JOHANNESBURG — It’s not your typical Africa.
Kids – many of them Caucasian – run across a grassy soccer field, practicing their dribbling and goaltending skills. The wind is so cold it causes teeth to chatter and eyes to water.
The children are participating in an Upward soccer clinic, a popular outreach event held at many churches in the United States.
But this isn’t suburbia, USA. It’s suburbia, South Africa.
The kids are playing soccer in Edenvale, a residential area east of Johannesburg. Edenvale is a middle-class area full of neatly-tended gardens, corner grocery stores, and early morning joggers. About 80 percent of the population is Caucasian. Walking down a tree-lined avenue in Edenvale, one might easily think of being in the United States.
Also, the problems faced by children in Edenvale are the same as those in any industrialized nation, like the United States.
Richard van Lieshout, youth pastor of Edenvale Baptist Church, which hosted the Upward clinic, said children in this community are under a lot of stress because of school work and peer pressure. Yet they often don’t get much support on the home front.
“Families these days have to work long hours, they sit in traffic for hours, so [the kids’] parents leave them at like seven in the morning and get back like eight at night,” he said. “… These kids don’t get a lot of quality time with their parents.”
Van Lieshout said that out of the 190 children attending the clinic, only 40 of them go to a church of any kind.
“The kids need just love,” he said. “Love and just hugs [and] affirmation – affirmation after affirmation after affirmation.”
During the clinic, the students learned new skills and met in “huddles” to talk about Jesus, learn memory verses, and receive awards and encouragements.
Ten-year-old Cole van Rooyen, who does not attend church, said he learned “about God and how He is wise.”
The combined message of sports and Christ is exactly what Warren Wakefield, one of the event coordinators, is after.
“… I really do believe that [sport] needs to come with a message,” he said. “And what better message than the only true message, and that’s the truth that Jesus loves you.”
Find out more about EBC’s Upward soccer clinic
Melanie Clinton is a writer and editor for IMB. She has lived and worked in five African countries.
