When Morolake Akinosun Christian track star ruptured her Achilles

The end of her running — the end of her very identity — came when Olympian Morolake Akinosun hit a wall at the end of a race in 2018 and ruptured her Achilles tendon.

“The Achilles is the strongest tendon in the human body, and you need it to do literally everything: walk, jump, crawl, climb stairs, stand up, sit down,” Morolake says on an I am Second video. “I had it surgically repaired but I was being told, ‘Hey, you might never be the same runner that you were ever again. This may be a career-ending injury for you.’”

What rescued Morolake was her spiritual community.

“For the first time I realized that I was surrounded by people who believed in me and not only did they believe in me, they believed that God had a plan for my life and that He was still going to be faithful through it all,” she says.

Morolake Akinosun was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to parents who were Christian pastors. The family immigrated to America when she was two years old, and she flourished at track and field at the University of Texas at Austin, where she won consistently.

“Every training cycle is about figuring out how can I break my body,” she says. “We push ourselves to the limit, breaking your body apart and coming back the next day and doing it over and over again.”

In prelims for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, her teammates dropped the baton in between the 2nd and 3rd leg of the relay race. Morolake, who stood waiting at the 4th spot, was stunned.

“In that moment I had that thought of like, ‘Wow, I’ve trained what feels like your whole life for a moment that now seemed to be gone and stripped from me within the blink of an eye,’” she remembers.

As it turns out, the American women’s team was allowed to re-run the qualifying race. In the final competition, they took gold.

But everything she trained for her entire life was stripped away when she crashed into the wall on that fateful day in 2018.

Angry thoughts ran through her mind toward God: I thought this is what I was supposed to be doing and if this is what I’m supposed to be doing then why did You take it away from me? she questioned. My identity was built in track and field. Read the rest: Morolake Akinosun Christian track star ruptured her Achilles

There is snow in Los Angles (county mountains)!

It was the blind-leading-the-blind as we drove up the Los Angeles mountains looking for snow. I guess I’m a Biblical pastor because I fulfilled Jesus’ warning against blind leaders.

Thankfully, we actually found more than just a few spots on the roadside. Cindy, our disciple from Guatemala, could see more than just a patch of white. She fell, got wet, got cold and got hit with snowballs. Snow does not exist in the subtropics of Guatemala.

Cindy had fun, and so did the Lighthouse Church from Van Nuys. We are only 6 months old as a church, and already a spirit of family is taking hold. I had proposed a boys-versus-girls snowball fight until I remembered Alex, our worship superstar, was also a superstar pitcher on mixed softball team. Then I suggested we “even out the teams” by putting Alex on the boys’ team.

That’s when my wife stepped in. She reminded me loudly in front of everybody that I was the pastor and should let others pick first. Man that burned so badly that I wasn’t cold anymore and even took my sweater off.

“Lighthouse Van Nuys,” the scratched in the snow.

You could hear Brittany, screaming with glee, all down the slope — but that was not surprising. You can always hear Britt.

Dee made a snow angel. Four-year-old Kailee could not be torn from the snow. I suppose she will sleep well. We found a snowman that someone left, even with a carrot nose. Kailee and Dion decided to decimate the snowman. All I can says is that after they were done, Frosty was iced.

After coming down the mountain, we ate at In-N-Out hamburgers and fellowshipped.