Pastor Solano, Director of Sports Evangelism for Assemblies of God Church in Nairobi, is supporting and sharing the Bible's good news with young people through football.

Five years ago, the leadership of Pastor Solano's church wanted to engage young people and reach out to them through football. Initially the church community was hesitant. The church hadn't engaged with sport in this way before. Pastor Salano encouraged the church to join their first outreach event, and they were delighted when people came out to join them, in their hundreds!

When you plug into the community and start speaking their language – with the vision of allowing God to work in their lives – the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

Pastor Solano continued: "Some of the young people we were meeting got connected with the church. We have seen God doing tremendous things and lives being changed."

The driving force for reaching out to young people is to share the good news of Jesus with them, but the impact of the ministry touches their whole lives, identifying and nurturing their talents. "We've seen some of these young people change for the national team and some have got sponsorship to study abroad. We are so amazed by what God can go and how we can encourage these young people through the talent of sports."

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Lifewords is an important part of the football ministry, providing resources to help share good news and to disciple young people. The resources, including An Invitation, Daily Strength, and Inspiring Prayer (now Little Book of Prayer), offer a way for Pastor Solano and his team to pray with the young people, encourage them, and give them something that they can take home to read.

On one occasion, the team from the church held a sports tournament for over 500 young people where they were able to share the gospel with individuals from the Rendille people group, one of the least-reached people groups in Kenya.

We used the tournament as a platform to reach out to them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that the seed that we planted, of reaching out to them through sport, using the materials that we were given by Lifewords will be able to enlarge and expand them spirituality.