Missionary Spotlight: Andrii Petrenko

Meet Andrii Petrenko, coordinator for SportQuest Ukraine. After an injury ended his professional soccer career, Andrii felt God calling him to… Read more Missionary Spotlight: Andrii Petrenko

Meet Andrii Petrenko, coordinator for SportQuest Ukraine. After an injury ended his professional soccer career, Andrii felt God calling him to continue using his sport skills
in sport ministry.  In 2010, Andrii completed a 3-month course at the International Sports Leadership School in South Africa, where he was able to connect with many other leaders in sport ministry.  Eventually, this led to meeting Kent Susud in 2011, which is when he joined the SQ Family.  Now Andrii provides whole-life coaching for about 60 young players, leads discipleship groups for families, trains other soccer coaches, and serves as a facilitator for the sport ministry movement in Eurasia.

Tell a little bit about yourself and where you’re from.

My name is Andrii Petrenko, and I am from Shostka, Ukraine. I played soccer since I was a child. I started to play professionally at 16 but was seriously injured at the age of 17 and forced to stop playing professionally after only one season of my career. Just before my injury, I became a believer in Jesus Christ. I realized that this injury was God’s prompting for me to commit my life to ministry. It was my desire to dedicate my life to the spreading of the gospel to people involved in sports. Sport is a very powerful language, which speaks to the lives of people. This is a language that we as Christians should try to use.

What made you choose to serve with SportQuest Ministries?

SQ is a part of global movement which is called ReadySetGo. SQ is opposite from the big ministry organizations that want to dictate what their staff must do. SQ shares the same values of the global movement and supports leaders in different countries to accomplish  their calling from God using sport as a tool. SQ supports and helps more from a position of service to local leaders rather than by controlling and micromanaging.

What is your favorite thing about your ministry in Ukraine/Eurasia?

I love to be used by God. I love to coach and help to grow and develop kids in all areas of life. I love to build up families and help them to pay more attention to their kids and try to develop healthy community. We are influencing a small community in Shostka (it is around 50-60 kids and families), but we help other coaches and leaders all over Ukraine to influence more kids and families in their cities and towns.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?

Recruiting of leaders for local ministry. Shostka is a small town and most of our players who would be able to help as a coach leave for bigger cities or other countries where they can earn more money.  Also, it was hard to be a Christian coach in a community where people are negative toward evangelical belief or faith in general. I was often blamed by other coaches, families, and even players when I shared Bible stories with kids or did Christian football (soccer) camps. But now it is much better and more people see the benefit of allowing their kids to be part of a faith-based program.

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