them to win it for Real, back in 2017 or 2018. It was a goalie’s horror show in that game. This time around, the Real goalie was the hero to deny Klopp’s men. A tale of two goalies – a Charlie in 2018 and a mighty hero in 2022, both responsible for thwarting Liverpool.
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Later that morning at St Alf’s I was approached by a couple of people. One is to resume doing corporate prayers and the other was an invitation to be part of Sparklit, a Christian NFP that promotes Christian literature, and gives out the Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards. I had been praying for guidance on “what next” in terms of serving etc., for a while now and out of the blue, these invitations popped up. “I’ll pray about it” can sound cliched but it is what I need to do I guess. I have about a week to respond, I think.
Later that evening, I rang my mum. David and Jean had been to Penang so I thought she might want a quick chat on the phone for company. She sounded much more cheerful than the last time I spoke to her a couple of weeks earlier. She commented on Kiddo’s pics on her and Mic’s holidays in the Northern Territory so Tress said to me she must have been following Kiddo’s facebook posts. I guess mum is sort of keeping up with technology and social media, which I tink in this case, is a good thing.
It was really good to see pics of David and Jean in Penang, catching up with Daniel, Nicole and Isaac. One of those pics also had Nicole’s partner, which is a bonus. Seeing pics of people catching up is always heart warming. There will be a couple of catching up’s soon – Kiddo and Mic coming down here and Tress going up to Klang, both in the next month or so. That will be really nice, although for me here alone in Melbourne when Tress will be in Klang, I’m not so sure… It will be terrific for her and her parents so that’s all good.
Ante 