2018 Belgium Project Recap

For the last 19 years, SportQuest has organized a Playing With Purpose Project in Belgium in partnership with local churches.… Read more 2018 Belgium Project Recap

For the last 19 years, SportQuest has organized a Playing With Purpose Project in Belgium in partnership with local churches. This year’s project took place July 9 – August 3, and a team of 31 American and European young people came together to lead sport camps in 6 different Belgian cities with around 300 youth in attendance. Many of the same kids who have attended in past years returned and really deepened their relationship with the SportQuest team. Several of these kids are ready for their next step in their walk with the Lord, and the SportQuest Belgium team will continue to stay connected with them and provide opportunities for them to grow relationally and spiritually in the coming year. Overall, it was awesome to see how these camps built bridges between the local partner churches and the community.

Here are some of the highlights from this year’s project:      

TRAINING CAMP

The first few days of the project are known as “Training Camp,” which included some great team-building experiences like hiking, scavenger hunting, building rafts, and sleeping in tents for one night. The team was also trained on how to lead sport camps, how to share their story and God’s Story, how to understand and engage Belgian culture, and more. Training Camp really helped the group come together as a team, challenge each other spiritually, and prepare for the rest of the project.

WEEK ONE

During the first week of sport camps, the larger group of 31 participants was split into 3 teams that led camps in Gent, Genk, and Gent-Brugge. The Gent camp was geared toward high-level youth basketball players, and one of the SportQuest coaches in this city plays professionally in Germany. So this team was not only able to really challenge these kids athletically but was also able to engage them on a really deep level spiritually. Genk had a record amount of kids attending the multi-sport camp and also benefitted from a local volunteer team who were very involved. Many kids from this camp expressed a desire to stay involved and continue exploring what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In Gent-Brugge, our team connected with neighborhood kids on the soccer field and played lots of pickup soccer games. By the end of the week, several of the kids from the field wanted to join the SportQuest team for their morning Bible studies, which is a great step forward for this community!

WEEK TWO

In the second week, our teams led camps in two cities: Herentals and Geraardsbergen. A heat wave came through Belgium that week which was challenging since both of these camps were outdoors, but since they had to take more breaks, this actually led to more intentional conversations. Many kids expressed a desire to pursue a relationship with Jesus – two of them were from an interfaith home where the mom is a Christian and the dad is a Muslim. In Geraardsbergen, or “G-town” as it is affectionately known, many of the guys who have participated for the last few years were back for the soccer games and tournament. There seemed to be an even higher level of trust with the team this year, which resulted in deeper conversations and openness to the Gospel.

See the video from the camp in Herentals!

WEEK THREE

Most of the SportQuest team returns home after Week Two, but the SportQuest Belgium team and a small number of young Belgian leaders continue on to Brakel to lead the last sport camp of the summer. This year the camp expanded from basketball to also offer soccer and dance, resulting in a record number of kids who attended. The team witnessed a significant growth relationally and spiritually in the lives of many kids who have come for several years now and were excited to see a whole new generation of kids get involved.