Basketball is very big in the Philippines! Every community has a basketball court of some sort and all kind of sizes. May it be in the urban or rural, and even up in the mountains; you will find a basketball court. I have traveled all over the Philippines and I have not yet been to a place where I did not see a basketball court.
Filipinos really love basketball. I remember growing up watching or sometimes listening on the radio about Toyota and Crispa, two great basketball teams back in the day. Their rivalry can compare to the rivalry of the Lakers and Celtics. And that is one of the reasons we put up a half court basketball court inside the Dream Center. Our hope was to attract young men to come and play basketball so we can get to know them and to develop our relationship with the youth in our community.
We wanted to work with parents and local government units in mentoring the youth in our community. If we can just transform 10% of the youth in our community, that is more than enough to transform the whole community. And the future of the community will be brighter! We desire to address the whole being of the youth and empower them with the Word of God & support the completion of their education.
Our prayer is answered after I played basketball with the local pastors in our district. One of the pastors has a ministry called “Crossover” and he excitedly asked me if he can have a couple hours of my time so he can share it with me. To make the long story short, we partnered with him and he will train five young men from our church to be “kuya” or big brothers. He will conduct basketball clinic along with evangelism and mentorship training.
We have three goals: To WIN young people for Christ, To DISCIPLE them with the Word, and to help them to LEAD others. We started training 5 “big brothers” who will lead our “Crossover” program, a discipleship/youth development program that will develop nine (9) characteristics in a youth and are spelled out in the word CHAMPIONS: C-hrist-centered H-eart for God’s Word and Prayer A-vailable to Serve M-ission-minded P-urpose-driven I-nfluential O-bedient N-obility S-elf-sacrificial
Our main goal is to raise CHAMPIONS for Christ!
Help us prepare for this exciting and impactful ministry we are about to engage in. Your prayers are much appreciated especially for our first five “kuyas” who will go through it the first. These are students that have limited time but they rather give their time to this cause. We want to reward them at the end of their training with proper uniform and facility to conduct their mentorship.
We are also praying for 50 kids ages 6-13 years old for our first batch and another 50 kids ages 14-18 years old for our second batch.
Each kuya will mentor 10 kids each. We are also praying for the parents to be enthused and supportive of this program. They too will be part of the program and will be our partner in mentoring their children. The impact we can make is tremendous not only with each youth but to every family that will be involved and to our community.
We are so pumped to get this going… Keep us in your prayers and please do support this program through our ministry. We will be needing the following:
Uniforms
Basketballs
Snacks
New Testament Bibles
Record books (attendance and accountability)
Trophies & Medals
By the way, most kids here do not have basketball shoes. Old basketball shoes that are still serviceable are welcome. But we can get them new one for $15 each.
We are willing to do the hard work in mentoring and helping the young ones in our community to CROSSOVER from darkness to His marvelous light! Will YOU Help and support us to Raise Champions For Christ?
You can also contact us by:
email: edjoduenas@geminchrist.org
FB: Gospel Empowerment Ministry
Phone: +63 9778025467