By Natalie Hanna · Sports Editor
Every three years, the Grove City College women’s soccer team travels to South Africa to partner with Ambassadors Football in Cape Town.
This year, 16 members of the current team boarded a plane in mid-May for the two-week-long trip. Head coach Melissa Lamie, assistant coach Maggie Miller and Ben Marais, the national director of Ambassadors Football, coordinated the mission trip.
According to its website, Ambassadors Football is an international ministry with offices around the world using the sport of soccer to “bring hope and positive change to some of its most vulnerable communities. Based in Cape Town, the ministry reaches people across the country through coaching programs, camps, tours, and outreach in schools, prisons, clubs and local communities.”
One of the most impactful programs the ministry implements in South Africa is coach development. Through courses and small-group mentoring, Ambassadors Football trains coaches to become father or mother figures to their players. By reflecting this type of leadership, coaches can then equip team members to eventually step into similar father or mother roles in their communities.
After spending the first few days learning about the organization, the women’s soccer team spent most of its remaining time working with native children, specifically with these mentor coaches and their teams, by running clinics and practicing with them. The team also played some matches against a high-level professional team connected with the ministry, a unique opportunity.
The team spent a lot of time with the kids on these teams, and sophomore Bryn Baker expressed that coaching and building relationships with them was her favorite part of the trip. She saw God moving through the formation of these relationships with the kids and all the people they met.
“There was something so special about seeing how excited (the kids) were to play soccer and how easily they found joy in the simplest things,” Baker said. “Being around them reminded me that ministry doesn’t always have to look complicated.”
In addition to assisting with coaching, the women’s soccer team also had the opportunity to break out into small groups during the clinics and share Bible stories with the kids.
While the kids were in school, the team spent time with each other, learning about the area’s culture and experiencing the beauty of God’s earth. Marais took them to a variety of locations to sightsee and take in the glory of creation, including Table Mountain, Stellenbosch, Boulders Beach Penguin Colony and a Muslim district in Cape Town.
“We got to spend significant time learning about God, how he is working in other areas of the world and just sitting in his presence,” sophomore Ella Lotz said.
Aside from using soccer to impact the community it was working in, the soccer team also found that its mission trip impacted its players. They grew individually and as a team, strengthening their relationships with God and each other. They learned more about one another off the field and shared about their personal walks with God.
“I think what made our relationships deeper was that we got to see different sides of each other. We had honest conversations, encouraged each other when things were hard, prayed together and had so many opportunities to talk about what God was teaching us individually,” Baker said. “We weren’t just teammates for those two weeks; we were learning how to walk through an experience together and support each other spiritually.”
