LITS celebrates 26th anniversary with sports, health screening activities

The Life in the Son Christian Fellowship celebrated its 26th anniversary last Saturday morning with a bevy of sports and health screening activities at the Marianas High School Cafeteria in Susupe.

According to LITS pastor Eric Abragan the event was a community outreach in collaboration with Diabetes Awareness Month committee to promote physical activity.

“This is part of our community outreach for Life in the Son’s 26th anniversary, so we plan to do an event for an outreach to keep the community be active, so we open this up to the community and at the same time we partnered with the Diabetes Awareness Month committee, they encouraged us to do physical activity for the community. So, we thought of pickleball,” said Abragan.

The event started at 7:30am with a pickleball beginner’s class for all ages with coaches from LITS and the Pickleball Federation of the NMI.

There were 48 who signed up to participate in the pickleball clinic and they were divided into five hourly schedules from 7:30am to 11am. The coaches provided the net, pickleball, and the paddles including lessons on pickleball’s basic rules and scoring.

“It’s so easy to set up so as you can see, we can set it up for outdoor use and also for indoor use. The nets are portable and can be set up in about 5-10 minutes. Originally, the plan was all indoors at the gym but there was a conflict of schedule. We were able to secure this area (referring to the outdoor setup) and the indoor. We want to maximize everything,” said Abragan.

A run/walk clinic for beginners hosted by Run Saipan was held beginning 8:30am with over 20 participants. Run Saipan president Edward Dela Cruz Jr. did his PowerPoint presentation wherein he discussed how the traditional runner of a perfect runner is like Michael Johnson in the track or field, wherein normal runners cannot achieve this form as it requires years of training.

Dela Cruz discussed perfect running forms, foot strike patterns, heel striking, healing strength while running, running form and injuries, knee pain while running, treadmill running, and choosing the right shoes.

The event also featured free health screening (blood pressure and blood glucose) facilitated by the NMC Nursing Club and LITS volunteers and free eye screening by Marianas Eye Marianas.

LITS would like to thank Pickleball Federation of the NMI, Run Saipan, Marinas Eye Institute, Marianas Health Services, Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., and Northern Marianas College for the success of the event.