The Bethel University volleyball team traveled together in Brazil from May 23-June 2. While there, the team played top level club teams and ran youth clinics in multiple cities. In addition, they enjoyed several group activities that showcase the beauty and culture of Brazil. To see more photos follow the team on Facebook or @BethelRoyalVolleyball on Instagram.

We've been home for almost two weeks now and jumped back into life in the U.S. It's taken us a while to pull together our last blog post and wrap up our trip. 

Days 6-8 -  Ady Hermanson and Grace Bathurst

Recap:

Friday we started our day out by having the experience of visiting Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) where you could see all of Rio with a perfect view. We got to see monkeys and eat the best gelato I've ever had. After this we headed to a volleyball gym where we got to play a team from Rio! It has been such an amazing experience to play teams with a different language. Even though we speak different languages, talking to them at the end and learning Portuguese has been so fun! We ended the day with the opportunity to eat a Brazilian steakhouse where they would bring different cuts of meat to the table and cut them onto your plate. After dinner, Grace Therrien led our team through a devotional reflecting on what we have read through our team book for this trip, "Love Does" by Bob Goff. 

Saturday was mostly a travel day. We traveled from Rio to Arraial do Cabo, a fishing village with white sand beaches. We ate a Brazilian brunch and spent the rest of the day at the beach playing sand volleyball and enjoying the sunset. We finished our night by dressing up for the nice seafood restaurant.

Sunday may have been the best day ever. After breakfast at the hotel and eating the best pineapple in the world, we started our walk to the boat. We spent the day connecting as a team snorkeling, jumping off the boat, and even going down a slide. It was such a fun way to bond.

What was good:

Ady - Something good that stood out to me was the relationships and team chemistry we are building. Between sharing meals, playing volleyball, and spending time exploring together; we have grown closer as a team and created memories I will always remember.

Grace - The boat day- seeing sea turtles up close was so amazing!!

What was hard or challenging:

Ady - Something difficult I experienced was the culture change. The scheduling and the way of doing things are a bit different than I thought they would be. Traveling is sometimes difficult and fighting jet lag was hard but the experience has completely outweighed any difficulties.

Grace - Being patient when my patience was running thin was challenging. Being on a trip with that many people for so long can run anyone down. I love my alone time, and not having that was making me antsy, so fighting the urge to be snappy while I was so anxious was difficult for me.

What you learned:
Something we learned from our tour was working with the public school of elementary kids that don't speak the same language and the connections we can build by doing so. Through the game of volleyball and teaching these kids how to play we could enjoy spending time together despite the language barrier. It was a small reminder how important body language and communication matter. We also learned what volleyball skills we need to work on this summer!

From Coach Hunt:

As mentioned earlier in this blog, we took a book with us on this trip ("Love Does") that calls believers to a life of faith in action. That faith involves being present in the lives of others and making sacrifices on their behalf. That God is asking us to serve ourselves up for Him to use, whether or not we think we feel like we're ready. 

As a team we focused on being present with each other, with each team we competed against, with each child at our clinics, and with our hosts. We focused on continuing to make sacrifices on behalf of other people even when tired or needing "alone time" or not speaking their language or when the itinerary changed. And we looked for ways to make ourselves available for meaningful conversations, to provide a small kindness, to take a leadership role as we interacted with other teams and the kids. 

As their coach, I'm very proud of how this team leaned into these challenges. The picture included in this blog post (photo credit Assistant Coach Rylee Forshee) captures the joy we shared with one of the teams we played early in our trip while making a TikTok video! It's a great example of God's love and our creativity working together to provide a connection with people we literally just met. 

From the ways that Brazilian volleyball stretched us, to the meaningful moments we had putting our faith in action, to the intentional conversations that grew our own relationships, and all of the fun along the way - we are grateful for our time in Brazil! Thank you to the over 100 donors who supported this Foreign Tour, we are excited about what we are building toward for the 2026 season.