UW Sports Ministry Blog Breaking Free 2011

Pics from Brazil Camps

2011-06-29T14:00:00.005-06:00

Janae Blea starting off the morning camp in Sao Luis.

Stene Verhulst teaching a Bible group at camp in Atibaia.

Elise Bireline at the afternoon camp in Sao Luis.

Soccer session in Sao Luis

UW Team in Mexico!

2011-06-29T13:36:00.003-06:00

UW is so excited to have one of our teams back in Mexico where we have partnered in ministry for many years! The team is currently in the city of Puebla which is about 2 hours outside of Mexico City.

The team is working with Mike Contreras, a missionary with CAM (Central American Misions) International. Mike attended UW's training in January in Mexico City and took back all the things he learned and immediately put them into action. The team is helping run camps with churches in the area that he is currently working with. (The picture is of Mike at the training in January.)

The 12 person team is very large for a UW team but seems to be keeping busy so far. They did fight a stomach bug two nights ago that hit almost the entire team. They are all reportedly doing better today.

They are staying on campus at a local seminary where they are also eating their meals which has been a great setup. They finish up their first set of camps today and will then start a seconds set of camps in a different area of town tomorrow. Pray for continued health and also openness to the Gospel that will be presented today at camp!

Brazil team in Sao Luis

2011-06-28T08:52:00.002-06:00

OUr third Brazil team is in the city of Sao Luis on the Northeast coast of Brazil. This is the city that UW has been doing ministry in for the last 10 years! God has really used the teams in the past to help churches in the area really see the impact of sports ministry in their local communities.

The team is working alongside Mike Nichols who is a missionary there and has been a HUGE partner with our ministry in Brazil. The team is doing two camps a day this week in two areas of Sao Luis (Raposa in the morning and Cidade Operária in the afternoons). They are staying at host homes from Mike's church. The team of Janae Blea, Brent Fortenberry, Caleb Lawrence, Kellen Dick, Melinda Smith and Elise Bireline have checked in and are doing great. They landed in Sao Paulo at 8:30 pm on Saturday night and then connected to Sao Luis (a 3.5 hour flight) so they didn't land until 4am! They are all rested now and had a great "opening ceremony" for their camps this week at one of the churches that really showed the team the passion with which Brazilians do things!

They have a cool opportunity this coming weekend to travel 4 hours south into the interior and run two camps there at churches that are pastored by some of Mike's former seminary students. Please keep the team in your prayers. Unlike the other two teams in southern Brazil, the temps in Sao Luis will be very warm and humid. Stay posted for some pictures from camp very soon!

Brazil Team in Campinas

2011-06-28T08:29:00.002-06:00

The 2nd Brazil team is also in an area of Sao Paulo called Campinas. The team will actually be working the first half of their trip in a city called Elias Fausto. The team is doing two camps a day there with the baptist church there. The church has connections into the public school system which is great for both bringing in unchurched kids to the camp as well as helping get the facilities to run the camps.

We are grateful for the ministry of World Venture who helped set things up for this team to be able to go. They connected us with Dr. Paulo who is the head of the Baptist Association in Campinas and he set up and planned the entire trip for our team.

The team is staying close by the church this week at a hotel where they are also having all their meals. On Friday they move to the city of Hortolandia where they will again run two camps a day until they leave next Tuesday.

The team of Sarah Hodupp, Seth Mullen, Dwayne Groff, Amy Donofrio and Andrew Millington are all doing great! They had a direct flight from Miami to Sao Paulo this past Saturday and the only hickup was that their van from the airport driving up to their hotel broke down so they had to wait for a new one to come (normal missions trip stuff). Brazil is in its winter right now so the temps have been in the 60's dropping into the 40's at night. Pray the team stays warm (don't say that very often during sports camp)!

The team leaves next Tuesday morning the 5th right out of the Campinas airport and lands in Miami Tuesday night at 8:25pm. They will stay there that night before flying up to Washington D.C for debrief on Wednesday morning. Please keep them in your prayers!

International Update- Brazil team in Atibaia

2011-06-28T08:09:00.002-06:00

UW is so excited to have three teams in Brazil this summer doing ministry in three different cities. The first team is in the city of Atitbaia which as you can see by clicking on it about an hour north of Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil (and one of the top 5 largest cities in the world).

The team is partnering with YMI (Youth Missions International) a ministry that UW has worked with for several years in the States. YMI Brasil is run by Juca Cerpe who is an ex Brazilian professional soccer player and has a heart to see churches using sports as an outreach tool. The team is staying with Juca and his family and working at a number of churches in the area and also a school. They started camp yesterday and were at "The International School" in Atibaia where they will be doing a camp all week in the morning. Picture is of the team leading some music there yesterday.

Today they add an afternoon camp that will also go the rest of the week with First Baptist Church Atibaia doing soccer and basketball. On top of that each evening the the team will be doing a one night camp at a different church each day.

The team of Josh Zabloski, Stene Verhulst, Caitlin McGee, Leah Staats, Cody Smith and Courtney Evans are doing well. They had a little longer trip than the other two Brazil teams as they flew from Miami to Belo Horizonte where they had a 9 hour layover Saturday night before arriving in Sao Paulo early Sunday morning. They were able to rest most of the day Sunday and will be VERY busy the next 10 days!

Please keep the team in prayer!

Houston we have a problem.

2011-06-19T20:03:00.002-06:00

Where to begin? We survived.

400 campers.

A bazillion cheerleaders...

A buttload of soccer players.. coached by two basketball interns.

Baby bird murdering Team 45er's.

Church volunteer admirers who loves Chelsea's feet.

Interesting host-homes... still not over it.

72 U-turns in a 2 mile radius.

Missing the evening church by looking for it on the wrong side of the road for 20 minutes (even though we went both ways on the road.. multiple times.)

Caitlin needing peppermint spritz because "oh my gosh.. it's night time and it's still hot." She was not complaining, she was informing us.. multiple times. Bless her heart.

3 pies in the face (and for Justin.. up the nose)

Awesome campers and 48 salvations.

$1800 for Change for Change.. Udub is gettin paper.

And now we're in Paradise.. be jealous, we know you are.

Three Region. :o)

Region 13

2011-06-16T18:32:00.001-06:00

We had a rough start in Dillard Georgia. We have never seen such a place, there was wrestling at a flea market, boiled peanuts every 100 yards and the "big city" contained a christmas store and general store (:

Once we got to our camp in Highlands, North Carolina it was beautiful. It is a small town tucked away in the mountains that really holds true to its church's name, Community Bible Church. Our camp has been running really well with about 40 kids.

The girls are staying at an amazing host home with one of the older couple from the church, Fred and Martha. Martha is just a second mom to us and cooks amazingly! The boys are staying at an inn about 15 min away and actually on one of the drives to pick them up we saw a bear! It was awesome. The group has also been to two waterfalls! One was beautiful the other was more of a trickle. We also went into town, but realized everything closes so early! And there times are for example open from 10ish-4ish its great!

But back to camp we have had a lot of fun with the kids. There are certain kids that our hearts go out for, one family in particular that is going through a divorce. There is also one little girl Chloe that is the most adorable happy spirited little girl. She was in basketball than switched to soccer and has the best attitude about everything! During throw ins she came up with a chant "throw it like you know it!" The gospel message went great today! And Amy had a great experience telling one of the moms that their daughter accepted Christ into her life and the mom began to cry, she had only been saved for about a month.

Overall we are having fun and can't wait to keep making an impacts in the campers life!

OKC Training Highlight Video

2011-06-13T16:51:00.004-06:00

We are so thankful for Tim Askew and all the hard work he puts into creating us a highlight video each year. To see the craziness and the excitement of the week we just had, check out the highlight video!!

2011 Intern Highlight Video

2011 OKC Training

2011-06-13T16:31:00.009-06:00

It is crazy to think that training has already come and gone! What an amazing week of ministry! 104 staff members all gathered in Oklahoma City to run 6 camps all over the area. Over 1,000 kids were involved in these camps and able to hear the Gospel being presented from our coaches. So many kids made a first time decision and it is exciting that God chooses to use us, broken vessels, to share His love with them.

The 104 coaches have now been broken up on 13 teams and spread out all over the US running camps- most teams are running two camps a day! To see the list of teams click Here

Kenya Update #2

2010-08-12T14:26:00.002-06:00

Well, things could not have turned out much better than they did over these last three days! God has been so good in not only providing a great team for me to work with, but also by providing a leader in Kenya who is completely confident in the idea of sports ministry. Pastor Charles Mwanda had prepared very well for this training, and because of his preparation things went off almost without a hitch. Not only did the training go well, but God sure did answer the prayer for numbers. We had over 600 people at the training, with around 450 being church leaders and the last 150 being a mix of children and youth who came to observe the training. What a blessing to see that many people interested in serving Christ using the tool of sports! Over the last three days God has really shown me the effect that someone can have by doing something that they really believe in. I know sports ministry works because over the last seven years I have seen thousands of children all over the world come to Christ, and I could see in the faces of the pastors at the training that they now believe it as well.

However, we are not done yet. I have been in contact with the person who is heading up the training in Nairobi, and it looks like they have close to 100 leaders coming to the training that starts on Monday. God has something great planned for there as well, as we have had four members of the host church in Nairobi accompany us at the training here in Mombasa, and they are extremely excited to bring this back to their church. We also have alot of traveling to do as we have to get to Nairobi, so please keep that in prayer.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to emailing you all again soon with more good news.

God Bless,

Ryan

Update #1 from Kenya!

2010-08-12T14:26:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone,

Well I have officially been in Kenya now for the last 3 days. So far my time has been spent getting ready for the training, setting things in place, and getting all the finances worked out. With that almost done, it is about time to start the training! Here in Mombasa we have 555 pastors and leaders who have confirmed they are coming, so even with some of them having last minute changes in their plans we should have over 500 here in Mombasa. This does not even include the leaders coming to the training we will be doing in Nairobi, so there is a lot of potential for extensive ministry here. I wanted to give you the schedule for the rest of the trip, so you can have a better idea what to pray for over the next two weeks.

Sunday - the rest of the team arrives in Nairobi
Monday - the team takes a bus to meet me down in Mombasa (about a 7 hour bus ride)
- registration for the training seminar starts, so many of the pastors will be traveling as well
Tuesday - training starts, and we will be going all day for 3 straight days
Thursday - the pastors will be traveling back to their homes
Friday - the team will be taking the bus back to Nairobi
Saturday - a free day, the team will be doing some site seeing as well as possibly visiting one of the largest slums in the world
Sunday - the team will be ministering with Nairobi Gospel Center International
Monday - the second training starts, also going for 3 days
Thursday - a free day, the team possibly will get a chance to visit some orphanages and spend time with kids there
Friday - the team will be flying back to the U.S.

There are a couple things I would like you to keep in mind as you are praying. Each training will not only consist of 3 days of teaching the pastors and leaders how to use sports for evangelism, but each afternoon we will be doing an outreach camp in the area, so many kids will get a chance to hear the gospel while we are there. We are anticipating having over 500 kids between the two camps, so please pray that they will be receptive to the message of the gospel. Specifically during the training time, could you pray that the information will be presented in a way that will be helpful in establishing a model for sports ministry throughout Kenya. This is definitely a tool that will be very helpful to these leaders, but we want it to be culturally relevant, not just another American ministry.

Specifically for my team, could you pray for flexibility and the calming of nerves. Flexibility because while nothing ever goes completely as planned anywhere, it definitely does not go as planned when you are in another country. Their understanding of a schedule and staying on time is nothing like what we are used to in the States. As for the nerves, not many from the team have ever had such a responsibility placed on them, to train and lead this many Christian leaders at one time. Pray that they will do their best in preparing, and then leave the rest up to the Lord when it comes to the results. I could also use a lot of prayer in this regard, as this is far beyond anything I have ever done before.

I thank each and every one of you for remembering this trip in prayer. I know God has great things in store for these next two weeks here in Kenya, and He has proven Himself time and again to be faithful. I have no doubts that it is His will that the team and I are here, and I know He will bless our efforts to provide Kenyan leaders with another tool to share Christ all over their country. Every single district from Kenya will be represented, so this really is a once in a lifetime opportunity to reach an entire country.

May God bless you all,

Ryan Van Hoven
UW Sports Ministry

Region 6 in New England

2010-07-31T19:13:00.002-06:00

We had a great time in my homeland!!!! We spent a week in Avon and Hartford CT. In the morning we enjoyed the great folks of Valley Community Baptist Church (my home church!!) and had fun coaching soccer, basketball, cheer, tennis, and golf! Over 130 kids and coaches had a blast!

In the afternoon we partnered with Hartford City Mission and had a ton of fun playing soccer and getting our hip hop on! (thanks melinda!). I even got to be in the 'hot seat' on the birthday!!('tank u').. Great to have Drew and Jess with us!!

Then we drove to the evil empire.. I mean Boston Massachusetts for two more camps! We got to step out in faith with the good folks of Winthrop Baptist Church (Abraham Lincoln's memorial service was held there!!) Even thought we were tired, Norma's hospitality helped us go the distance! Over 60 kids and volunteers had a blast! And it was great to see the Rehobeth Mass team and church folks as well!

We then ventured north under Boston (thanks to the 'Big Dig') to Winchester and Hope Christian Church. The traffic couldn't stop us from having fun with 140 kids and coaches! We had art and music/drama at this camp, and I had a blast helping to choreograph their production and help grout their mosaic projects!! The home cooked meals were awesome too!!

I can't thank thank "Team Awesome" enough for their hard work, great attitudes, faithfulness and flexibility! I enjoyed you all a bunch! The family meetings, horseeees,

Mcd's runs, and snacky snacks were memorable.. but it was our team cheers that I'll miss the most!!! Seth, Melinda, Lindsey, & Katie..KA KAW!!!!! this is for you! Love you- from 'mother bird :)

T:
Toucan
T-Rex
Tiger Shark
Turtle
Tadpole

H:
Horse
Halibut
Horsefly
Hawaiian Seal

E:
Earwig
Eel
Eagle
Emu
Elf

Ping Ponging Across the Country!

2010-07-29T14:49:00.005-06:00

Hello there from Region 7!

It has been a great three weeks as we have traveled from South Carolina all the way over to Denver, and have settled for our last week of camp in Massachusetts. It has been an amazing session filled with wonderful people, awesome sights, and tons of fun memories.

Camps have been a blast and we have loved working with all of our churches. In South Carolina our volunteers did an great job loving on our campers and the mini-musical was fabulous. When we traveled to Denver we had a blast kicking off a first year camp in the morning and working with an urban ministry in the afternoon. The kids were so excited to be at sports camp and did a great job. During those two weeks, God continually held back bad weather to allow camp to happen, and even kept campers focused on the evangecube during a neighborhood pick up game.

Now we are settled in Massachusetts and have really enjoyed spending time with the people here. Our church has done camp many years, and has it all together. It's nice to sit back and enjoy watching the volunteers pour so much out for these kids. Our youth volunteers are especially energetic and jump at any chance to be helpful. Since we have had some extra time without a night camp, we have been able to do some cool things like attend a game at Fenway Park with another UW team, tour Boston, and visit Newport Beach. We are looking forward a great Friday Fun Day, and our last day of camp!

Our team has had a great time doing camp, but also spending time together. A few of our favorite memories:

-Jet skiing next to a pod of dolphins

-Attempting to put a princess band-aid on Levi (we were not successful)

-Playing Apples to Apples on an airplane (the flight attendent thought we were nuts)

-Leslie getting kicked in the head with a soccer ball while sitting in Chicago Midway Airport

-Laughing hysterically as Carissa imitated animal noises and when she attempted guitar hero

-Visiting Fenway Park

-Caitlin galloping next to Paul Revere's house yelling "The British are coming! The British are coming!"

It has been a great three weeks, and we are thankful for so many fun memories. Hoping that everyone had a great last day of camp around the country!

Until Next Summer,

Leslie, Levi, Carissa, Caitlin, Korrine, and Kim

2010-07-16T12:11:00.002-06:00

Hello from Region 8 in North Carolina! We haven't stopped sweating or getting bitten by Mosquitos since we got here.

We have learned that children will do Absolutely anything for silly bands, and so will Aimee. We also Learned that in the most urban areas, everyone loves to do "a time to wait." Aimee and Rachel learned on thursday that their shower was in fact not broken, but that in order to get hot water you have to turn the hot water knob.

Our urban camp has been a blast, and we have loved building relationships with the kids from the community. We have been doing camp with kids from ages 2 to 22. Last night one of the older boys, Orlando, gave his life to Christ. It has been such a blessing to watch God move in this place.

In our spare time we like to do Yoga, NOT get lost, Visit Liberty University, play hide and go seek in target (and get caught by campers) and play beach volleyball.

With lots of love,

Region Number 8 in the notebook, Region number 1 in your hearts.

Aimee, Brent, Candace, Rachel and Jenny

Region 5: Berne, Indiana

2010-07-15T13:42:00.004-06:00

After circling the airport several times, we finally got our directions right, turned on the country music, and headed to Berne, Indiana. We were welcomed there by a former UW intern, Allison Lapina. She is continuing to use sports to reach people for Christ, and she was thrilled to have a UW team again. By the grace of God she has been able to organize cooperation among several of the churches of Berne for sports camp, and 3 main churches are represented for resources, with kids coming from all around. We started out with 42 kids on Monday, and since then have grown to 58.

Our evening camp is about 20 minutes away, but it has been going well too. Coach Julia said, "This is pretty much the only time I've known every single kid's name by Tuesday night." Since it is lighter on numbers, about 24, we have gotten to know the kids quite a bit better, and they have had much more personal attention.

As for fun, well, we are in the middle of cornfields. There aren't even cows for cow-tipping. No really, we have enjoyed resting at host homes, going on paddleboats in the canal-lake, and eating amazing, amazing food. Yesterday we drove into a grove of trees and discovered a mini-waterpark in a pond. So, being the UW team we are, 4 of us jumped off a 30 foot platform into the dark water below. All 4 of us did come to the surface afterwards, still alive! Franky stood aside and watched, just in case someone was so injured he/she couldn't complete camp in the evening.

We couldn't stop there for an amazing day though, could we? After camp we played ping-pong and pool at the house. Both games take on a totally new dimension when Mary and Courtney are playing. Julia held two paddles and hit the ball more with her left than either of them could with the right. The game is played around the table without the table and without paddles. We decided maybe we would do better at pool. Well, our host dad proclaimed that when someone scratches the ball, IF any balls were miraculously knocked in the hole, there they shall stay, and only the white ball will come back to the gorgeous green. Well, about 80% of the way through the game, Mary finally knocks a ball, a ball of the right solid-ness, in without scratching. So she claps her hands excitedly and manages to hit her face with the pole, hitting her nose just hard enough to make it start bleeding. End of game for Mary. On Julia's next hit, end of game for Courtney. Retirement sounds like a good option... Courtney did, however, salvage some cheering-glory and make the next game competitive.

Disclaimer: credit to Allison, she did know about the waterpark and we went there by plan. If we had energy for more, we could certainly be doing more stuff. We have been happy to rest, workout, eat, and rest some more though. Or eat some more. Today we drove clear to Ohio (20 minutes), for ice cream to celebrate camp with our volunteers.

Region 5, headed to evening camp in the rain, says good night. - Julia, Franky, Courtney, Zac (Zin Tin Tin), and Mary

Region 6 in virginia!!!

2010-07-13T13:53:00.002-06:00

Heather Lods here reporting for Region 6! We are having an amazing time in Culpepper and Manasses Virginia! God has been doing His thing!

At our morning church, our friends at Providence Bible Church stepped out in faith and asked us to come help them run their first ever sports camp. They were expecting 15-20 children.. Well, God brought 135 kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES YES YES!!! The entire church is involved! It's awesome!

In the evening we are partnering with Park Valley Church. This is the 2nd year they have run a sports camp, and again God has brought out a ton of kids! Over 130 !!

Our dream team of Seth, Katie, Lindsey, Ryan, Melinda, and myself (and drop in Jessica) are enjoying the Old Dominion! We can't wait to see the Holy Spirit work this week!

Amazing!! Life Changing!! I mean WOW!

UW Sports Camp in the news

2010-07-05T10:11:00.003-06:00

Check out this great article that a local paper did about our camp in Worthington, Minnesota! It was the front page story of the Religion section in the city newspaper and does a fantastic job telling all about what the kids learned about. Download it here!

God is Alive in England!

2010-07-02T15:26:00.003-06:00

How do you say Hello in a British way? Oh yeah, Hello (said with a British accent)

Thought we were due to send you an update about our adventure here in good ol' England. Our adventure started on Saturday evening as we meandered through fans pouring out of airport sports bars with earnest pleas for the US team to score a goal...unfortunately that did not happen. We boarded our flight which seemed to literally fly by, although I did not sleep a wink. The 'adventure' part of our trip met a very tired and sleep deprived group with apparently no car rental!

So I, being the fearless and much controlled-never frustrated leader that I am, spent the next two and half hours walking back and forth from my sleepy team and the line of men holding large placards of names of those who had car rentals. Unfortunately never seeing My Name! Apparently, the 'trusted' company whom I had rented a vehicle with is merely a vehicle broker...and they had forgotten to email me saying that there was no car available. A minor detail left out.

Calling upon my years of UW curriculum, I remembered that ''...in all Great Comebacks there are desperate moments.'' Well what did you do in this very real desperate moment? I am so glad that you asked. I prayed! And you know what, God answered that prayer through an amazingly understanding and caring woman from a completely different agency. PTL

So the team piled into our nine passenger mini-bus and finally let their half-masted eyes descend into much needed sleep as I whisked us down the motor way towards the surprise Levi and I had in store for them.

After nearly two hours, we woke the team as we pulled off the road heading towards a pasture made famous only due the rock formation of Stonehenge. It was really quite neat to see the amazement and intrigue the team had at actually being at a place they had only seen pictures of and never thought they would ever go to. I had a little chuckle to myself at the simplicity of their emotions. Ps, Stonehenge is so much nicer during the summer...

We finally arrived in Bridgwater later that evening and enjoyed a dinner with our host families. The purpose of our trip here is first and foremost to run a training and then run a camp so those being trained would have a practical application to what they are learning. Unfortunately, the training aspect has not been well attended due to the timing, being before the summer even starts out here. But our camp has been amazing! The first night we had 34 kids show up, 15 were registered. And then on Tuesday, another 15 showed up! God is definitely the one that has been bringing the kids here and it has been fantastic to see how this has impacted the team so far.

A majority of the kids that are at the camp are unchurched and have never stepped foot into one. But there hearts are open and their ears are listening. On Thursday we shared the gospel and two kids, ages 5 and 8, decided that they wanted to ask Jesus to come into their lives and change them they way that He did for Paul.

The first half of our trip has come to end but not before another surprise. When I asked Sara, our contact here in Bridgwater, about how she thought the camp went, she looked up at me with a smile. She said that at the beginning of the week there were 25 kids registered...then 84 kids showed up throughout our week of camp! And she thought she didn't do a good job of advertising.

We head to Richmond near London tomorrow. Please pray that God will bring kids to the camp we will do on Monday and Tuesday. Ministry has been happening and we are looking forward to meeting some new kids and sharing Jesus with them.

Giving them Heaven,
Nate and the England Team

Haiti Update!!

2010-07-02T13:40:00.002-06:00

I just got off the phone with Molly Starch who returned to the States today after spending the first half of the international time with two of the Haiti teams. I know they have had no access to internet so I wanted to update on the trip so far.

All three of our Haiti teams arrived safely last Sunday and then split into two groups. The first group was our Haiti teams number 1 and 3 (Julia Cruz, Joe Paris, Lindsay Paris, Dwayne Groff, Jenny Pasch, Mary Jones, Candace Portillo, Zac Tinney, Amanda Torres, Christa Simpson and Caitlin Young). Those two teams took a four hour bus ride over the mountains to the city of Jacmel which is on the south coast of Haiti. In Jacmel they stayed at a mission that was just rebuilt by a ministry and a group of doctors for the purpose of housing groups that come over to do relief and ministry work.

It sounds like that was a huge blessing because they were still putting the final touches on the place as our team was getting there including brand new mattresses. Also there were a group of doctors staying there doing medical work so our team was in good hands just in case any of them got sick.

While in Jacmel, the teams ran a training and a camp. They had 35 Pastors and Church people from around the area to learn more about sports ministry and then they went out and ran a camp in the afternoon. They had 50-60 kids at the camp and Wednesday when they presented the Gospel 19 kids made a first time decision for Christ! These 19 met with the local Pastors who plan to start the follow up process with each one!

Yesterday the two teams traveled back to Port au Prince where they split up. Team #1 (Joe, Lindsay, Zac, Amanda, Caitlin, Christa and Candace) were picked up by the orphanage that they will be working at the rest of the time in Haiti. They will be running camps for these kids in the area of Acai.

Team #3 (Julia, Jenny, Dwayne and Mary) boarded a little plane and headed north to the city of Port de Paix. They will be running another training and camp for the Pastors and kids in that area.

Team #2 (Leslie Macmanus, Spencer Choquette, Lindsey Woodall, Carissa Martin, Chelsea Smith and Kim Hopkins) have been working closer to Port au Prince with the Baptist Haiti Mission. They are going into schools everyday and running afternoon sports clinics and camps. The first day they had 250 at camp and were able to share the Gospel with the entire group! They are staying at the Baptist Mission.

Overall it sounds like it has been quite an eye opening experience as the country is still completely devastated from the earthquake. I don't think any of the footage we have seen on TV does it justice compared to what Molly was telling me when you are right in it. It sounds very sobering but at the same time exciting for each of team members to be able to share and give what they can selflessly. Please keep them in your prayers over the next few days. They fly back into the States on Wednesday afternoon connecting through Miami on their way back to Washington DC where we will be waiting to help them relax and recover for a few days!

UW 2nd half U.S teams are posted!

2010-07-01T16:33:00.003-06:00

Click here to check out the 2nd half teams

Chivo!

2010-06-30T21:48:00.003-06:00

What up U-Dubbers? El Salvador team here, going the distance...international-style. For the past three days, we have been busy working with leaders from a church in San Salvador, training them in soccer, basketball, and team 45. As we have taught the leaders about sports ministry, it has been so refreshing to see their enthusiasm. Each and every Salvadorian that we have interacted with at the church has been excited about sports ministry and eager to learn more. Every morning, after discussing the many aspects of sports ministry, we were able to show them specific drills and games from each sport. The leaders got really into all of our sports breakout sessions and loved competing against each other. In the afternoons, after training, all of us piled into a van, literally, to do a camp at an orphanage. On Monday, we began by showing the trainees how camp goes. Tuesday, we began getting them more involved and helping with the drills. Despite the spontaneous down-pours of rain, Monday and Tuesday went very well. It caught us all off-guard how the kids welcomed us with open arms. Their precious bodies would squeeze us to death and the instant love we felt for them is unforgettable. Today, however, was pretty remarkable. We passes the trainees the reigns and they got really involved. We showed the illusion and ran some of the drills, but the church guys did the rest. Having seen the sports story and Bible lesson that we demonstrated just this morning, they did a fantastic job. They engaged the kids well and showed them the love of Christ. It was awesome to watch God work through all of us today to reach the children. When the evangecube was presented, several of the children responded to receive Christ for the first time. Praise God! Our goodbyes to the children were quite emotional because we all wanted to say a little more than just "adios." We are pretty sure though that the love in our eyes for them was quite apparent and they knew we did not want to make that our final goodbye. Although our experiences at the orphanage are over, we have pictures that they gave us to remember them by. We we presented with a folder full of all the kids names, pictures, and birthdays! Our contact with them is not over and we all look forward to sending them our love from home!
Now, with a week left, we will be spending our time running a few more short camps at a school and partaking in a conference with other ministries next week. In the meantime we will need plenty of sleep so it is "!adios¡" for now!

Love,
The El Salvador team
(Louie, Katrina, Kiersten, Jimmy, Lynda, Bekah, Bree, and Katie)

Training Week Pictures!

2010-06-24T15:26:00.001-06:00

Pictures from this year's training are all online for you guys to look at and get the ones you want! Just click Here!

Region 7, Daytime TV Star!!!!!!

2010-06-23T19:55:00.002-06:00

Hola UW Friends and Family,

Region 7 is kickin it old style. We are loving each other and loving our time with the camps. We spent week one in Worthington, Minnesota. It was a first year camp and they were amazing. We got very involved with the church throughout the week. We got to play Hocker at singles night, Spencer caught a popfly in the church league softball game, we lead a youth group session, and appeared on daytime TV doing "Go The Distance" for the entire church. We were local celebrities for the week. The volunteers were great. We could not have asked for a better experience with a first time church. We were excited that over half of our camp was made up of kids who were not members of the church. God allowed us to minister to many kids, and we had a large number of first time decisions. Praise to God. We did love our volunteers and miss them dearly. After being blessed for a week we headed out for Beaver Creek, Ohio.

The start to our week in Ohio was rough. After a nights rest in the Econo Lodge in Omaha, a very classy place (or not so much!!) we headed to the airport. Southwest will fly your bags for free, but that doesn't mean they will arrive in one piece. As we found out when we landed and Chanel noticed a TSA worker holding a World of Need ball outside of our window. She said, "Hey isn't that our ball." We soon noticed many other items rolling out of the plane and then found the cardboard box that had split in half. We headed to baggage claim and eagerly awaited the arrival of our resources. We got the empty box..... Which didn't really help, but it was followed by 3 large grey bins with all of the resources. Luckily everything was accounted for. And it was good to find out that our bags had been searched. TSA made sure everything was safe, but not necessarily secure. What a start!!!!! Once we finally made it to Beaver Creek the week soon took off. We are having a great time with the campers and getting to know the church better. We are excited to share the Gospel tomorrow and are looking forward to the next few days of camp. Please be praying for us as we finish out the week.

With Christ's Love,

Region 7 (Leslie, Ali, Chanel, Korrine, and Spencer)

Region 14

2010-06-23T17:11:00.001-06:00

Region 14

2010-06-23T17:09:00.002-06:00

Region 8: Please Don't Seperate!

2010-06-23T13:03:00.004-06:00

Greetings from the great state of Minnesoooooooota!

We knew that it was going to be an awesome two weeks here because Kutless was on our flight from one of our stops outside of OKC. I am going to start right away with saying that the Lord is doing amazing things in our camps! Last week we were in Forest Lake, Minnesooooota and 17 kids made first time decisions for Christ. The hospitality we received at that camp was awesome. For our evening camp we would drive to Minneapolis and do an urban camp at a local park. Nathan (who was from Covenant church and helped put on the camp) would cook hot dogs all night to bring people in from the community to stay at the park while we did camp.

The first day at the urban camp we played soccer with the kids and they had a great time. We quickly learned that to keep these kids coming back we needed to do things they wanted to do. For the rest of the week we played kickball. This should be an added curriculum, especially on how to catch in kickball. Kristi did not do such a great job and was continually dropping the ball. The coolest part about this camp was it was in a high Muslim area and every day we had the opportunity to tell these kids about Christ. On Thursday as storms were brewing around us, the Lord protected the little time we had at camp. We were able to bring the gospel to the kids. Parents who were passing by stopped with their kids and listened and two of the kids that stopped ended up giving their life to the Lord!! That day 6 kids camp to know the Lord! It didn't rain and the Lord used Region 8 so much in that camp. We felt very blessed.

Our sports, illusions, sports stories, and bible times have been so much fun. In our illusions, Dwayne gets so excited when he gets to come out of the chains that he hits kids in the front row with them. Kelli loves leading the songs and Lindsey is doing a fabulous job MC-ing. Rachel has the gift of telling amazing bible stories, and Kristi is loving that she gets to do basketball for 2 weeks!

Since we are a team of all golden retrievers, it is said that we have hard time making decisions. Not with us...

On Saturday we rented bikes and rode all around Minneapolis for hours! It was so much fun, but Lindsey (who does not like the outdoors) thought it was pretty funny for us to pay for exercise. We passed Jon Piper's house and he was even outside petting his dog. We even got the opportunity (thanks to Dwayne's host home) to go to a Minnesota Twins game at the new Target field. The best part was there were 4 tickets, so Dwayne just bought a ticket by himself and sat on the complete opposite side of the field. The 4 girls sat together and had a little boy tell us we all looked like princesses. And after a long day of camp we like to come back to our amazing host home that has a library and read each other stories. Our host family even likes to sit outside the door and listen to our story telling skills.

It has been an amazing two weeks and we have been blessed to do ministry together. The Lord has placed a special blessing over our team and over our camps. We have not had huge weather issues and best of all we are getting the opportunity to tell these kids about Jesus.

Thanks for reading and for the prayers--keep you posted before we head out!

With love Region 8 (Kristi, Kelli, Rachel, Dwayne, and Lindsey)

R3g10n 12

2010-06-22T20:01:00.003-06:00

Kathleen's a Nascar driver--she only goes left--but beyond that, hilarious through tolls and in driving in general: "Are my lights on?" [Time: 8:30 P.M.]

At the morning camp in Birmingham we taught soccer to 31 4-10 yr olds in fierce humidity. Coach Drew and Coach Mary led the way with Coaches Seth, Kathleen, and Ashley changing in an instant to go the distance by coaching soccer for the camp. In the afternoon we worked with 150 kids in an urban camp at Birmingham Southern. This camp has been the highlight so far, between playing games like kickball with the soccer kids to Ashley's brilliant flexibility in cheer. (She found out Monday that there was cheer, and she came up with a plan on the way to the camp).

One of our best volunteers there actually is from the church here in Florida that we are working with. Her church family has laid the ground well for our camp, and we are working with 46 kids, back in our regular schedule of basketball, soccer, and cheer. Florida is treating us well with the weather and we are looking forward to a great finish to first session.

P.S.: Seth got a picture with Miss Florida.

Region 6 Signing In

2010-06-19T07:44:00.005-06:00

Greetings from Region 6 in Dallas, Texas. We have been thoroughly enjoying our two camps while enjoying the 100 degree temperatures. :-) Despite the heat, the campers in both camps seemed to have limitless energy and endurance throughout the week (which made for two awesome camps). Our morning camp had 75 kids and was special to Jessica because it was her parent's church hosting the camp for the first year. The church had nothing but great things to say about the camp. One of the church director's said it was the BEST children's camp she has ever been a part of!! Our evening camp had 26 kids and they all did basketball. Worked out perfect that all four girls play(ed) basketball-- we just had to teach Levi not to use his feet and he was good to go!

In our spare time, we toured the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, the JFK museum, and the University of North Texas campus (Jess's alma mater- GO MEAN GREEN!!). It has been a fantastic week in Texas and we are looking forward to seeing what the San Francisco area will bring next week. Until then, adios!

Region 6 (Jess, Levi, Carissa, Kiersten and Caitlin)

Howdy from Texas :)

2010-06-18T14:56:00.002-06:00

Our week started off really well when Sam called to tell us that we were his favorite team this session. :)

We are in Austin, Texas this week at Northwest Fellowship so we have really enjoyed spending time with Christina Kent and Alex Ream. Because we only have a morning camp, we have spent lots of time hanging out, seeing the sights around Texas and napping of course.

The kids this week were absolutely hilarious. We must have spent half of the week laughing at the great things they said. Here is a great one you might enjoy:

Team 45 was attempting to learn jump rope and a few of them were pouting because they were really struggling with it and kept saying, "I can't do this." They were informed by one of the church volunteers that the devil is the one who tells them they can't do it, but with God all things are possible. (True, but remember, these are four year olds) One of the little girls, Miranda was still pouting in the corner and when I tried to encourage her to keep trying, Aliza, the youth pastor's four year old daughter told me as she jump roped, "Coach Jenny, don't worry, Miranda is listening to the devil, but I am listening to God, because I love Him."

Last night we went down to the Riverwalk in San Antonio, and naturally we couldn't leave without performing "A Time to Wait" on a bridge over the river for everyone to watch. We will be posting a video soon, so be excited for that.

We hope y'all are doing well. :)

In His Precious Name,

Region 9

When in Moline...

2010-06-17T13:45:00.010-06:00

Hey everyone!! Region 10 here, and boy do we have a lot to tell you!

So we are here in Moline,Illinois and we have had some crazy weather! Starting off on Monday of course, an hour before camp was starting, it began pouring rain! So we had to run two seperate camps at once! Chelsea and I (Amanda) ran one at a local school, and Farley and Christa ran the other at the church! It was definitely a long and tiring morning, but we managed; God got us through it! We were definitely WILLING TO CHANGE :) (Sam don't read this next part) After that, Farley decided to take us out to dinner to celebrate! We went to TGI Fridays, aaand we spent $90. On 4 people. It was great. Hahah.

After Monday, the rest of the week has seem to have gone pretty smoothly. We have a HUGE camp of over 150 kids so it's been a little stressful, but we have a great group of volunteers. Today was salvation message day and it went as smooth as possible!! (Except Chelsea almost died on stage while singing Sunshine because she swallowed her gum. She got waaay to into the song) But other than that, we had many kids come to Christ. It's amazing to see how kids can get out of hand, but as soon as you bring out that evangecube, they automatically pay attention!

This week we ended up not having a night camp, so it's been really fun hanging out and getting to know eachother. Lets see...some adventures we've had include: going to Iowa, playing in the
Mississippi River, having a salt fight at Wendy's, exploring the mall, playing in the woods and the crick down yonder!! Hahah and much more! Region 10 has definitely got to be the best team!!

'Til next week in Grand Junction, CO!

Region 10,

Amanda Montenegro, Christa Simpson, Chelsea Smith (Ast. Coach), & good 'ol Farley :)

Here are some highlights from our week :)

This picture pretty much says it all...

Christas 1st DQ experience!

Farley tried to catch a duck...

This is what Chelsea decided to do to me while we were at the Mississipi...

Team Picture :)

OKC Training Highlight Video!

2010-06-14T16:37:00.003-06:00

UW 2010 is underway!

2010-06-14T16:23:00.002-06:00

We just finished up our training week in Oklahoma City and all 14 teams have hit the road! Click Here to see a list of all of our teams and where they are for the next two weeks!