GSM EVANGELISTIC SOCCER CAMPS DURING OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2009

Our GSM soccer camp season is always an exciting one for the GSM family in Guatemala. Last year almost 1,000 youth soccer players heard the Good News of Jesus Christ in our summer program. 291 players accepted Christ as their personal savoir. As we plan for this summer (Guatemala school break is October-December) we look forward to this time again to a great anticipation and expectancy, but this year we have a slightly different strategy with camps for the Lord’s greater purposes.

For 2009 we are hoping to have several local churches, where we host a yearly GSM Soccer Academy, oversee and assist with each camp location. One of our key focus areas this past year has been to work with our church friends, using the passion of soccer and the Cross, to come alongside us so we can to help them more effectively to evangelize the youth in their communities outside the church building and of course onto the soccer fields where youth and adults in Guatemala see and live out futbol (soccer) with great passion as their national sport. We have been having great success stories from this during the year and we are praying that our soccer camps will be another avenue to change the heart of their children who live in the community.

With this in mind, we are asking for your prayers for September - November to be very effective planning and camp times with these churches. In some locations we already have churches involved, while at others we are still seeking a church. We are praying for ‘overseeing’ churches at Carmen, Santa Faz, La Communidad, and Cipresales. Please pray that these churches and others that they would not only see the value in reaching the children in their neighborhoods with the gospel, but provide people to be trained by GSM as helpers for the on going camps in these locations.

Our hope, through our yearly academies and summer camp programs, is to tell children of God’s love for them. Our hope through GSM is get the local church more involved, encourage and assist Guatemalan churches in reaching out to their neighborhoods using soccer to reach others for Christ. We know that these churches, our partner in the Gospel, would be a place of continued growth for young believers to grow in.

We believe and are praying the Lord will again bring 100’s and 100’s of children and youth to these camps and 100’s will come to know Him as their Lord and Savior. It’s our prayer that many of these players will be able to be discipled in the local GSM Soccer Academies throughout the school year. Just imagine how that pleases the Lord, so pray for our full time coaching staff, directors and the many volunteers that work to accomplish these efforts. Thanks and you are appreciated by us.