Missionaries, local Nazarenes and several visiting mission teams recently hosted a one-week basketball camp for youth ages 9 to 18 in Suhareka, Kosova, that saw up to 350 youth participating.
The objective of the camp was to introduce area youth to local believers, giving them a beginning point for relationship building and for receiving the love of Jesus Christ, said visiting volunteer Brad Bergler, from Spokane Valley Church of the Nazarene, Washington, U.S.
The visiting American volunteers included two college students from Trevecca Nazarene University (TNU), a team of five students and leaders from Southern Nazarene University (SNU), and a team of two fathers and their children from Spokane Valley, Washington.
Each day of the camp was broken up into four sessions, with children in the morning, two sessions of high school students and a final session for middle school students.
The missionaries had led a similar basketball camp in 2011, in which about 100 youth participated. They prayed for even more to attend this year. Those prayers were answered. The camp started small, with just a handful of youth in the first sessions, said missionary Gil Thibault. But word of mouth spread and by the second day there were around 100 youth. Every day the number of youth grew, culminating with 350 joining in on the final day.
Each session involved basketball drills and competitions, as well as a short time of sharing led by one of the team members. The last day ended with an ice cream party, and all the youth heard about how Jesus had changed the lives of the team members.
“I was able to give my personal testimony about how Jesus has influenced my life and how my life has been shaped by His love and grace,” said Rod Emerson, also from Spokane. “Our prayer is that we planted seeds of salvation in their hearts that God will cultivate in His time.”
Volunteer Craig Shepperd, from SNU, told a story about one of the youth he met that week.
“There was one student who was ridiculed by his family for hanging out with ‘Christians.’ This student happened to be related to one of our believers from another city. That believer made a special trip home to talk to his family. He informed his family who we were and how much he trusted us. After that conversation, the student was given permission not only to continue with basketball camp, but to participate in anything we were doing, even church.”
Bergler said that he got reacquainted with a number of youth who had attended the 2011 prior basketball camp, which he’d been involved with. He had expected that his primary impact this summer would be on the youngest children. But as the week passed, he developed the closest connections with the older students.
“It just hit me that maybe it was the older group that we were there to impact,” he said. “They were at the age where they might have questions about Jesus and their faith. Now they know where they can go to have those conversations.”
It wasn’t just the youth who connected with the volunteers. Bergler and Emerson reconnected with a Kosovar coach who had been part of the basketball camp in 2011. He helped to lead the camp again this year. One missionary said that the coach spent time on the last day of camp talking with her, asking questions about Jesus and the testimony he heard given.
Volunteer Anita Shepperd, with SNU, also struck up a conversation with the manager of the gymnasium where the camp was held. He invited the volunteers to his home for tea and snacks, to meet his daughters who are studying English.
“We went and had a delightful time,” Craig said. “It was a chance just to love of them and be recipients of their love towards us. The potential of that connection is so powerful and really is evidence of God’s prevenient grace.”
According to Thibault, about 40 youth from the basketball camp attended another youth gathering the church held later in the summer.
