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Stories, news, and events from Soccer Chaplains United’s grant program to help distribute new and used soccer gear for use in local and global projects.

Timothy Project CYM 2014: A Welsh Opportunity

Pastor Rick Holman serves as the Lead Pastor for the Cactus Campus of Scottsdale Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona and he is leading a team to the Cardiff, Wales to partner with Highfields Church to put on a 1 week outreach soccer camp. The camp is open to local boys and girls aged 5-12 years old. Each day will consist of a variety of “football” skills in conjunction with a dedicated time to present biblical and personal stories by the coaches. The last day of the camp will feature a round robin tournament similar to the World Cup to complete the week followed by a Gospel message and invitation to come to church the next Sunday.

Wales, as part of the United Kingdom, while not a typical first thought of as a mission field, only boasts less than 1% of the population as Christian and virtually none under the age of 20. The specific request from Holman and is team is for soccer pinnies to use during the camp and to let the children take home with them when they are done. CrossTraining is currently working to supply a couple dozen youth-sized pinnies as well as copies of The Prize: Under Pressure for the team to use while in country.

Please pray for Rick Holman and the team from Scottsdale Bible Church as they depart for the UK today.

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Timothy Project MX 2014: A Little Big…

Earlier this year, Rev. Mike Anderson took some Colorado Rapids gear down to Bethel Orphanage in Juarez, Mexico. The orphanage houses over 100 children who have either been abandoned or were taken from their families because of abuse or other things happening in the home. Many of the children have little hope – but Bethel is trying to change that for each one that walks through the doors. Food, schooling, a safe place to live and grow – these are just a part of what Bethel Orphanage is offering to those under its care.

The orphanage received a number of shorts, jerseys, and other soccer equipment. Below are a couple of pictures from the orphanage. Please pray for each special child – and pray that they will grow into more than just the clothes and equipment; pray that they grow in their hope and trust of God.

Bethel Boy 2014

Bethel Orphanage 2014

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Timothy Project 2014

Image 5Thursdays throughout the month of April, CrossTraining has been featuring stories on our latest Timothy Project ventures. We will have some updates from equipment sent down to Mexico in the next few weeks, but take a chance to look back at some of the Timothy Projects that have already happened in 2014:

Haiti

Costa Rica Indigenous Indians

Costa Rica Amateur Team

Costa Rica Native Boys Team

Costa Rica Church Team

If you or someone you know has a Timothy Project idea or proposal, please encourage them to check out our criteria and submit an application.

CrossTraining currently has some used soccer equipment available as well as copies of the Athletes in Action DVD, The Prize: Under Pressure (linked to trailer preview).

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT (Timothy Project Thursday)

Timothy Project HT 2014: Higher Dreams for Haiti

Screen Shot 2014-04-02 at 8.57.00 PMFor Bryan Smith, Haiti has become a bit of home away from home. Smith first traveled to Haiti in 2004. For the last four years, he has been bringing soccer with him. It is the world’s game, after all. Last year, the Colorado Rapids donated a couple of boxes of equipment with many personal donations by Haitian Goalkeeper Steward Ceus (Rapids, 2009-2013).

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This year, the Rapids donated enough gear to outfit a complete team with shorts, shirts, and compression shorts along with some miscellaneous gear. Smith, using some of his other connections, was able to secure additional equipment like shoes and balls for the young men of the village of Fedja, in the Mirebalais region of Haiti, northeast of Port-au-Prince.

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For the past couple of years, Smith has been bringing whatever soccer gear he can get donated in order to outfit the teams that he has been working with – including a u-18 and u-15 team, as well as a handful of orphans that are also playing on the teams. Many of the players are also students at the Global Vision Citadelle Ministries school.  This year, the teams played in an exhibition game with the gear donated by the Rapids.

The coaches and players were very grateful to get the Rapids gear. I was also able to give each player a new pair of cleats. It was an awesome time. Thanks again. We hope to continue the relationship with the Rapids in the future.

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Haitian players stretch before taking the field sporting shorts from the Colorado Rapids.

Smith has high hopes for the young athletes that form this team,

We will be registering the FC-GVCM team for regional play. If they compete well we will enter them in the national league in Haiti.

Smith is still looking for sponsorships and partners that will help these boys make it to the next level and reach higher. If you would like to know more about Bryan Smith’s work in Haiti please contact CrossTraining at info@crosstraining-us.org.

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Below are some additional photos of the soccer teams in Haiti.

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Timothy Project CR 2014: Indigenous Indians Receive Rapids Gear

Distant Bri Bri Native Indian Village Along Panama Border Receives Gear

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In the distant native indigenous Bri Bri Indian village of Yorkin, nestled and shrouded by the green canopies of primary jungle forest along the Northeast border with Panama, is a group of young boys and men who are passionate about soccer. Chaplain Hugo Venegas has worked on short term mission projects with this community for over seven years and have helped build with volunteers from Colorado and other areas in the US and Canada, the village’s water system, a health clinic, classrooms for their jungle high school, and the infra structure for their rural ecotourism project.

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Chaplain Venegas on the 1 1/2 hour long canoe ride to the village of Yorkin.

When Chaplain Venegas arrived at the village after a 8-hour journey from the capital city of San Jose, all the men and boys were out working around the village, so he met with the leaders of the women’s community association to present the gear for the boys and men in the village to be outfitted for their competitive games against other village teams in the region. Chaplain Venegas commented on the trip to the village,

It was an hour and a half canoe trip to get there. The men of the village work some work on canoes, farm, or taking care of the visitors to the reservation. It’s a really neat project because everyone makes minimum wages and then all the profits get invested back into the community.

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Women from the board of the Stibrawpa women’s group receiving the Colorado Rapids gear donation from CrossTraining’s Hugo Venegas.

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Timothy Project CR 2014: Amateurs Looking to Go Pro

Screen Shot 2014-03-27 at 7.02.45 PMHigh-Level Amateurs Receive Gear

Harry Rugama is a first division player at the end of his career and along with his good friend and high-level amateur Silvestre Yaslin, they have formed a high competitive recreational team that can help aspiring players to keep in shape and continually developing their skills to create opportunities for young adults to get picked up by first and second-division teams.

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Their team is highly disciplined and devoted to practice. They were overjoyed when they were contacted by CrossTraining to inform them that they would be the recipients of a combination of brand new and used Rapids gear.

When these players met with Associate Chaplain Hugo Venegas they passionately expressed their appreciation as well as shared a vision that they have to help young boys of the community of Limon to stay off the streets and away from drugs by creating a soccer school in the community.

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Chaplain Venegas explained more of the connection and vision,

Hugama’s father played with my brother with Barcelona (Limon, Costa Rica). He is thinking about starting a soccer academy in Limon because there is nothing organized. He has a vision to see soccer be an economic opportunity for the poor in Limon. Often times children have few opportunities – there are few jobs with the unions and drug lords are employing young people in dealing drugs.

1743569_686056951437511_1009019141_nRugama continues to stay in dialogue with Chaplain Venegas and will meet in July to conduct a feasibility study to see if a partnership could emerge to help develop a youth soccer program in the community of Limon where historically, the highest percentage of professional soccer player in Costa Rica have grown up, but severe economic issues and social challenges with crime and drugs are hindering young people from becoming professional players.

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Timothy Project CR 2014: Indigenous Boys Get Gear

Screen Shot 2014-03-27 at 10.22.27 AMNative Indigenous Boy’s Team in Amubri gets uniforms

Luis Alberto Leon is a quiet, unassuming business Chinese Costa Rican who has been involved with the indigenous Native Indians of the Amubri community in the Southeast Region of Talamanca in Costa Rica for years.

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Luis Leon accepts the donated gear from Chaplain Venegas.

He has privately collected toys and gifts from friends in the community to take Christmas gifts to the children of the community and sponsored many teenagers to achieve their educational and soccer goals. Luis, who was himself a soccer star in high school, was pleasantly surprised to know that CrossTraining wanted to donate uniforms for the boy’s team in Amubri. When Associate Chaplain Hugo Venegas was in Costa Rica, he connected with Leon, whom he had known in high school,

Luis and I were classmates together and when he found out about the shirts and shorts that I had for the Amubri boys he was surprised…[the boys] were ecstatic about the uniforms.

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Amubri boys soccer team warms up in they donated gear from the Colorado Rapids.

Chaplain Venegas went on to explain the way that the boys and the team took the donation,

They [the boys] don’t have a lot but they are very organized. What they do they do, they do it for the team, for the whole community. They are so community oriented – whereas many times individuals are looking to escape poverty or their environment or clubs come in looking for an individual talent, it is different with this team. It is a whole community view for many of those children. The gift is about giving these people an opportunity as a community.

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The Amubri Indian girls team has been invited to compete in an indigenous tournament coinciding with the U-17 Women’s World Cup being held this year in Costa Rica.

Luis is also very proud of the girls of the Amubri community because they won the Costa Rica Soccer Championship among indigenous communities and were invited to participate in a tournament for girls of native Indian descent around the under-17 FIFA World Cup for girls presently being held in Costa Rica.

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

#TPT

Timothy Project CR 2014: Answered Prayer

Screen Shot 2014-03-27 at 9.43.34 AMYouth at Getsemaní Baptist Church get prayers unexpectantly answered.

Many of the young males and females at the Getsemaní Baptist Church in Limon, Costa Rica, are passionate soccer fans, whose passion translates from the stands to the field and from the pew to the prayer closet.

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The uniformness church team prayed for over a year and half, for God to provide!

With this passion for football, many of the youth and some of the adults in the congregation formed a team and started playing against other church teams and secular teams in the Caribbean town of Port Limon. Though they enjoyed playing, doing so without uniforms was a major concern. Was God interested in soccer uniforms? Was this something they could pray about? They did!!!

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Associate Chaplain Hugo Venegas listens to Jeffry and another team member share their story of how they consistently prayed over a year and a half for uniforms.

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Associate Chaplain Venegas presents uniforms to the church group.

 

After over a year and a half of praying for uniforms and waiting upon God, CrossTraining was looking for opportunities to bless and serve teams around the world with donated gear from the Colorado Rapids. Associate Chaplain Hugo Venegas, after being instructed by Lead Chaplain Brad Kenny to find possible recipients in Costa Rica, was overjoyed to inform that he had contacted a worship leader and avid soccer fan, Jeffry Rosales about whether they had a team and were in need of uniforms. Jeffry’s responded with some angst, “We have been praying over a year and a half for uniforms for our church team!”

During a recent trip in late January/early February, Chaplain Vengas was able to deliver an answer to the prayers of the church team. Stay tuned for pictures of the church group using the uniforms in league play!

If you would like to support future Timothy Project ventures, such as this one, please use the PayPal link below to make a donation. Your financial gift helps to secure additional equipment, sponsor a missionary or organization in an outreach effort, and cover associated costs of providing bibles, equipment, and other outreach tools around the world!

#TPT

World Cup Coming

With World Cup 2014 Brazil, just a few months away, millions are preparing for the largest event in the world to capture the imaginations and dreams of people young and old, from hundreds of different countries, and many different backgrounds.

In advance of the World Cup, there are many different groups and organizations looking to leverage one the largest sporting events in the world (next to Olympic opening ceremonies), and if the last World Cup (2010) viewing numbers – estimated close to 1 billion with TV and internet viewing – is to be believed, the 2014 finale will probably grow beyond. It is probably safe to say that the World Cup has significant influence globally. But while some will use the World Cup stage to sell and promote their product or their country, there will be several groups working to promote something much more important: Jesus Christ.

Athletes in Action is one such group and they have produced a DVD featuring soccer player testimonies for use around the world. The DVD known as THE PRIZE: UNDER PRESSURE is a follow up to the 2010 version THE PRIZE: CHASING THE DREAM. Translated into 35 different languages, The Prize: Under Pressure features the stories of five professional footballers: Kaká, Eyong Enoh, Jacob Mulenga, Cacau, and Brad Guzan. These players, recognizable around the world, share how they cope with the pressure that comes – whether playing for club or country.

CrossTraining has received several copies of The Prize: Under Pressure. If you would like a copy for your group, please contact us. A small donation to help cover the costs of the DVD and shipping and you will be able to use this tool to share the good news of Jesus Christ with many who follow the world’s game of soccer.

Send an email request to info@crosstraining-us.org.

Timothy Project 2014: Mission Ministries Mexico

After a Houston Chronicle article in 2009 declared the city of Juarez, Mexico the “most violent zone in the world outside of declared war zones”1  most Americans and many Christian mission organizations stopped travel and efforts to help the poor of the estimated 1.5 million people who call the city home. The violence spawning from the drug cartel wars has claimed many lives and mission work in the city was deemed too risky. But there were a few organizations that still dared to carry on the work – meet Missions Ministries. Started in 2002, Mission Ministries worked at constructing homes for Juarez’s poor and they partnered with churches throughout the southwest United States in order to build relationships and help people in need.

Recently, Steve McConaghie, a pastor at Cherry Hills Community Church was invited to sit on the board of Mission Ministries. Pastor McConaghie had led youth trips to Juarez since the 1990’s and had been involved several times via Cherry Hills and the partnership with Mission Ministries. His latest trip to Juarez took place just a few weeks ago.

Our team of seven men partnered with five Mexican men from the staff of Missions Ministries to build a house in less than two days. The recipient is a family of eight from the Tarahumara tribe. They moved to the Juarez area a couple years ago hoping to find work. Thankfully, the father secured a job at a pallet factory, though his $10 a day salary will never be enough to raise them out of impoverishment.

When McConaghie heard about the donation of soccer gear that CrossTraining had received via the Timothy Project, he thought that there might be a good opportunity to take it down to Juarez. CrossTraining provided McConaghie enough gear to outfit two complete teams with shorts, tops, and compression tops and some miscellaneous items.

I delivered the donated soccer gear to one of the local pastors, who helps manage a workout facility and organizes youth soccer leagues. He was very excited to receive the generous gift.

Stay tuned for an updated story and pictures from the Missions Ministries work in Juarez. If you would like to donate to the Timothy Project, please use the PayPal button below and make a notation with your gift.

1. Olsen, Lise. (2009-10-21) Ciudad Juárez passes 2,000 homicides in ’09, setting record | Breaking News | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

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