denly closed by the government. This opportunity of reaching this potential of young people seemed to be lost forever. The eagerness and enthusiasm of the Chinese for basketball caught the imagination of several Orient Crusades missionaries. Why not organize a team and challenge some of the local Chinese players to a game and at the same time give them the gospel? It was a wild idea but proved to be a sound one. The basketball-playing missionaries once more found the doors to the schools and army camps open. Along with the basketball came the Bible again. The games met with such great success that the plan of basketball evangelism was presented to several Christian coaches in America. The plan was to bring over a team of Christian athletes for the summer months to tour the Far East in a sportsmanship living and preaching ministry. At half-time the players would preach and sing to the crowds and then those who wanted to accept Christ would be dealt with personally after the game.
Coach Don Odle of Taylor Univer sity responded to the challenge, and in the summer of 1952 arrived in the Orient with his first Ventuie for Victory team under the auspices of Youth for Christ. In the succeeding years Coach Odle brought three Venture for Victory teams to the Orient and took a fourth team to South Amer ica. Since that first team came to the Orient, basketball, the Bible and Orient Crusades missionaries have almost become synonymous. Along with these Venture for Victory teams another Orient Cru sades missionary, Norman Cook, began using coaching clinics as a means of reaching the youth of the oriental countries with the gospel. Both public and private schools opened their doors. In 1954 the Chinese Olympic Committee needed a basketball coach for the Asian Games, the Far East version of the Olympics. The officials on a visit to Manila found one — Chuck Holsinger, another Orient Crusades missionary. He led the team to runner-up honors.
“ I’m just the manager for our basketball team. I thought I lived a good moral life until I heard God speak to me through our coach, Mr. Schaeffer, in a church service one Sunday morning. It was then and there that I discovered that I could never be good enough in myself to get into heaven. I realized for the first time in my life that the Son of God died for my sins. I can’t ex plain the joy I experienced. Since then I’ve gotten several members of the basketball team I’m manag ing to read their Bibles.” Willie Chu is married and the father of one child. He too testified, “When high in the sky in my jet plane, I often wondered if heaven were real. I now know that it is, and not only that, but I am sure I will go there some day because I have received Christ as my Pilot. Mr. Schaeffer gave each of us on the team a Chinese bilingual New Testament (Chinese and English), and it was while looking up some of the verses he gave me that I was convicted of my sin and received Jesus Christ as my personal Sav
»
-
^
EVANGELISM
Last year with the international games approaching, the committee again turned to Orient Crusades for a s s i s t anc e and Bud Schaeffer. During the months of October and November Bud had the team train ing in Taipeh, Formosa, and along with the coaching the team heard about Jesus Christ. Between the time practice began and the start of the Games, Captain Tang and little Willie Chu, a jet pilot with 20 missions over Red China, both received Christ. Captain Tang is married and the father of one child. In a Sunday morning service where Schaeffer was preaching he was one of the first of five people who responded to the invitation. He testified later,
iour. I now enjoy reading the Bible and going to church, and am pray ing for and witnessing to the other members of our team that they too might become Christians.” These players who are the idols of the Chinese youth and the lead ers of tomorrow are hearing the Word and studying it every day. In a recent letter Bud wrote, “Hol singer planted, Schaeffer watered, but God gave the increase!” So the gospel has gone out to hundreds who would otherwise never have heard because Schaeffer and others like him have dedicated their natural talents to Christ and have become “ all things to all men that they might by all means win some.” END.
Bud Schaeffer & Chinese Olympic team.
M A R C H 1 9 .1 7
49
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs