Article | Missions magazine

Faith and Frisbee: Reaching Romania through a Sports Ministry

Mar 15, 2021
Calderon

By Pablo Calderon

When my wife, Bethany, and I first moved to Brasov, Romania, in 2016, we had a clear ministry goal in mind. We were going to focus on music ministry. With our coworkers and friends, Daniel and Georgiana Eakins (Missionary Prayer Handbook Day 13), we formed The Ineloquent and, over the years, released several praise-and-worship albums. It remained our main ministry for our first three years of service. While we are still heavily involved in music ministry, God opened a new, unique door: Ultimate Frisbee.

Transylvania Ultimate Frisbee 

Better known as “Ultimate,” this noncontact sport is played with a Frisbee disc. Like American football, to score a point, a team must pass the Frisbee down the field until it reaches the opponent’s end zone. One of the unique things about Ultimate is that it is self-officiated, meaning that all players on the field also serve as referees. Ultimate can be played in three different forms: men’s teams, women’s teams, and mixed teams (the most common).

Our Ultimate club is called Transylvania Ultimate Frisbee, or TUF. The beginnings of Ultimate in Brasov trace back to 2013, when the Eakins arrived in Romania, as another way Daniel could fellowship with young adults on Sunday evenings. After Bethany and I arrived in 2016, the local American school invited me to introduce the sport to its students. By 2019, we discovered other Eastern European Ultimate teams that were playing in tournaments. We decided to combine Daniel’s young adult group and my student group to create our own team, which became known as TUF. So, in April 2019, I cofounded the club with Daniel and another American we met at a local church.

We began to organize formal weekly training sessions for TUF’s Senior (adult) and U17 (under 17) teams. Shortly after, we added more teams to include children as young as three years old (TUF Little Kids) and adults in the 50-plus age range. Soon, we had more than 100 players. When we saw this great response from our local community, the Lord made it clear to us that TUF is an opportunity for outreach, mentoring, and discipleship.

Currently, the club has two mixed teams (Senior and U17) that compete in tournaments. Lord willing, in 2021, we will add a women’s team that can also compete in tournaments. In March 2020, we hosted our first indoor tournament, and teams from around the country and Bulgaria participated. Our Senior team finished in second place, and U17 took fifth place. We plan to add two or three more regional tournaments in 2021.

A sport of honor

Ultimate is a sport driven by honor. It encourages the players to respect one another, which helps them realize that each player has value and they themselves are valuable. This aspect of Ultimate reminds us of Matthew 10:31: “Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Besides honoring one another on the field, we seek to extend it to our relationships with the players off the field. We mentor them and serve each other when needs arise. The teenage players have benefited from this the most. We also hold Bible studies with the youth. The studies began during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns after several young people expressed interest in learning more about God. During the lockdown, we regularly held a Bible study and game time over Zoom. Now, we meet in person weekly.

We have also been able to partner with another ministry called Glittr, based in Bucharest. This organization hosts day and weekend retreats to encourage teenage girls to grow in their faith and find their identity in Christ. Once per year, Glittr meets with the girls who participate in TUF and provides fun activities, like pedicures, for them while sharing the Gospel or a biblical challenge (depending on the girls’ faith).

Learning to pivot

Like many ministries, we have had to make changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to concern for the virus, the number of participants has decreased by half. We paused training for children under 12 years old and for adult beginners, because, with them, following the guidelines that our local health department imposed is difficult.

Despite all tournaments being canceled until this spring, we have been able to host joint training sessions with other teams from Romania and Bulgaria. These sessions have been an awesome opportunity to encourage the players from these teams and our own.

For us, the biggest takeaway from the pandemic has been the opportunity to study and share God’s Word with the participants. We explain to them that no matter what is happening in the world around us, we can trust completely in Jesus. As John 14:27 says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Initially, Ultimate was something for us to do after long days and weeks of ministry work. But the Lord has turned it into a field of numerous ministry opportunities to reach our community, as well as those outside of our city, with the Gospel. May He be glorified through this work! ■ 

 

The Lord is working through TUF’s ministry, and we appreciate your prayers for it. Please pray for:

  • Wisdom as we navigate this new work, especially during the pandemic (local and national laws change almost weekly).
  • Health for everyone involved in TUF as we meet for training each week.
  • Opportunities for more Bible studies and retreats.
  • Saving knowledge and salvation for the players.
  • A sister in the faith to mentor and disciple the girls on our teams and run the women’s training sessions.  

 

Pablo and Bethany Calderon are commended from Creekside Church in Urbandale, Iowa.

 
Originally published in Missions magazine, March 2021. For more content, sign up for a free subscription (US) to Missions at CMML.us/magazine/subscribe.