It felt so good to be back in South Africa, I missed this country and especially the people of Hoopstad and Tikwana a lot.
Like I mentioned in my previous blogpost, we were going to set up a sportcamp in Tikwana with the help of local volunteers. We would be playing soccer with the boys and volleyball with the girls.
The day after we arrived we set up a training day for the volunteers. Here we could inform them about the vision of SportQuest, how our camps look like, but also just play some teambuilding games and really build relationships with the volunteers. The training day was amazing, 7 volunteers came and we had a good time sharing info but also having fun together and setting us up for succes for the coming week.
On sunday we were able to join the church in Tikwana for their service, and it was a fun time. Their worship is really on another level and it was great to join them in giving the Lord thanks. I also got the chance to preach in front of the church, and shared how God walks with us, and that we need to completely trust Jesus. Jenni of our team got a chance to sing with the worship leaders, and this was apparantly a dream come true for her. We really enjoyed being part of the service and felt welcomed to Tikwana.
Next day our camp would start, we always started with a bible verse that we would share with all of the kids together, before we split up into our sports. We would be focusing on Hebrews 12 and talking about topics such as Perseverance, Discipline, Listening to the coach and God, Teamwork and ending with praise and giving God thanks!
We started the camp on monday with 3 age groups of each about 15 kids, by the end of the week this amount would have grown. The young kids got divided again in 3 groups of each about 12 kids. The middle age kids doubled as well thanks to a volunteer from a different church joining us with his kids, he was excited when he heard about the camp and he joined us with some kids from his church, including a few girls who just love to play soccer and show they could play as good as the boys. And also in the older age group we gained a few kids, this older group consisted mostly of kids who were already in a team trained by one of the volunteers. This team started after our camp last year, and it’s great to see how Kaytee (who is the trainer and one of the volunteers) works with these kids and is committed on making a difference in his community.
We worked on our soccer skills all week and from passing to dribbling to playing defence you saw how the kids were improving. Even the younger groups where we had kids as young as 7 year were improving, we worked hard on fundamentals but every day you saw the progress but more importantly the amount of fun the kids had. We always ended our days with soccer games against each other, everyday you saw how the kids were playing better together, playing more disciplined, and using their soccer skills better then the day before.
We ended our week with a big tournament on Friday, it was close games and in the end who won doesn’t really matter. I saw kids smiling, having fun and working together to win games. You saw a huge difference in the way the kids played but also in their attitudes so in this short week we really made great strides forward.
The part from the camp I loved the most, was the talks, sharing about God’s love to them, but also how God can help them. I had some great talks with kids individually a few times and praying for one of the kids was probably the highlight of the camp for me. God is at work in Tikwana, and using the volunteers and a simple tool as soccer to speak to those kids and show them love.
I canned wait to be back in Tikwana in September and keep going forward with these volunteers, who everyday shine their light in Tikwana.
Below you can find some pictures from the project week in Tikwana
