My trip was organized by the ministry called athletes in action (AIA) and I am the chairperson of the ministry at the University of Johannesburg. AIA is a sports ministry where we teach students how to share their faith in sports, so we use sports as a media to reach out to young students.
My trip started on the 15th of May. I went there alone, I took a flight from SA to Atlanta and there was a quick stop in Senegal. I went to Michigan which is in Detroit, to the city called East Lansing. I stayed there for three days with the other family. Those were the most wonderful days I have ever spent in my life; I took a walk around Michigan State University which is quite an amazing campus. The family was very welcoming and treated me very special.
I took a flight from Detroit to Denver with the husband of the family and we went to Colorado, Fort Collins. With your prayers and financial support I spent the week of May 24-31st, 2009 in Fort Collins, Colorado at the campus of Colorado State University which is the most beautiful campus I have ever seen. Most of the people I met did not know what the camp was about they thought they just came to a training camp but quite surprised when talks were given.
Each day we learned one of the five principles. Each principle builds on the previous one, I’ll briefly explain them. The purpose of the AIA Principle is to transform sport into an opportunity to worship God and to create a learning experience (through discussions, labs and the “SPECIAL”) so that we can learn to participate in sport in a way that honors Him. Principle 1 is called “Audience of One” where we were asked ‘who or what do I worship?’ here we learned about what can become our idols (anything we put before God) in sports and that God alone is worthy of our worship. Principle 2 is “Inside the Game” where we were asked ‘what motivates me?’  We learned that our identity in Christ frees us to compete with a “grace motivation”. Principal 3 is “Holy Sweat” which answered the question ‘how do I grow?’ this expanded on how we are to mature and learn to live more fully in the grace of God through spiritual disciplines. We were then introduced to the idea of having a focal point (scar on your body, something written on your T-shirt or your shoe etc) to remind us of the spiritual disciplines within the competition. The fourth principle is “Hurting for Certain” where we were asked ‘How do I deal with pain?’ We learned that trials and suffering are part of God’s game plan and that sports can be God’s avenue for teaching us to respond appropriately to trials. The last principle is “Victory beyond completion” which asked ‘Does it matter how I live today?’ We learned that we were each given unique talents and abilities and we will give an account to God for what we do with our time, talents treasures. We were encouraged to invest our talents, leave a legacy and make an impact. In order to practice applying the principles we were placed in three different teams/groups throughout the week. The first was a discussion group consisting of four other guys and an intern who led discussions about the principle we were learning and how to fit them into our lives. Another group we had was a volleyball team. After we learned the principle for the day we had ‘volleyballs labs’ where we all went outside and played volleyball to try to apply them. We had different experience levels and only had two legitimate volleyball players but we all learned a lot from playing. In order to make the game as realistic to real competition as possible everything was timed and scored. In order to nail down the application at the camp, players had to experience the same feelings of frustration, fear, fatigue and sometimes failure that they would if they were competing on their respective teams at home.
Our third group, called our “S.P.E.C.I.A.L” team was formed at the end of the week. The SPECIAL was a climax of the week (and many of our lives thus far). It started at 5:20pm on Thursday and ended Friday around 1pm. There were 20 teams, most of which consisted of 8 or 9 athletes. We started with really competitive volleyball matches. When one game ended teams ran to the next court. Next was ultimate Frisbee with ten large fields land up, we had to run constantly during the games and then to our next field. Next we did tug-of-war, pushup relays, basketball and swimming until about 1:30 that night. at that point we had a written test over the principles, when we finished we allowed to go to bed until our team’s report time in the morning which was assigned based on your rank among the other 20 teams we came the fourth. The obstacle course included 11 stops involving activities like the army crawl, shooting basketball free throws, lunges, up-down, 200m piggyback with teammate. After that we played kick ball while every member on the team was fielding, kicking or doing a specially assigned exercise on the sideline. After kickball we did team relays including bear crawl, crab walk, regular sprints etc. the bottom line is we were being pushed absolutely beyond our limits many had cramps and some were crying.
The very last event was not part of the competition: it was between us and God. We were bused to the nearby Rockies up a mountain and then we were told the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. Each of us had most likely heard the story before but we had never experienced this kind of pain. The story was made completely personal being absolutely overwhelmed that Jesus went through even more pain to die for us while we were sinners. I think that every person there now has a different perspective on pain and complaining in general.
So now that we were all having even walking our final task was to run down and then back up this 1600m course carrying a 2-by-4 plank on the way down and putting it across our back on the way like a cross. Most of us had already realized that our strength was only coming from the Lord at this point but those that didn’t had no choice but to beg for strength during the last challenge; we knew there was NO chance we could do it on our own. This was where I was broken when I was walking up the hill because I knew at that point I am physically drained out and I needed Jesus to pull me through to finish the race and when I got to the finishing line I was rejoicing and worshiping him. The next night (after a good bit of relaxing) we had people sharing their experiences. Hearing people’s stories was incredible. I heard about 25 of people who came to know Christ as their savior. That was the rest of my trip all in all. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. I know it was no accident that I was a part of the Athletes in Action Ultimate Training Camp 2009; thank you so much for helping me get there!