March Infinity Sports Newsletter

• Camp Preview
• Introducing our Go Now Missionaries
• Middle School Infinity Sports Camp Experience (NEW!!)
• Infinity Sports 2017 Camp Information
• Game Changer Testimony (from needing his life changed to changing other lives)

Camp Preview

Summer is right around the corner, and plans for Infinity Sports Camps 2017 are being finalized! This year our theme is “GAME CHANGERS,” and we will be discussing various characters from the Bible including Elijah, Esther, and Nicodemus. The stories of these “Game Changers” ultimately point back to Jesus being the Ultimate Game Changer. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5

This year we are excited to return to many of the same locations as last year. As a third year staffer, one of my favorite parts of camp is returning to the same churches and seeing the same kids year after year. The value of relationships is so meaningful, and we are thankful for continued partnerships with amazing churches. This summer we will be hosting a camp in Chelsea, Alabama (Liberty Baptist Church), Thompson Station, Tennessee (Thompson Station Church), Nashville, Tennessee (Belmont Heights Baptist Church), Clarksville, Tennessee (Hilldale Baptist Church), Franklin, Tennessee (Harpeth Christian Church), and at Fairfield-Glade First Baptist Church in Fairfield-Glade, Tennessee.

Please join us in praying for these churches and the kiddos that will be attending camp!

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:19-25

Ashley Bridges

Introducing our Go Now Missionaries

Each year Infinity Sports receives two college missionaries from Go Now Missions in Texas. This year we are excited to have Hope Allen and Connor McLaughlin join our staff! Here’s some fun facts about the future Infinity Sports coaches!

Name: Hope

Birthday: August 29, 1997

Hometown: Garden City, TX
College: Angelo State University
Favorite Sport: Basketball
What you are excited about for this summer: I wanted to do this particular mission trip because I love working with kids and also I want to become a basketball coach after I graduate college. So what better way to gain experience than teaching kids about sports and Jesus!! I am excited to work with the kids and staff and gain experience for myself but also be able to give back and teach information that I have learned over the years! I think this is going to be a fantastic summer that I know I’ll always remember!

Name: Connor

Birthday: September 30th

Hometown: Stockdale, TX

College: The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

Favorite Sport: Football

What you are excited about for this summer: I chose the mission trip because I felt like God was calling me for a summer mission. I believe God chose this trip for me because of my sports background. I played football for 2 years at UMHB but moved on after much prayer and following God’s path. I am an Exercise Physiology major. I’m excited to spread God’s word through sports to kids.

Game Changer Testimony

Colossians 1:10-12 . .

¹⁰ so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Endurance

“In soccer (or you can use other sports), you have to run, you have to have a lot of endurance.  You have to be able to keep up, or run faster, utilize the skills and strategies you have been taught.  You have to build up your endurance. – {Read scripture} – Just like this scripture says, if you live a life that is pleasing to God – {Give examples} – and you ‘bear fruit’ for God, then He will give you the endurance you need to get through  life’s troubles and rocky times.  If you work hard and practice your skills in soccer, then when it is game time, you will have the endurance you need to produce good works, and a game you can be pleased with as far as your effort is concerned.”

#thankful

It was December 2, 2014. I was attending Breakaway, a weekly bible study that draws in thousands each week on the campus of Texas A&M. It was on this day that God spoke so clearly to my heart that I couldn’t help but say “yes” to his command. At this point in time, my first semester in college was about to end, and I couldn’t be more thankful. My transition into college wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t easy either. Whose is? My semester was filled with challenging schoolwork, a constant search for friends and community, and a lot of free time that I wasn’t used to having. Up until this point in my life, every waking moment was spent playing sports. Because I attended a small high school of about 200 people, I played 5 varsity sports throughout all four years of high school. I lived and breathed sports, and when college came around I didn’t know what to do with myself. Because I didn’t have sports anymore, I knew my best shot in finding a community of people who were similar to me would be found in a Christian organization on campus. I also knew college would be a time when my faith would either shrink or grow, and I wanted it to grow.

This desire to have a flourishing faith in college drew me to the Aggie BSM. BSM stands for Baptist Student Ministries and can be found at college campuses across the state of Texas. It was at the BSM that I found my community of friends. These friends weren’t just any friends either, but ones who challenged me in my faith and showed me how to live boldly for the Gospel. It was also through the BSM that the opportunity to do summer missions first came up. Go Now Missions is a sending ministry that takes students from Texas BSMs and sends them all across the world on different summer mission trips: Alaska, South Asia, Peru. You name it, and Go Now has probably sent a college student there. Growing up, I always had the desire to go on mission; however, the small church I attended sadly wasn’t very involved in any type of mission trips. So once I heard of Go Now at the BSM, I was immediately drawn in. I wanted to go. I wanted to serve. I wanted my faith to grow. But all these excuses got in the way. “But what about school? What about my family? Being gone all summer is a really long time!” So I soon lost interest and decided “maybe I’ll go another time.”

Back to December 2 at Breakaway. I remember standing in Reed Arena singing some Christmas song completely overjoyed that my semester was almost over and that Christmas was right around the corner. Looking back, my heart and mind weren’t even present at Breakaway that night, but thankfully our Lord works in us even when we’re not focused on him. Without thinking about Go Now for the past two months, I very clearly and overwhelmingly heard two words enter my mind: “Go Now.” I never so clearly heard the Lord speak to me. The excuses of school and family and homesickness entered into my mind again, but suddenly, they didn’t seem like as big of problems as I first thought. I knew I had to obey the Lord. I knew I had to go. So I did.

To make a long story short, I ended up being assigned by Go Now to go to Nashville, Tennessee to work with a traveling sports ministry called Infinity Sports. I had very little information about it. All I knew I would be working with a team of 8 and that’d I’d be gone for all of June and July. Initially, I was so excited because I felt like this was the perfect trip for me! I’d get to be around kids, coach sports, and tell them about Jesus? Awesome! But then life hit. The spring semester of 2015 was an interesting time in my life. I knew I was suppose to be preparing spiritually for this trip, but life seemed to keep getting in the way. School work bogged me down, physics basically destroyed my life for 4 months, and I found very little time to spend with the Lord. By the end of the semester, I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained, and the last thing I wanted to do was leave home for two months. I remember my family driving me to the airport the day I was to fly out, and as soon as I got through security, I went straight to the bathroom and balled my eyes out. I didn’t want to go. I was scared. I was already homesick. I thought to myself, “This is going to be a long two months.”

Fast forward to right now, November 27, 2016. I just celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, registered for my last semester of classes at Texas A&M, and confirmed with executive director of Infinity Sports Deane Hartzell that I would return to Infinity Sports for a third summer, and this time as director. Obviously, the miserable, long two months I was dreading in the airport didn’t happen. Instead, the Lord, who works even when we don’t, blessed my life and forever changed the way I lived. During my first summer with Infinity I got to share the Gospel with kids and see beautiful and unwavering child like faith. I saw the Holy Spirit completely changed the atmosphere of one week of camp from one of dread and apathy to one of celebration in our Savior. I experienced a tight knit body of 7 other brothers and sisters in Christ that encouraged me and challenged me unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The Lord revealed to me how selfish I had been over the past year with my school work, and that I was putting my school work over my relationship with Him. I learned the importance of living on mission all the time, how to joyfully serve the Lord, and the satisfaction that comes through living in Christ. The Lord worked mightily in my life that year, and he did the same the next. My second year serving with Infinity Sports looked a lot like the first. I was able to see kids from the previous year and continue to teach and disciple them. It was awesome to see the ways the Lord had grown them in the past year and to hear just how much they had grown because they were campers at an Infinity Sports camp. Again, the team of coaches that I was surrounded with all summer pointed me towards Christ at all moments of the day, and I pray I did the same for them.

I write this article not to tell you about me, but to testify about the awesomeness of our God. Our God is sovereign and faithful, and He continues to pursue us even when we don’t pursue Him. Our Father wants us to pursue him like children and to have that same unwavering childlike faith that the campers do during the summer. The Lord is satisfying and is better than any grade or job or award we could ever receive. The Lord blesses us and wanted to give us the greatest amount of joy possible. Serving the Lord and going on mission is an overflow of our love for him, and in the process of giving our time and talents to the Lord, I often find he blesses us back even more in return. I am thankful for Breakaway. I am thankful for the Aggie BSM. I am thankful for Texas A&M. I am thankful for Infinity Sports. I am thankful for each and every camper and coach I’ve met. But most importantly, I am thankful for the never-ending, never changing love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

-Ashley Bridges