Bafana Bafana means “the boys, the boys” in Zulu, it is also the nickname of the South African soccer team . For the most part that is what my ministry of South Africa consisted of, teaching boys from the local township near where we were staying to play soccer. My team as well as three other teams all were living in the same hostel for the month and in total there was 23 of us living together. We were all divided into several different ministries, and my being a huge fan of soccer, was placed in the soccer ministry. My time doing soccer ministry consisted of going to the township and picking up a group of kids that ranged from the ages of 6 to 12 years old. We normal had around 40 kids.
Once we had picked them up we would then walk them to The Links, their soccer field, which consisted of a sand y area that was littered with broken glass and rocks. It also only consisted of one goal post. Upon first arriving at the links we would lead the kids in stretches and then would send through a couple of drills. After we were done with the drills we would then start the game. We would first start by splitting all the kids into 2 teams and then hand out their jerseys. The game consisted of a very rudimentary style of soccer. There was no offsides and for the most part very few fouls called, also there was no kick off, just a toss up.
After about 40 minutes of play we would call the game and gather all of the kids together in a circle. We would then proceed to give them a bible lesson. Once we finished the bible lesson we would pass out orange slices to the kids for a snack. I really enjoyed playing with the kids and being able to pour out to them. I was able to bon with a few of them and was quite sad when I had to leave them. All in all though I had a great time and in a sense it is a happy instance when you get sad for leaving someone, it means that you had something special with tem in the first place.
