In October Sports Friends will be gathering our training leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina to work on our Coaches 7 curriculum. One of top trainers in Africa is Ephraim shown here with his son Eyob. If you ever been to Ethiopia to serve with SFE you probably have met our Ephraim....our SPECIAL SPECIAL Ephraim. He is an incredible trainer who loves the Lord deeply and is extremely passionate about church centered sports ministry. We need him here for these meetings so would you PRAY PRAY PRAY that he gets his visa to attend. It would be the first time he has been to the US and he really is excited about coming. Lots of other reasons for him to be in the US including some special SFE update gatherings. If you never have met him you will love him. Let's pray Ephraim here!

Sweet Sixteen

The Sweet Sixteen party with the 90's theme!

Of course Danielle was the party host and had all sorts of games organized to play, a photo booth set up so all night long people could go in and take fun pictures,  karaoke  singing, and much much more. The girls went tubing, zip lining, sliding at the rock, and swimming at looking glass falls all in less than 24 hours. Pinky was bragging that the girls said it was the best 16th birthday party they had ever been too! She received guitar hero, her first cell phone, a i pod touch, a beautiful hrose painting, and more gifts from family and friends.

What a special party for a special special girl!

We thank God and His Angels that he spared her  life that horrific day on Nov. 3rd in 2002 while riding a horse in Ethiopia. 

Happy 5th Anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Bell.

Joy and Nathan Bell celebrate their 5th anniversary today. It doesn't seem like that could be even possible but just 5 short years ago on August 21st 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland our first born was married to Nathan Bell. They continue to live in Maryland where Joy Bell, who is soooo much like her mother, will start her 5th year of teaching English. She gets her teaching passion from her Mom and her english skills from her Dad!  Happy 5th Wedding anniversary Joy and Nathan! We love you both tons!

Brevard Summer 09

Brevard was an AWESOME family time for all of us! We had an absolute blast at sliding rock, swimming at looking glass falls, tubing down the French Broad, fishing, working on a couple of puzzles, reading books, just relaxing and celebrating our little girls SWEET SIXTEENTH birthday (pictured with Chris and I).  After 65 days of a high intense schedule in Africa this family vacation was just such a blessing. We love our family time together! Danielle and John were able to spend 5 days with us which was great (pictured in the inner tube). Danielle was the very creative host for Johanna's 16th birthday party which had a 90's theme to it. After 10 glorious days of vacation,  reality set in today when Kyle left to start his junior year at Liberty University! Mom was a bit blue this evening. 

Best Friends!

It's our 28th Anniversary today! Seeing Chris this summer in Ethiopia loving on kids was so wonderful and reminded me why I love her so much. Her love for God is so full that it overflows unto to others, especially to her family, children and those in need. And let's face it...I'm REALLY NEEDY! I love her! I'm so grateful for God bringing her into my life 30 years ago at Houghton College. We were best friends for the longest time before we got "interested" in each other. She remains MY VERY BEST FRIEND!  PS Facebook...I took the plunge today! Not sure why or how long this will last, but thought I would give it a try! 

The Sheraton Blessing...

Anson, M'Liss, Donovan and Michele Dorrance were absolutely awesome "friends" of SF Ethiopia. M'Liss and the "kids" hung together most of the time and they all enjoyed loving on the kids at the AIDS orphanage. Michele and Donovan were great with our kids (Hope and Johanna) and if your ever in NY City check out Michele on broadway in STOMP. Our families enjoyed our 12 stay at the Sheraton in Addis, compliments of another friend of SFE! One of the highlights was eating dinner together each night with Dorrance family at one of the 5 fantastic restaurants in the hotel. Anson commented that much to his surprise he would have to lower his standard of living when he returned to UNC Chapel Hill from Ethiopia. It was indeed a HUGE blessing to have our entire all inclusive stay, with a total cost of nearly $25,000, all complimentary. To think we moved out of the SIM GH to the Sheraton Hotel to save money is hard to comprehend....no complaints here though!

Fasil and Anson, two people Chris and I have come to love very much. Fasil coaches our Addis Ababa Women's team and is currently fighting a deathly disease. He loves the game of football and really, really loved the NSCAA Coaches course that Anson led.  This picture was taken one night out at a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant. Not only did we enjoy great food and wonderful conversation between friends, but incredible cultural dancing as well. It was such a fun night, one I won't soon forget. Pray for our good friend Fasil, that he might become well one day soon. By the way, our women's team, the A.A. Eagles, had a great season this year finishing third just 2 points away from the title.  

It wasn't easy getting to Langano this year as evidenced by this van that Chris was driving in. The locals seized upon the opportunity to make a little money by lending a hand to help the driver and team get back on stable ground. More rains are needed in the area this summer for their crops to grow. A small village of 400 has had no crops growing because of the lack of rain. They faithfully keep cultivating the ground in hopes that their vegatables and fruits will one day grow. Pray for heavy rains in this area this month.

Our Ethiopian Female camp staff was absolutely AWESOME! They are amazing young woman who love the Lord, have a huge passion for impacting the lives of the youth who come to camp, and have tons and tons of energy! 6 Weeks down and 2 to go. Pray for Fray, Sintayehu, Mena, Genet and Ase-for strength, energy, and discernment! Thank You.

Pray for Mr. Constitution, which is the meaning for his Ethiopian name Higemengist. He was the young man who attended the first week of camp and returned 800km to Camp Langano because he loved the staff so much. He is without parents and we are wondering how we might be able to help him out. He is a talented young man.
Pray for his future and for him to know Jesus as his personal Savior.

Seriously I don't know how they kept smiling! This picture was taken on their return trip to Charlotte after they were separated from us due to a ticketing mistake by the Lufthansa official. We were split up in Frankfurt (which took us two days to get to after engine problems delayed our trip after waiting in the airport for 11 hours) after waiting in numerous long lines at the airport there because we no longer had confirmed seats home. The "quickest" way home for all of us was to split up. Thanks again to a less than helpful ticket agent Johanna and Chris were selected to travel to Paris France, then New York City, where they overnighted before arriving home on Friday afternoon at 3pm. Kyle and I spent 103 hours returning to the good ole USA but we were beat out by the girls who took a grand total of 121 hours before opening the front door to our home! But they were still in good spirits and smiling as well!!!

Why do I think that on "Wacky
Wednesday" these two campers
are imitating somebody I know?
Camp is alot of fun and our
familyreally enjoyed our 09
camp langanoexperience.
Johanna and Chris spent four
weeks at camp. During this time
so m any people complimented
Chris on the leadership she provided to the Ethiopian staff and
visiting American guests each week. Well done honey!

Remember Abraham? He was our "shoe shine son" who we supported so he could get a decent education. He would come over on Sundays and shine all our shoes, eat lunch with us and just hang around with the family. He is such a wonderful young man who works hard to support himself and his family. He and Johanna are about the same height these days as we discovered when we were reunited with him this summer. We shared memories and a great dinner at the Sheraton with him. We love Abraham!

Like mother like daughter. Johanna loves holding the little babies at the AIDS orphanage or the House of Hope at Langano. At the House of Hope you can check babies out like we do here for books at the library. So Jo and her friend Hope checked out babies for hours on the weekends in order to take the babies on stroller rides or just to give the normal caregivers a little break from their exhausting work. They did get chased by baboons once while out on a stroll around the property....that was the last stroll the two of them took for a while! Oh would Johanna love it if we adopted 1 or more Ethiopian children in the future. Trust me it's not going to happen unless he or she is at least 10 years old......then maybe....just maybe!

So do you think Chris loved being back in Ethiopia this summer? She is loved by so many people in Addis and at Camp Langano. Of course, the kids without parents at the AIDS orphanage or in the community seem to love her most! They all know how much she loves and cares for each of them. She is their prayer warrior as well! It's so much fun to see Chris so happy serving those in need.

Ethiopia -Summer 09

Brian's Sports Friends Update for August 09:

May 26th to July 30th was my most recent global road trip which took me to Thailand and Ethiopia. Thank you for your prayers for traveling mercies and productive initiatives. My time was well spent and extremely valuable towards moving the overall ministry of Sports Friends forward. Here is the quick gist of what I did (kinda boring so don't feel you have to read it...feel free to skip over it and just get to the pictures) on this two month journey.

May 26-June 4th

While in Thailand at the start of this journey I was able to have strategic meetings with Jill Ireland and Tripp Johnston at our Thai Summit for SF International. The focused time was spent on structure, personnel, and future ministry initiatives in Africa & Asia for 2010 and beyond. Also, while in Chiang Mai I was able to spend time with Graham and Lori West (we love these guys a ton) and other members of the ministry team focused on CCSM in the SE Asia region. It's a strong and capable team with an impossible task facing them -penetrate the darkness of a buddhist culture with the truth claims of Jesus Christ utilizing the platform of sports! Pray for this team and that God would direct them to some strong Thai Christian sports leaders to lead the ministry.

In Ethiopia from June 4th -July 28th I served the SF ministry by:
1. Conducting a week long Coaching Education initiative with Anson Dorrance of UNC Chapel Hill for 60 plus coaches from the football federation and Sports Friends ministry (25). Many of them were able to receive a credible coaching diploma and all of them benefited from the training. 3 of our SF coaches were recognized as being in the top 10 participants for the course. At the conclusion of the course I spent 2 days with our coaches to focus on how to be a Life Influencer. It was a awesome week together.

2. Observing and critiquing our summer camp ministry at Langano. It was exciting to see so many positive attributes of the Ethiopian camping ministry -awesome and loving staff, great team building activities, wholehearted commitment to ministering through singing and drama, a tremendous desire to serve, intensity in praying for the campers, incredible energy level with the kids and much much more. Area's of improvement were needed in transitioning from the sport to biblical truth teachable moments during the football competitions, little organizational and management details, investment in leaders who came with their kids, and a couple of other ministry related matters. All in all a great camp program is being run by the Ethiopian staff. Of course the new facilities were awesome, but even those paled in comparison to the joy of seeing lives being deeply impacted in the name of Jesus Christ.

3. One week African Gathering was next with 12 representatives participating from 5 countries. We had the heads or General Sect's of 4 major denominations in Africa, a dynamic former Iman now focusing on Muslim evangelism and church planting in East Africa, 2 key leaders from a major church planting movement in India, and a half dozen other leaders interested in Church Centered Sports Ministry. This week couldn't have gone much better. With so many "big wigs" we wondered how they would respond to a week's worth of seeing various CCSM models, discussions and traveling around the country. We had a unique approach to our time together which focused on seeing, touching and meeting the actual leaders and participants in the ministry. We, Tripp and I, said very little for the first 5 days of the gathering and our SF Ethiopia staff was only minimally involved. They were taken straight to the source to hear from Ethiopian denominational leaders (7 of them), the actual sports ministry leaders and the kids participating in the ministry. They saw local churches in the urban and rural area's empowered to use sports for Kingdom purposes and they traveled downcountry to see a church planted in a distant way off the beaten road Muslim community where the sports minister had been beaten for his faith. The power of the Gospel and the platform of football enabled us to go to this leaders church to witness what God had done in bringing 65 to faith in this former 100% Muslim community. It was quite a joy and privilege to pray over this man's life and ministry. We also visited Camp Langano for a whole days activities and ministry initiatives. Then it was back to Addis for individual meetings, and group discussions on key topics for building a CCSM movement. The feedback we have received from these top leaders has been so encouraging. We can't wait to see how God uses them and their experiences to minister through the platform of sports in their churches and church planting strategies. Many of these guys are men you can't get a meeting with for one hour in their home countries and they gave us 1 week.

4. Our final week was spent having a Ethiopian Summit which focused on evaluating existing ministries and staff management with an eye towards some revitalization initiatives. We absolutely love Berhanu, Ephraim and Girma. Our time together was was well spent and productive. The ministry now has 53,000 youth participating in the sports ministries around the country which presents lots of challenges. However, there are many blessings as well especially in the form of great life transforming stories...new creations, young Christians becoming more committed in their faith, young leaders emerging, new churches being planted and so on. Exciting times these days in our SF Ethiopia CCSM that's for sure. Pray for the 4 new staff we will be taking on in the coming few weeks to meet the ever increasing need to manage our ministry effectively, to train our coaches. to develop our camping ministry and to free up our leaders for involvement in our African expansion initiatives.

A very productive 2 month journey....thanks for partnering with me!!