We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. – Ephesians 2:10
Tom is a man in Thailand who believes and follows Jesus, and feels the passion of the Messiah for little children to come to Him. He has seen both the suffering and the deception of young and vulnerable children of God, and wants to make a difference in their lives. But he wants the difference to last for eternity. He wants them to know their Father in Heaven.
He previously worked with a local Compassion International project. He had felt God call him back to his home town and church and he wasn’t entirely sure why, but he did know that he wanted to reach out to children and adolescents. He thought perhaps he should serve in children’s ministry through an education program. Disappointingly, he found that was not very good at it, so he continued to seek for what was the good work God had placed him there to do.
Then he remembered Sports Friends, a church-based ministry he had encountered long ago. He reached out to Ning, the Sports Friends Thailand country leader, and learned more about the training and development available for coaches who are zealous to show the love of Christ to youth in their communities. He was thrilled! This was the answer to his prayers, he told Ning!
He trained with Sports Friends and emerged as a coach with a vision. He found that this sports ministry program was precisely the tool he needed to build relationships and communicate with youth effectively. He was finally properly equipped for the work he was designed to do! He took the idea back to his village and established a soccer program through his church. Many local young people came, and some placed their faith in Jesus as they saw Tom’s example of following Christ and loving them enough to give them his time and energy. One of the young men on his team has now entered Bible school, hungry to grow in the Word of God and encourage others to know it also.
We are continuously amazed at how God weaves trainers, coaches, communities, and teams together across the Sports Friends world. He so precisely prepares and equips His individual people to love others well and carry the knowledge of Himself forward, generation after generation. There are so many ways to love and serve others in Jesus’ Name. How remarkable, that one of His methods involves a globally-loved game, a beaten-up ball, and a man searching to discover his God-given gifts in order to usher young Thai men and women into the unshakeable Kingdom of God.