View more photos of the Brazilian volunteers

STELLENBOSCH, South Africa — Before the 2010 World Cup kicked off on African soil, a team of Brazilians were already looking ahead to 2014 when Brazil hosts the next World Cup.

Their training ground, however, is in South Africa, where they are ministering to youth and getting ideas on how they can use soccer to minister to their own people in the next four years.

“Our goal was to come here and serve the communities and learn something for Brazil 2014,” said Celio Freitas, team leader for the Brazilians. “We are preparing a great campaign to lead in Brazil.”

The Brazilian team has been in schools and townships sharing the Gospel, hosting soccer camps and learning how they can train others in Brazil to minister during a worldwide sporting event like the World Cup.

Freitas’ team of 15 arrived in South Africa in May and were joined one month later by 176 other Brazilians who are ministering throughout South Africa, including Johannesburg, where the World Cup final will be played.

For the past two months, Freitas’ team has had opportunities to visit 40 schools in the Cape Town area to conduct soccer clinics, encourage students and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“It worked very good in the schools,” Freitas said. “We were able to talk to thousands and thousands of students.”

A unique method used by the team in schools was using the colors in the South African flag to share the Gospel: yellow means gold in heaven, black represents sin, red is the blood of Jesus Christ, white means Jesus washed us pure and made us acceptable in God’s eyes, green represents growth and the discipleship process, and blue is our command to serve God in this world.

With the 2010 World Cup final only days away on July 11, Freitas and his team are ready to get to work putting to use what they have learned in South Africa in planning for 2014.

“After July 12, we go back to Brazil full of experience and lessons learned in South Africa,” Freitas said. “We want to continue the partnership with South Africa and use all the ministries and networks and activities here.”

Jacob Alexander is a writer for IMB’s Global Communication Team. He enjoys sharing God’s stories from all over Africa and is becoming more of a soccer fan from being in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup.