Terri is a brilliant coach. You could say she grew up with sports right from the womb. Her mother played softball and was a strong athlete. That’s where Terri learned to love sports: in the family. As a young adult, she injured her knee. She tore some ligaments...
The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that “love always protects” (1 Corinthians 13:7). The Sports Friends model thrives because more than 12,000 volunteer coaches embody this feature of God’s kind of love to the young people they work with. The teams are not like...
- By Tohru Inoue - Sometimes it seems that our best ministry efforts are hindered by hardships, by a wall of hostility. In the field, we’ve seen people turned away by communities hostile to the gospel. “The power of darkness,” as the Sports Friends team in...
Many of our coaches work in difficult places where sharing the gospel message could mean putting their lives, homes and families seriously at risk. This is a story from some of our team members pioneering the Sports Friends ministry in a...
Every parent feels excited when they see their children growing strong and healthy. There are many stages of growth throughout life, and each one is an important milestone that parents look forward to seeing. Sometimes, however, growth is difficult because...
Coach Frackson is from the central region of Malawi. After his Basic Training with Sports Friends four years ago, he returned home equipped for sports ministry with a passion to introduce young people to Christ. Coach Frackson had limited resources and had...
Forty teenaged boys arrived with their coaches at Lake Langano in summer of 2006. This week was the pilot summer sports camp for Sports Friends, the first and only camp like it in all of Ethiopia. The boys came from homes struggling with the poverty common to their...
She was 11 years old when she joined a Sports Friends netball team in 2013. She was the second born in a family of four. Her father had died long ago, and she lived with her mom. She obviously had talent and influence and great potential for leadership, so Coach...
When God created the world, He used His voice. As children made in His image, our spoken words carry weight. It changes things, a word spoken. Perhaps this is why the Proverbs and epistles both have so much to say about how as God’s people we are to use our mouths....
What happens to church-centered sports ministry in southeast Africa when a global pandemic shuts the entire country down? What happens when worshippers are no longer allowed to gather together corporately, or even to mingle freely with their neighbors because the risk...
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among...
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. - Philippians 4:9 Our Coach Development Coordinator for Kenya, describes one reason why the Sports Friends ministry is making...
Fourteen years ago, a group of boys gathered around their coach, a tall and kind man from a church right there in their own city in Kenya. The coach knew that there was more to life than the poverty and crime those boys saw as normal. He knew there was opportunity,...
By Tohru Inoue (Difficult subject matter) On a weekend in 2008, when Joy was in primary school, her younger sister was so hungry that Joy went out and borrowed 10 shillings (roughly ten cents) worth of food from the neighbor’s restaurant. When her father came...
He was the chief religious leader of the community, and the people were hungry. The COVID pandemic had put the entire country on lockdown. People were sick. The ones who had jobs were losing them. Poverty or the real threat of it was breathing down the people’s necks....
“Thank God for the food initiative. Hearts were broken. They wept. They never knew someone would care for them like this.” - Ben, Sports Friends Ghana Team Leader When scarcity in Ghana was more oppressive than ever, generosity met it head on. Sports Friends Ghana...
“A father to the fatherless… is God in His holy dwelling.” - Psalm 68:5 Growing up in Ghana, as in any other nation, is difficult. Lack of parental care is a massive problem in Ghana. Adults are really struggling, and many children find themselves without anyone...
It has been over ten years since Sports Friends was introduced to Ghana. Ben, one of the earliest workers and now national leader, recalls the very first vision casting and Basic Training in 2010. Attendees had caught hold of the dream to transform lives and...
“If you could dip your finger here, I bet you could feel how deep the darkness is. This is the reality of our world.” -Sports Friends Nigeria team leader, Ishaya. Sports Friends has served Nigerian youth for over 15 years. Nigerian leadership has long ministered in...
“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16) Although the COVID-19 crisis has caused much suffering,...
“We responded to COVID-19 by identifying the needs of coaches, players and their families, knowing that we work in a context of poverty… Many people are hungry. There is no food.” -Ishaya, Sports Friends Nigeria team leader Ishaya, Moses, and Icy, Sports Friends...
It was early in the morning as the woman approached Coach Moses’ house. Perhaps her four children were still sleeping at home. She was doing whatever it took to feed them since the pandemic had pushed her husband over the edge and he had run away from home, leaving...
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the face of ministry around the world, along with many other facets of life. In the low-income Kariobangi community of Nairobi, Sports Friends coaches have been engaged in food distribution projects while their ability to gather...
The church is growing in one restricted country in West Africa at a rate nearly double the global average, but still 80-90% of its 20 million people do not know what it means to have certain peace with God. Worse, the northeastern region of the country has recently...