Briar St. Soccer Camp

By Nick Raven, British intern from the newly formed AMiE (Anglican Mission in England).

As a soujourning Englishman I have been subject to a wide ambit of friendly interrogation, especially from the kids in our neighbourhood. This has ranged from ‘do you speak English?’ to the culturally inquisitive ‘is England cool?’. Needless to say all of them have been gratefully received, considered and answered to varying degrees of success. Yet by far the most frequent question that all of us, English or not, have been asked In the last few days is ‘will the soccer camp be running next week?’ Plainly this denotes some level of success, of which I would like to share in a few words.
Throughout the first day of the camp it was clear that the kids were fired up for it. They had full uniforms on by midday (6 hours before kick off) and were busy telling their friends, handing out flyers and generally doing a much better job of publicity than we ever could! It was amazing to see Edgar, Kevin and Brian (3 of our neighbours) running around the apartment complex with flyers in hand whilst Jonathan and I stood admiringly from the comfort of our living room. The eagerness and positivity of these boys represented a trend that would last the entire week. 6pm eventually came around, so with 6 coaches and a few painstakingly prepared soccer drills we set about trying to teach them a few things. Dave was on hand with a quite brutal warmup for our eager participants, and then it was on to drills, followed by 45 minutes of scrimmages. This would be the routine for the remainder of the week, not forgetting the all important drinks and snacks break which triggered some of the finest sprinting efforts I have ever seen. So to my mind the first day had been a success, however by the end of the week I was thankful to God that my idea of a successful event had changed.

Before the camp started I had in mind a healthy number of kids as the guage of its success, that was even my prayer. Of course I am thankful to God that sixteen came on the first day, and that the next day I was able to share this encouraging news with other people. A good turn out is great and it was a genuine reason for encouragment, however as the week continued I came to realise that what we are doing on Briar Street and the surrounding area is by no means a numbers game. The root of our mission is to love God and to love our neighbours. To base the benefit of the soccer camp on attaining high numbers of participants allows room for us to fall down in our love for God and neighbour. It causes us to accredit ourselves with a shallow accomplishment that neglects the building of relationships, the very things that create fertile ground for the mighty work of God.

With this in mind the greatest pleasure of the week came not from seeing a few more kids trickle in, but in sharing life with them and their families in a deeper way than before. Such was the sense of community created by the influx of families, camping chairs littered about the place and parents cheering on their kids that it was hard not to be struck by the inherent significance of relationship within the mission of God. You need only look to the relatively undocumented first thirty years of Jesus’ life, in which he must have lived simply in relationship with those around him, to see that sharing our lives with others forms a better foundation for the mission of God to be accomplished in those whom we have come to know and love.

Thus to return to the original, suspense filled question, we are indeed going to continue Greenhouse Soccer Training at Surrey Park, every Wednesday, 6-8pm. How exciting that we can return there to continue to know our friends better, experience missional community and best of all, watch the likes of Marco, Edgar and Juan express themselves on the soccer field in ways so individual that you can’t help but find joy in the richness of God-given diversity!