Blessing To The Community

After stepping down from the challenging role of a pastor, I was asking the Lord for His new direction. The initial word was to take a Sabbath after six years in the ministry here in Auckland.

And that allowed me to just spend time clearing the house, studying the Word and playing soccer during weekends. You see when I was a pastor, the weekends are the busiest time of my week (e.g. preparing messages till late Sat night). But now, I can start to regain my fitness playing soccer. I remember in my first game of playing 6-a-side indoor soccer, I was puffing away after 5 minutes of intensive running. But now, I can last almost the full game of 24 minutes. (The times seems short but it is like running the 400m - one will be totally out of gas at the end of 400m). That takes care of my Sunday exercise.

I am also enjoying playing outdoor soccer on Saturdays. It is rather difficult to find "kaki" or companions to play soccer in a country that is rugby mad and it is difficult to have a game with 3 players. Furthermore, when the weather is so great in summer like now (heading into autumn), not many play soccer because strangely, soccer is a winter season game here. But for migrants and the international community - quite a good number of us are passionate about soccer. Perhaps not as passionate as Beckham who will pay great sums to stay at ACMilan. But still passionate enough to look for an avenue to expend our energy and meet our passion. There is an unmet need or more biblically - not a need but a desire to play soccer. I know a good percentage of the international community would like to play this beautiful game. I was blessed to join this small group of players just having fun on Saturday.

Then God open my eyes to see that we can book soccer fields for free here in Auckland after all we are rate payers. Praise God for this beautiful country with many fields and parks. When I was living in Singapore, it was difficult to find space to play soccer and soccer fields are not free. So I volunteered to arrange to book the fields and arrange other teams to play with us. One thing led to another and viola, the community soccer group just grew and we can now form two or more full soccer teams.

During this time, I just volunteered my time because I wanted to be a blessing to the community. I hoped to provide an avenue to meet their "needs" and to encourage the international community to interact with one another to make friends - Just to be a blessing. I realize God is opening doors. More and more of the international community joined us, including international students and kiwis. And amazingly in my fifties, I am getting better at the game. I even played goalie and by God's grace made some amazing saves that the opposing team goalie and players gave me credit. In my mind, this is not me.

We are now organizing a Commuity Soccer Festival which will be held soon. There are five teams participating. We have players coming from all over - like the United Nations. Zimbabweans, Iraqis, Kurds, Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Indians, Fijians, Mauritius, Brazilians and kiwis all playing together. The Community Soccer Fest is organized with the aim to make Friends, have Fun, keep Fit, promote Family / Father & Son relationships through Football. Interesting - 5 "F's." We truly have five pairs of fathers and sons playing together.

In the process of doing all this, I am reminded of the Abrahamic blessing:

Gen 12: 2 "I will make you into a great nation .... and you will be a blessing."

I realize we are being a blessing to the nations like Abraham was to the nations.
We too can be a blessing to the community - and to the nations.
And it is great for God to mobilize us in the area of our passion.
We after all will enjoy doing it anyway.
For me - it is soccer.
What about you?

Reflection
As you can see, it is sometimes easy to be a blessing to the community.
What then is your passion that God can mobilize you into which you will greatly enjoy anyway and still be a blessing to the people around you?