The Other Sports Camp

Oct 22, 2014 | Sports Friends Africa, Sports Friends Ethiopia

By Laura Hall, SF Ethiopia

We don’t always get to see the full impact camp has on people, but every now and then God gives us a glimpse…

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Our Camp Langano director, Brian, was surprised when he was recently invited to visit another sports camp. None of our staff had even heard of another sports camp – we thought Langano was the only one around!

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Brian and two summer staff members drove way up into the mountains, sliding on steep, muddy roads for hours to reach the town of the coach who had invited them. Coach Gadissa has been bringing his own soccer club kids to Langano for several years, and now he’s taken the initiative to create a sports camp of his own!

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The camp is held at a church/school compound, and it’s modeled very much after what Gadissa saw at Camp Langano.  Although camp was not in session, Brian got to tour the facilities and he saw so much he recognized! The craft of the Ethiopian flag was the same, he noticed boards for a team-building/river-crossing game, the team names were countries (England, Ethiopia, Argentina, etc.), and the team photos were taken in the same way.  Gadissa has been housing (overnight!) between 30-40 kids per week for 4 weeks each summer.

Amazing!  That is another 150 kids per year whose lives are being touched independent of what we are doing at Langano!  Simply being present at our camp equipped him to reach his own town.

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Our summer staff also leave Langano equipped.  They come and stay for two months and then they leave with an incredible understanding of the camp world.  They’ve led the games so many times they could do them in their sleep.  They’ve listened to teaching on honesty, good choices, and forgiveness from at least three or four teachers.  They’ve seen the dramas their peers have thought up exactly 8 times.  Many of them have commented that they will (and they have!) used camp ideas in their own soccer clubs and youth groups.

Oftentimes showing is better than teaching, and that’s what the camp experience does for staff, coaches, and campers. Camp has influences in many unknown places around the country where God is steadily and surely building His Kingdom.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9