Nobody likes to lose. If you ask anyone on the street whether he wants to be a winner, almost certainly he would answer in the affirmative. Maybe today there would be those who just don't care whether they win. But we can say with confidence that no one wants to lose ...

5 February, 2011

This was a significant date for a group of guys from Salvation Church and some teens from the Poltava district of Levada. That's when we went to Melitopol for competitions in Floorball - an exciting and fast growing sport. Two teams were on the trip: the older was made up of young Christian sports ministry trainers from «UPWARD», and the younger consisted of Christian teens who are in training, practice matches and a Bible study with the trainers.

A very important achievement was developing the right attitude to the upcoming game. We had to play a total of nine games in one day (five for the senior team, and four for the junior)! As a very young team with just a few months of experience, we could not even dream that we could compete in skill, technique or tactics. I can't speak for everyone, but for me, as captain of the senior team, it was scary to even think about going up against teams with over ten years of floorball experience! The picture in my mind was "Massacre of the Innocents" and frankly, I was afraid. But it was equally clear that this trip would be a watershed moment in the development of our ministry. And the Lord, through Pavel Kushnir, the leader of the «UPWARD» ministry in our church, gently but firmly invested (and continues to invest) in our two principles:

1. Enjoy what you do. A person can not fully commit to something if he does not feel that it is a free choice; if he does not enjoy it.

2. If you are doing something for God, try to do it professionally.

Though the fear was great, it did not deter us from the wonderful opportunity to have fun and learn from real professionals in this type of youth ministry. We constantly pray for them and we know that the best form of evangelism is our own example as we work with these boys. We also ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to pray that the example we set for these boys would be steadfast in Christ.  We want the Holy Spirit to reveal himself through us and through the truths that we teach them.

Based on these two principles, we set ourselves two objectives that we want to achieve during this trip:

1. Show real team play and a Christian attitude to all of our opponents.

2. Play for fun.

We started the first game with team prayer for the coming games; that the Lord would help us to achieve these two goals to the fullest while we are on the field. This was only the second trip for the teenage team. During their first tournament they did not score any goals. This time the team not only showed that they were ready to play agianst strong and experienced competitors, but also showed the progress they had made during training. In games against strong teams the scores were close this time.

Good Job!

We can't say that everything went smoothly, peacefully and without incident, but even the slips did not hurt, but in fact strengthened our relationships and team spirit. We didn't win a single game on points, but each of us realized that the most important victory is the victory over our own desires and emotions for the sake of the success of the team. Excuses and complaints only show weakness, but humility and giving 100% yield incredible results. Everyone on our teams felt the difference this makes.

In the bus, during the team prayer time after the tournament everyone prayed ...

P.S. We ask you to pray that our sports ministry would first of all meet spiritual needs.  Pray that children will come and be fed spiritually, seeing what we do and hearing what we say. Also, please support your friends who are in this ministry. We not only want to do well and to speak well, but to be good influence in the lives of the children that we work with.

Stanislav Kushnir