Dressed in bright jerseys and demonstrating the finesse for which Brazilian soccer is famous, a team of Brazilian players teaches a group of children how to dribble a soccer ball through a line of orange cones. Later, after taking a break and singing a song, the Brazilians divide the children into teams and join them in a soccer scrimmage. At the end of the morning, one the Brazilian players, who are all Christians, shares his testimony.
These Brazilian Baptists are part of a soccer evangelism ministry partnership with Virginia Baptists that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
Photo by Alice Rusher
Sheldon Wright, a member of the Jamaican soccer ministry team, scrimmages with children at a clinic in Richmond.
This soccer ministry began in 1998 at a time when Virginia Baptists had been sending mission teams to Brazil as part of a partnership agreement with the Paraná Baptist Convention. “Americans were already going to Brazil to build chapels and to teach and to disciple,” explained Izaias Querino, director of the Paraná Baptist Convention, speaking through a translator.
In response, the Brazilian Baptists were exploring avenues for mission work in the United States. “Ten years ago God used Jerry Jones and John Upton in a conversation back in Brazil,” said Querino, “and they suggested that we could bring a soccer team from Brazil to Virginia so that we could share our expertise in soccer and our love for Jesus Christ.”
Today, the purpose of the soccer evangelism program remains the same. “We use soccer as an instrument,” said Mario Mascimemto, “as a tool to reach the kids who maybe wouldn't go to church.”
Speaking through an interpreter, Anselmo Alves, a pastor and the chaplain for the Brazilian national soccer team, noted that he considers sport “the most efficient tool to evangelize in our century. A Brazilian missionary with just a ball and a green and yellow jersey can attract many people to him, and then he can share the gospel.”
And so for the past 10 years, even after the formal partnership agreement ended, teams from Brazil have been traveling to Virginia for two to three weeks each summer to lead soccer evangelism ministry. Five members of this year's 16-member Brazilian team have come every year since the partnership began.
Photo by Alice Rusher
Members of the Brazilian soccer ministry team.
In 2007 the program was expanded to include a soccer team from the Jamaica Baptist Union. The Jamaicans returned this summer with an eight-member team led by Franklin Small, pastor of the Hanover Street Baptist Church in Kingston, Jamaica.
“Last year was our first experience here doing soccer clinics,” said Small. “We have learned a lot interacting with the Brazilians …. We use our skill to communicate the gospel in the same way that the Brazilians have done.”
This year the Brazilian team led soccer clinics in the Tidewater and Fredericksburg areas, while the Jamaican team was leading clinics in Richmond and Lawrenceville. Both teams also conducted clinics in the Lynchburg area.
According to Billy Hutchinson, the VBMB's coordinator for Baptist Men and sports and leisure ministries, this summer's soccer clinics drew record numbers of participants, and the Brazilian and Jamaican teams presented the gospel to more than 1,500 people across the state.
To mark the 10-year anniversary of this soccer evangelism partnership, a recognition service was held July 15 at Eagle Eyrie as part of MC2 Mission Connection Celebration.
“I believe it [the soccer partnership] is something from God,” Querino told the gathering, “because it has lasted so long.”
Photo by Alice Rusher
Izaias Querino accepts a plaque from Jerry Jones commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the soccer ministry partnership with Brazil.
Asked to describe what the partnership has meant to the Brazilian teams, Querino responded, “What is most important, besides the hospitality and the love of the Americans to us, is that we are seeing hundreds and hundreds of kids surrendering their lives to Jesus Christ.”
Jerry Jones, leader of the VBMB's glocal missions and evangelism team, presented a plague to the Brazilian team from the BGAV in appreciation for the 10 years of partnership in the soccer evangelism program. The plaque cites I Corinthians 3:9 (“We are laborers together with God”) and reads: “In gratitude to the Baptist Convention of Paraná for your generous and sincere collaboration with us in advancing the Kingdom of God in Virginia and in Brazil through 10 years of evangelistic soccer outreach.”
On behalf of the Paraná Baptist Convention, Alves gave Jones a silver plate engraved with the inscription: “The Paraná Baptist Convention praises the Lord for ten years of partnership with the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. Together we can do more. Paraná – Virginia 2008.”
“We're so proud of our relationship with Brazil and the things that have happened over the last 10 years,” said Hutchinson, “but at the same time we're incredibly excited about what's going to happen over the next 10 years as this relationship grows and also as we add other countries.”
The Brazilians and Jamaicans seem equally excited about future ministry together.
For 10 years this soccer evangelism program has been sharing the gospel and forging new ministry partnerships among Baptists from Brazil, Jamaica, and Virginia. Its significance is evident. “Through soccer,” said Alves, “we are expanding God's Kingdom.”