In northern Senegal, West Africa there is a small team of Christian and Missionary Alliance international workers that have come alongside a local evangelical church serving the Wolof people. In a country where Islam is the main religion, these workers use health and education to reach to the local community. Whether serving through a medical clinic, boys and a girls vocational training schools, a library, prison visitation, kids club’s, or sports – these workers are focused on serving.
Brian Davis (pictured right) was goalkeeper for Moody’s 1994 National Championship Team
Brian Davis, a Moody Bible Institute graduate and member of the 1994 MBI Men’s Soccer NCCAA Div. II National Championship team, uses the sport of soccer to build relationships with the Senegalese, especially amongst the young people.
Children and youth make up over 40% of the population in Senegal and are easily neglected, abused, abandoned, but often are the most open to the gospel of Christ. Soccer is THE sport in Africa. It is every Senegalese kid’s dream to become the next Didier Drogba or Samuel Eto. So what better way to share Christ with desperate youth than by providing a nice soccer ball to play with, a goal and net to shoot on, or a pair of cleats that every kid wishes to own.
Davis and his team use sports, especially soccer, by coaching teams, organizing evangelistic soccer tournaments, playing short-sided games at kids clubs, supporting local neighborhood soccer clubs, and facilitating partnerships between foreign and local teams as a means to establish and reinforce relationships to openly share Christ Jesus.
In my experience ministering in Senegal, I have found that sports provides an wonderful way to draw a crowd, earning trust and confidence, and using sports analogies and examples to incorporate the truth of Christ Jesus.
Davis and his team are looking for contributions and donations to help fill and send a container to Senegal this year – filled with soccer gear and equipment. CrossTraining will be hosting soccer gear collection points in conjunction with the 2016 Metamorphosis Youth Retreat in the Raleigh/Durham area coming up at the end of March. If you live in the Raleigh/Durham area and would like to either help collect equipment or donate soccer gear please contact us at info@crosstraining-us.org with Timothy Project: Senegal 2016 in the subject line for more information.
If you would like to make a contribution to this project please note (Timothy Project: Senegal 2016) in your donation. Please use the Donate Now link to make a secure PayPal donation. Your financial gift will help secure new or additional equipment and to cover associated costs for shipping and providing bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!
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Kids continued to use them throughout the week – chasing balls into the street that had passed straight through the backsides. As CCPC began constructing the house, two team members – both engineers – could not stop thinking about the goals. Knowing how important soccer is to the community and the church’s presence there, they soon were calculating the Pythagorean Theorem in a quest to design indestructible goals. Their plans evolved over two days and then the work began. Kids from the street would lend a hand or sit and watch with eager anticipation. When the goals were finally completed, a game quickly ensured and continued into the late hours of the evening.
Even though the shirts were more like dresses on some of the wee ones, they all beamed with pride in their new gear. With the goals completed, La Iglesia Maranatha also received a generous supply of soccer balls so that future games among the neighborhood kids could continue.
Originally, the Timothy Project donations were to be for this particular middle school; however, when Nerney and the team arrived things began to change. Nerney goes on to explain:
