Coming Home
In 2006 Athletes in Action Holland focused on the Netherlands as their destination for projects. After that, the name was kept to represent all the Dutch project each year. AIA Holland has been influential and became known throughout Holland, up to the point where churches find their way to us, with little recruitment on our part. Every church we partner with signs a partnership agreement with AIA Holland and is assigned a coach from our National staff team. This coach trains and mentors the church members and leadership in building a sports ministry team and in developing their own spiritual movements through church based sports ministry.
Perseverance and Reliability
Two core elements in sports ministry are perseverance and reliability. Don’t give up. Keep coming. Prove you’re reliable and really willing to take time every week to invest in a movement in the local community. In Leeuwarden, a community with a large Muslim population, these core elements yield results. Local youth realizes that the church is genuinely interested in them and their lives. Muslim youth showed great interest in ‘that Jesus guy’ and wanted to pray to the Son of God. God works through our partnerships, through our teams, through our athletes.
International Blessing
In addition to the great amount of Dutch youth partaking in Coming Home, guests from other countries prove to be a valuable addition to the teams. For example, a team in Leeuwarden was blessed with an American pro basketball player, with a desire to use his talent and platform as a professional athlete to witness about his faith. In Haarlem nine athletes from Moldova complemented the teams and in Zwolle a couple from Turkey also really made a difference. Local youth were deeply impressed by these international guests. They fill a need we sense with the churches. The projects in Zwolle for example take place in highly culturally diverse neighborhoods with a lot of Turkish inhabitants. The Turkish athletes were a great blessing, being able to establish relationships in a way that fits with their own culture and even address people in their own language! They forced a breakthrough in this area for the local church. Additionally these international guests see first-hand how sports ministry is modeled in the Netherlands and are able to return to their own countries to implement programs in their own churches.
