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AIA tennis tour to Nepal makes major impression Monday, Jul 23, 2007 By Lyle Moran |
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XENIA, Ohio (BP)--Bjorn Borg and Martina Hingis are big names in the sport of professional tennis. Both major-title winners have also visited Nepal and played a role in helping grow the sport of tennis there. However, according to the tennis coaches of Nepal, the recent Athletes in Action tennis tour to the South Asian country surpassed the impact that the two tennis legends had. “We were told that Borg and Hingis had come to Nepal to help, but that the AIA group had done the best job,” said Benjamin Thomas, AIA South Asia coordinator. AIA group members were in Kathmandu, Nepal, the country’s capital, from June 14-26. They played at the All Nepal Lawn Tennis Association, which is the training center for Nepal’s best tennis players. Their goal for the trip was to help develop Nepal’s tennis players spiritually, mentally and physically. Ideally, some of the players will make it to the professional circuit down the road and will already be trained in how to use their platform to share the message of God’s love. While at the tennis academy, the AIA contingent gave tennis lessons to players young and old, and also played exhibition matches against the Nepalese. The AIA group was made up of five players, Thomas and his wife Susie and AIA tennis director Lindsay Sullivan. According to Sullivan, AIA was received with open arms. “They were some of the friendliest people I have ever met,” Sullivan said. “They were very excited we were there and very helpful.” The AIA group not only benefited from the warm treatment they received from the Nepalese, but they also had help from the Campus Crusade for Christ staff in Nepal. Both Thomas and Sullivan enjoyed partnering with the Campus Crusade staff members stationed in Kathmandu. “The Campus Crusade staff are genuine and just desire to see lives changed in their country,” Thomas said. “They each count the cost of what it means to follow Christ and regardless of whatever hardship they might face, they choose to serve Him. This was the first time they hosted a tennis team and they did great.” AIA and Campus Crusade teamed up on the AIA group’s last Friday in Nepal to throw a party for the Nepalese tennis players and students. They played American games like “Limbo” and “Simon Says,” and shared the message of God’s love with the partygoers. That message led a Nepalese police officer to ask Sullivan what the word “savior” means. “The man’s question really opened up the door for me to talk about what it means to surrender,” Sullivan said. “A few days later the man came back to me and said that what I said really impacted him and led him to surrender his life to the Lord. He told me in the days after he surrendered, lots of false charges against him were dropped and he was given no explanation why.” Nepal, until recently, was the world’s only Hindu kingdom. Almost 90 percent of the country ascribes to Hinduism and less than 2 percent of the people are Christians. So, while there is religious freedom, it is more in theory than in practice, which led to few opportunities for AIA to share the message of God’s love openly. Some of the Nepalese students who have decided to put their faith in Jesus Christ shared that if their families found out that they believed in Christ, they would disown them and not pay for their school. Since medical missionaries brought the message of God’s love to Nepal more than 50 years ago, Christianity has slowly spread in the country. One of the biggest effects of the AIA tennis tour was that another rung of Nepal’s caste system was reached with the Christian message. “Most Christians in Nepal are in the lower caste, so the Campus Crusade staff members in Nepal were very excited we could share the message of God’s love with the tennis players and coaches, who are part of the upper caste,” Sullivan said. “There was lots of sowing seeds and really good spiritual conversations.” The trip was such a success that AIA has been invited back to Nepal. AIA envisions putting on a South Asia level tennis tournament in Nepal and inviting players from the surrounding countries to play in it. This would be a major boon to Nepalese tennis, because currently there are only two tennis tournaments in the country, which limits the training and development of the players. “Most people don’t come to Nepal, so this would bring people here and help show the power of sports ministry,” Sullivan said. --30--
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