What if he grew up on one of our Sports Friends teams?

When I read about the 23 year old young man from Nigeria on the Northwest flight recently I just couldn't stop thinking about our Christian Coaches in Nigeria and our church centered sports ministry teams. Our coaches seek to impact the hearts of young men through the platform of sports by becoming "Life Influencers." This Nigerian who attempted to blow up a plane that was about to land on US soil admitted he was lonely, depressed, and basically down on life. How many other Nigerian young men feel the same way? There is a epic battle between christians and m*****;s being being waged in this country (in the capitol where I just came from 2 weeks ago there is a huge huge Mosque and a huge huge church right across the street from each other....that says it all!) for the hearts of the youth, the lonely, and those down on life looking for a life purpose. Let's involve as many youth in our CCSM movement in Nigeria as possible so we can wholeheartedly attempt to positively impact their hearts in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit for the Kingdom of God. If we don't then our enemy will. The enemy will use these man/woman for evil purposes, but God can transform their lives for our Heavenly Fathers purposes on this earth. What if our coaches, who are trained to be life influencers, had this young man on one of our teams over the past 6 years? Instead of trying to blow up a plane and now facing life in prison or worse he could have been a vibrant witness for Christ in his own town, city, nation or to the ends of the earth. What a difference one SF trained coach can make in one life. Pray for our SFN coaches who work in these type of villages and for the youth they have a chance to influence for the cause of Christ. May this young Nigerian man come to Christ in the prisons of the United States of America. To God and God alone be the glory. PS If we Christians don't find ways to reach these youth outside the doors of our church I promise you others will. Ck this out: link http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/07/purefoy.nigeria.child.cnn

New Home in 2010

Ethiopia here we come. We will be traveling back and forth regularly between the US and Ethiopia. However, we do see ourselves (circumstances can always change which cause reshaping and refiguring of plans) setting up in Ethiopia for our home base.... if we can work out all the logistics (need reliable renters for Charlotte home, finances and other personal challenges still need finalizing)!!! More on all the specifics in future updates. Your prayers for everything to fall into place would be greatly appreciated. All three of us really want to spend the next 2-3 years back in Ethiopia.

Chris Has Surgery on Her knee toDAY......

Pray for Chris minor surgery toDAY, Wednesday the 30th, at 6am on her torn menicus.

Christmas 2009 Was an Awesome Family Experience

A GREAT TIME WAS HAD BY ALL. Joy and Nathan surprised us Christmas am with their "presence." It was one of the best "presents" of the year. Chris was given a book that she has wanted for years but has been out of print (very expensive) by her parents (that got a great deal!)...WOW was she excited! The boys played lots of WII and Play Station 3 (Nathan's gift from lots of people) games while the girls watched movies on their laptops. We played family games, had friends over and just had so much fun together. Hate to see it all come to end tomorrow.

Nigerian Leaders.....

It's all about leadership. Leaders needed to be able to make a lot of good decisions and some great one's as well. In our ministry they must be able to be competent in training and/or implementing sports MINISTRY philosophy, principles, and priorities. They need to be able to be above reproach, motivate others and be passionate about the lost. It must be about doing the Father's will not making a name for oneself. Would you pray for these four SFN ministry leaders. Daniel (picture with training slide in the background) and John (solo shot) are both on SFN staff. Pray for wisdom in decision making, balanced lives (Daniel is married with 2 girls while John is single), and for all the qualities mentioned above for them. The two men pictured with me are top coaches in the ministry who we will be investing in further over the next year. They desire to be "Life Influencers" and multipliers for the CCSM. Pray that all of them will love God wholeheartedly and spend time alone with God daily. Thank You.

ECWA and COCIN in Nigeria

Top leadership from ECWA, which is the denomination that SIM planted starting in 1893 that now numbers 7,000 plus local churches and 1000 church planters, and COCIN. The gentleman I'm laughing with is Seth who is the General Sect., a most powerful position, within the COCIN denomination. The man pointing at the map is the COCIN church planting director. I loved strategizing with him on that day. Stephen, who is between Chris Lemanski (our SFN director) and I is the Church planting director for ECWA and is a OUTSTANDING young leader. Then Mipo, the tall man next to me in the picture with the four of us is the GS for ECWA (the smaller man in the picture of 4 people is the President of ECWA). He along with Stephen and Seth came to Ethiopia for our African Expansion mtgs this past July. The bond we created as the result of this trip is deep and we are praying that it translates into church planters and local churches effectively using sports to deeply impact the hearts of the youth of Nigeria. Pray that the Church leadership really owns this vision and youth ministry strategy. REALLY PRAY for this because if it does we are talking about impacting upwards of 100,000 youth in the name of Jesus Christ.

Nigeria

One of the major challenges facing our Church Centered Sports Ministry in Nigeria. At our coaches training we had several individuals who are working in these types of villages and communities. There is a lot of tension between Christians and those from this religion. Last year our staff had to flee the town where are office is located because of increasing violence which led to the burning of houses, businesses and loss of life. Would you pray for our work amongst this group of people today?

Liberia

Shocking to see the devastation of this country from the Charles Taylor raceme. Twenty four years ago I had visited this country and stayed in the exact same location I stayed this time. ELWA was looted big time once the CT rebels took over. This high impact radio station location where over 200 missionaries once served was a mere shell of it's once thriving self. BUT God gave me vision to see a thriving camp ministry down the road connected to our CCSM. If you remember last summer and our African Expansion mtgs you will recall that the Liberian leaders weren't able to come to Ethiopia for our conference due to visa challenges. So this was an important time to meet with leadership for vision sharing and planning for the future. Guess what? The enemy tried to prevent us g=from getting there. What a story! I won't share it in detail but basically I flight got turned around in mid air and we returned to Ghana just before we were to land in Monrovia. That lead to an amazing sequence of events which didn't see us getting to Liberia till Monday....the night we were set to leave back to the States. God was good because we got there despite incredible odds. We were tenacious in our efforts but God unlocked the door. With less than 24 hours to work with we went to town on mtg with 7 top leaders from ECUL and the President of Liberia's son. God went before us and all that was needed to get done got done with time to spear. Pray for our future planning for Liberia and the leadership team lead by Chairman Jeremiah Kolie! PS had a mtg in the former location where CT set him self up....eery feeling, especially when we were told about the torture chamber in the basement and the blood stained stairs & walls they cleaned before moving in. I know in my heart God is going to do a GREAT work in this country in the hearts of young people and the Liberian coaches from our churches who participate as Sports Friends ministers are going to be equally impacted! Can you see it?

Ghana

Rev. Stephen came to Ethiopia as part of the African Expansion conference last July. We could tell then he was a special leader and that was obvious from how incredible this part of the trip was. Our focus for ministry here is a particular area of the country which is mostly unreached with a high influence of people from another religious background....if you know what I mean!

We did a vision sharing with 17 leaders, some who traveled 15 hours to be there, who represented 11 different key districts. These guys were sharp! God moved amongst our time together. It was worth the little plane flight ( I hate flying in small aircraft..scared to death to tell you the truth) we had to take to get there. Then it was off in a small pick up truck to another location some three hours from our previous training spot. There we did a 2 day training initiative for sports ministers who would implement our ministry in 7 strategic spots in this one particular region. Pray for these guys to go back and implement what they have learned in their communities. Pray for miracles, divine appointments, funds for start up and some "trophies of grace" stories to ignite this ministry. Unlimited potential in this area for transformed lives and strengthen communities. Follow up plans include mtgs in 3 cities with those who participated in these trainings and another basic sports minister training within 4 months. Then a our first camp there in September. Thanks for your prayers for this trip I really, really felt them and needed them. The travel was intense, the food was challenging, the weather was hot, the training location was interesting and we had one driver for 3 hours that almost killed us (he did kill a goat, hit a parked car, and wound another goat). Pray for the unity of the leadership of this denomination as well.

Nigeria

What a blessing it was to see a solid foundation being built in Nigeria for the work of Sports Friends. The SFN team is doing an excellent job at reproducing leadership, training, mentoring staff members, meeting with church planters and connecting regularly with key top denominational leaders. The SFN ministry is now partnering with 10 different denominations at various levels around the country...WOW is that exciting! The church planting training program has trained over 400 in two major denominations. The next few years I believe we will hear so many stories of how God has used these men and their families to reach into totally lost villages with the Gospel message using a silly little soccer ball as a tool to build friendships, then relationships. It was so awesome to sit with one CP director and look over the map of the country to strategize with them on the future. I also got to spend time with the President and GS of ECWA (a large denomination in the country tied to SIM since 1893) who we have been working with since 2005. Man oh man is it thrilling to see there backing and support of SFN. Our level 3 conference was a huge success. 88 coaches receiving further training by the staff. It was a blessing to take part in the training, to see our SFN doing such a great job and to hear the questions being asked as well as to be a part of the discussions pertaining to reaching the unreached, empowering more woman in CCSM, working together in certain area's of the country regardless of denominational affiliation, and how to more effectively reach the hearts of the youth. It was a special time in Nigeria. We even had time as a staff to have dinner at the Lemanski's and play some ping pong. Pray for the follow up of these 88 coaches and the hundreds of others who have taken the level 2 champions training. This will be the SFN staff's emphasis for the first half of 2010. Finally, let me say it was a privilege to invest in the lives of Daniel and John who traveled with me to Ghana and Liberia. I loved it!

please pray for...

A. Nigeria nov 30- Dec 7 (goals and brief review found in prior post). B. Ghana Dec 7-12th launch of New SF work -vision sharing to Pastors and basic sports minister training for those who will champion the cause for a local church. C. Liberia 12-14 vision sharing and ministry probing which includes a meeting at the Executive Mansion for a mtg with the President of Liberias son who is a top senior advisor in the goverment who has connections to charlotte as well as friends of Tripp. I am grateful to all of you who partner with SF and/or the davidson family. Please pray for my above itinerary and scheduled trainings together with numerous key mtgs. Thank you, brian ps I'm absolutely blessed by what I have seen and been apart of here in nigeria. I'm on a big time spiritual high from this visit. Praise God for the leaders and implemtors of the work here.

Greetings from Jos Nigeria. Jenn brady and I arrivied in nigeria on the first of dec. After spending the night at the baptist guest house in the capitol city of abuja we traveled out in the morning to the HQ of Sports Friends Nigeria (SFN). In Jos I was reunited with chris and staci lemanski (SFN director) and his Nigerian staff team of daniel, john and solomon. We have an awesome sfn staff who are unified, strategic, outstanding in their passion to develop the ccsm movement in nigeria and very component trainers. Our goals this week were: 1. Country review of the sfn ministry 2. 2.a 3 day coaches training 3.mtgs with ECWA and COCIN top church leaders as well as church planting directors (together they represent 10,000 local churches and more than a thousand church planters) 4.photograph, video tape and interviews of SFN staff, champions, training sessions and more. I can say that I was deeply moved and greatly encouraged by the overall development of the work. Wow, what a wonderful work of God going on here through our sfn staff who have trained over 900 champions for the cause of ccsm. Top leaders are providing significant support to the growing work. Fruitful models are emerging with touching trophies of grace stories. Their camp ministry had 300 involved this year and expects to double next year. So much more to report and many pictures (slideshow will be up when I return)to share with you. Tomorrow we headed back to abuja and monday we head to ghana to launch our new sports friends ministry. Pray for protection from the evil one, good health, strength and wisdom from the holy spirit as we share the vision with pastors (top denominational leaders spent a week in ethiopia last summer) and as we train 50 champions for local churches. John and daniel will be assisting in the training. Pray for chris and johanna as I travel This update came from my blackberry.