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Soccer For Life Soccer Ministry

Send Your Donations (athletic shoes, balls, cleats, uniforms, t-shirts, shorts, warmup clothes, balls, goalkeepers gear,  medals, trophies, first aid equipment, referee gear, goals, nets) to:

I would like to invite you to become a vital and key part of the Soccer for Life Soccer Ministry in Honduras

Click to join prayersoccer

Scenes of Youth Soccer in Intibuca - Kids Playing In A Soccer Tournament Using Soccer Gear Donated By U.S. Coaches, Teams and Youth (CLICK HERE If You Want To Donate Used Gear)

What Is The Soccer For Life Soccer Ministry?

The Soccer for Life Soccer Ministry is located in the Western Mountains of Honduras in the Lenca Indian State of Intibuca. It is a ministry that is based on getting young people involved through soccer.

Soccer Is Our Way To Reach Out To Children

When we want to reach out to children, how do we get their attention. We need a way to bring them to us, to be able to share our faith with them. Soccer is one way to bring together children to a place where they are willing to listen to us. The Soccer Ministry of Soccer for Life has its headquarters in Arizona but we work with with the children of Honduras. We are seeking to bring the children off the streets of Honduras through soccer. We want to build a residential facility for poor and street children in La Esperanza to be called the Intibuca Youth Soccer Center.

Will You Pray For The Children of Intibuca and This Soccer Ministry?

We are asking all Christians to help us. We operate a complete program for children in La Esperanza. In order to make our dream of this youth soccer center, we are seeking Prayer Partners. We need you to pray for this program. Here are some links to the Soccer Gear Donation Project.

YOU CAN GIVE THE BIBLE TO THE CHILDREN OF INTIBUCA

Go to the Bible Donation Page

Soccer Gear Donation Program Links

Who Is The Founder of The Soccer For Life Soccer Ministry?

The Soccer for Life Soccer Ministry was founded by Dr. Carol Cross, a member of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Glendale, Arizona. Why Is The Soccer For Life Ministry So Important? Dr. Cross shares her life story with you.

The Church Has Always Been A Vital Part Of Dr. Cross's Life

I was brought up in the church. My earliest memory is of walking 5 miles through the woods on Sunday morning to go to church. My grandfather was the Superintendent of the Sunday School during my entire childhood. The church was the center of our lives. Our social life was based on the church. Everything centered around the church. The church provided our community, our meaning, our structure and our superordinate goal.

I Was Raised In The Bible

The Bible was the key designer of our actions. My grandmother dipped into that Bible morning, noon and night. It supported her, guided her and gave her the strength to go on. I learned early on the power of the 91st Psalm, the words of Jesus Christ and our responsibility to serve others. We ran a food route. Every Saturday and Sunday we would load up our wagon with milk, butter, meat, eggs, vegetables and fruits and take them to needy families in our communities. "The Lord has given us this land and we have been blessed. We must give to others," said my grandmother. Children would come by our house and say "Miz Binns, I'm hungry." And she would feed them. Hobos and tramps had my grandmother marked as easy.

I Learned The Power of Prayer And Faith From My Grandmother

I remember one night about two A.M. someone knocked on the door. Now I am an AfroIndian and there were still lynchings of Black people going on. And these were white men knocking on our door at night. One of the men said through the closed door, "I am hungry." My grandmother opened the door and two very dangerous looking white men charged into the house. "We need food," they shouted. My Grandmother sat them down at the table. She said, "Here's some cornbread from last night. Eat that while I cook." They gulped down the food like they were starving. Then she told me to make a fire. I made a fire and she opened a large jar of canned cooked sausages, cooked 6 eggs, made biscuits and grits and fed them. Then she packed the food that was left and put it in a flour sack with the rest of the cornbread. She packed what was left of a cake we had had for dinner along with some jars of jelly and preserves. She said to them "Go with God." The men took the food and left. Later the next day we found out that they were escaped convicts, murderers who had already killed and burned a family out that would not let them in when they asked for food.

I Was Taught That It Was My Christian Duty To Feed The Homeless

That is the way I was raised. When someone asked for food, I was supposed to feed them. I guess that is why I want to bring the children off the street. The idea of children, sleeping in the street, waking up hungry with no food to eat, is terrible. It has haunted my dreams for years. The Soccer for Life program is my ministry to bring the children off the streets.

My Grandmother Took Homeless People Into Her House

My grandmother often took in homeless children and even families into our home. Sometimes they stayed for weeks, months or even years. They were treated like members of the family, expected to work and share in our life of prayer and go to church. We held prayer meetings in our home each Wednesday night for those living with us. Also, people would come from the community.

My Grandmother Was The Creator Of My Faith and Wholeness

My grandmother was the most important influence in my life. I have spent my life trying to be as good a Christian as she. I want to feed children the same way she did. After she died, I went into a terrible decline as a person. I guess I was totally depressed. I couldn't do anything right. I made mistakes I had never made before. It was a terrible time. I even thought of suicide. But I knew she would never accept that so I thrust that idea out of my mind.

I became ill once and had a high fever while I was in the mountains of Honduras serving as an agricultural consultant. That night I had a dream. I was on a train and it was traveling towards a river. It was so beautiful there, the vegetation was exquisite, with colors I have never seen in life. Perfect greens, blues, reds, yellows; it was pure beauty. Then the train came to a river. I got off and across the river I saw my grandmother. I have never been so happy in my life. I started across the river to her. But before I got halfway across she shouted, "No, Child, you can't come yet. You haven't brought the children off the streets yet. You are needed to feed children like I did. But you are to bring many children off the streets and feed them. You have a great destiny to help the children of the streets. Teach them about Jesus. Share the Good News that Jesus can save them. Go back."

Nothing I have ever experienced hurt me as much as my grandmother telling me to go back. But I obeyed her as I always did. When I woke up, my fever had broken. The doctor said I was dying, my temperature had reached 107 degrees. He had not expected me to live. But I had to live because my grandmother said I had a job to do.

This Soccer Ministry Is My Tribute To My Christian Grandmother

This soccer ministry is the way I have to bring the children off the streets and share the Good News about Jesus Christ.

Won't you please join me in this dream I have of teaching children the love of Jesus Christ through soccer? Of creating a channel to feed these hungry street children through soccer? Of enabling people around the world to help these children through the development of the Intibuca Youth Soccer Center? Please help us by joining our prayer ministry.

Won't you join with us in creating Links of Caring and Sharing Through this Soccer Ministry?

Soccer for Life youth programs are offered at many levels.  At one level, we support soccer programs in schools, communities and youth at risk. At a deeper level, we work with poor youth in the state of Florida and in Honduras to help them get the soccer gear, support and leadership they need to play soccer.  At the deepest level, we offer a Soccer Ministry.  This Soccer Ministry is based on these parameters that derive from Dr. Carol Cross's life philosophy:

a)  We are all one human species.

b)  We must find a way to come together if we are to survive as a species.

c)  Soccer is the one universal game with one set of rules everywhere in the world.

d)  Soccer has the potential to bring all of us to the table at a level playing field.

e)  International soccer tournaments, friendly games as well as clinics, camps and academies can be places where youth and adults come together, play the beautiful game, and become friends.

f) Friendships made on the soccer field can lead to lifelong friendships.

g)  Children who play soccer stay off drugs and experience community, structure, meaning and a superordinate goal.

h)  Through Soccer for Life I can bring resources to underprivileged children so they can play soccer.

i)  Through soccer I can reach children and share the Good News about a life with Jesus Christ.

I would like to invite you to become a vital and key part of the Soccer for Life Soccer Ministry in Honduras.

The Positive Value of Soccer Has Many Christian Purposes

Bring the children to Jesus Christ. Focus on the good and the possible. Enable all of us to enhance our sense of community, provide a structure in which we can impart our values to our children, share the meaning we have all found as members of our church and give the congregation a way to develop a superordinate goal of serving others. Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come to me. Unless you become as a child, you can’t enter my kingdom." With the whole church cheering on a soccer team wearing the church's uniform we can all be children again.

It’s win-win my friends. We can do this. We can overcome Mind Clonishness. We can bring our congregations in Honduras and the U.S. together through the soccer ministry.  And we can join all our voices, our hearts, our minds and our spirits together to worship, love and serve God.

Let us regain our freedom of choice, overcome Mind Clonishness and build on our ideas of diversity at the same time we empower our children to gain skills, grow in body, mind and spirit and Become a True Church and a True Community.

Need More Information About Donating Soccer Gear, Getting Involved With The Intibuca Youth Soccer Center Or Becoming a Volunteer? Want to get involved?

SEND YOUR DONATIONS TO

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Please Pray With Us

Please support our Soccer Ministry as a prayer partner by joining the yahoo group above. No cost, just pledge to pray for our Soccer Ministry at least once a week. We need the power of Jesus Christ over this ministry. "The prayers of the righteous availeth much." "Pray without ceasing". "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be also."

Please add your prayers to ours to support this Soccer Ministry.

Thank you.

Dr. Carol Cross

Scenes of Youth Soccer in Intibuca - Kids Playing In A Soccer Tournament Using Soccer Gear Donate By U.S. Coaches, Teams and Youth (CLICK HERE If You Want To Donate Used Gear)

SPANISH LANGUAGE BIBLES, HYMNALS & CHILDREN'S BOOKS NEEDED

On my soccer missions to Honduras, I visited over ten churches and church groups. I worked directly under the guidance and support of my church, St Andrews Episcopal Church in Glendale, Arizona. The same message was heard everywhere. "We do not have Bibles. The only time I see a Bible is in church. And some Sundays I do not even get to touch the Bible. Churches often do not have Bibles nor hymnals. No one has a Bible in their homes."

If adults do not have bibles, how many children in Intibuca have seen or held a Bible? There are 450 children playing soccer through the Liga Menor. I would like to give a Bible to each of these children. Will you help me? Go to Donate Bibles page.

sfl@hmradvencen.com