Moving on up...

The past few months have been challenging and good. Ambridge Sports and Arts Camp has moved to Rock the World, where it began 3 years ago. Soon we'll have some updates on their web-site .

We are very excited about the possibilities of moving to RTW as we will be in an incubation period for a season or two, in an attempt to prepare us to become our own non-profit in the future. We are looking forward to the mentoring we will receive from RTW. Over the past few weeks we have been speaking to several groups of people about supporting us and volunteering with us during the summer. Those meetings and conversations have been extremely helpful to us in continuing our ministry here. I am also continuing to pursue creating a lacrosse team here in Ambridge.

Continue to pray for us especially for vision for this community and how God can best use us here.

With the summer over where do we go from here?

Wow, what a summer. We had a great opportunity this summer to see God move in this community. First off our team was wonderful, we had team of six people who did both the sports and arts camp everyday for 5 weeks, that may not sound like a lot but let me tell you working all day with elementary and middle school students pushes people to their limits. But the team did a great job at coming together and was able to place the youth and God before themselves.

The arts camp (which was in its 1st summer of existence) was really neat, we were able to create a mural with the youth, which now resides in downtown Ambridge. The mural was created by the youth and except for a few touch ups was entirely painted by them too. We are hoping through things like the mural the youth in Ambridge will begin to see that they can make a difference in their community and that they will begin to feel more of a part of it.



We also each week had a chance to proclaim the gospel not just through our words but through our actions. But we also know that it is nothing that we do that brings salvation, it is God the father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that brings the opportunity and we just hope that we "planted a seed" or "watered a seed" with the youth and their families that we had the opportunity to interact with through the summer. We hope that our actions will help point them toward Christ.

As much as I am glad that the summer is over, I miss the daily interactions with the youth and how those interactions shape my faith in a way that I cannot recreate outside of the camps. It was also great to spend each minute with my family, Shea, Caleb and I were there at both camps and Caleb definitely has a fan club now.

As we move into the fall, we are praying and discern God's call for us in this community. We at this time feel that God is calling us to create a lacrosse ministry to the youth in this area. Now this may not sound like a great idea to you but for some reason God has placed it on my heart for several years now to do this. I think one of the reasons is because God wants all of his children to have opportunities beyond where their social classes reside. Many people in Ambridge live at or below the poverty level and the farthest thing from them is lacrosse. I think we have a beautiful opportunity to expose the youth to something they have never had the chance to be a part of and help them see that God loves them and desires a relationship with them as much as the financially rich. We want to begin to tear down the barriers between classes, through that I believe we can see justice and God's love for all of his people.

Please pray for our vision, for the team (Emily, Jake, Kayleigh and Sadie) as they discern their futures, for the youth that Christ may become real to them and that all of us may seek out God's desire and provision for our lives.

First week is in the books

Wow what a first week, there was lots of laughter, tears, confusion and lots of great sleep and that was just among the leaders. We had so many youth this week that we quickly realized we are under staffed. So if you aren't doing anything this summer and you like youth, please stop by and see us.

There was tons of construction around the school this week making it difficult for the staff and the youth to get to the field and we still had more youth attend the camp then we ever had. Now we are coming to the realization that we are unable to provide a safe environment for the youth, with the number of staff we have. Which means two things; we are being more strict on our age requirements for the youth and we are combing the area for volunteers.

All in all it was a great week, just challenging (what would you expect working with 6 - 13 year olds?).

The most interesting part of the week has been the walk from the High School to the free lunch (about a 5 Ambridge block walk) and the walk to Church of the Savior for Arts Camp. It is quite a hike, but Arts Camp has been great, next Friday the youth will be putting on a play that they are in the process of creating.

For those of you interested in the advancement of Ambridge Lacrosse, I am filling out a grant form for equipment to field a guys and a girls team next fall. I have found several youth already who are interested in being a part of the team, I'll let you guys know what happens...peace to you all

Update

Well, I never thought that this would happen...teacher's strike

Due to the strike the Ambridge Sports Camp will be canceling the first week of camp and the 18th will be our first day. Here is our new schedule

June 18 - June 22 Basketball / Soccer
June 25 - June 29 Flag Football

July 9 - July 13 Lacrosse
July 16 - July 20 Softball
July 23 - July 27 Ultimate Frisbee

We will be at Ambridge Area High School (still waiting for confirmation) from 9 am - 12 noon

The arts camp will be the same weeks from 1 pm - 3pm at Church of the Savior, 420 Maplewood Ave. in Ambridge.

Summer is almost here

Camp is less than a month away

Well things are really picking up now, one of our new team members has moved to the area and things are slowly falling into place for the camp. I gave 500 flyers to the local middle school and this weekend Shea and I will be handing out more flyers at nationality days here in Ambridge. As things continue to come together I am reminded of things that have not...for example we are still waiting on the field for this summer, which is probably the thing we need the most to run a sports camp. Every year this is the way things go though, we have to wait until the last minute to the ok from the athletic director, please be praying about that.

I am trying to complete the task that I can and leave the rest up to God...

I have been trying to figure out where we are headed for the fall and I would love to create something like this dinomights or similar to this metrolacrosse

We have a team of 6 right now for our leadership team and several high schoolers and beyond have expressed interest in helping us out too....

If you know of anyone who would be interested please let us know....

Caleb Larkin

Almost a month ago on March 26th, 2007, Shea and I became parents to Caleb Larkin Geisbert. I was definitely correct in my theory that nothing could prepare us for him. He has changed our lives in amazing ways.

Obviously, the Ambridge Sports Camp has taken a back seat to our family, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything happening. Recently, we have recruited two individuals to move to the Ambridge area, one from Maryland and the other from Texas. We are really excited to have them on board with us this summer.

Last week I received a call from a person who lives on the eastern side of Pittsburgh (more than a half an hour away from Ambridge) who is interested in bringing a youth to the camp. The youth is interested in coming because we offer lacrosse but he may be coming for the whole camp.

This really excites me because I have been coaching lacrosse at Sewickley Academy and I really want to attract people to the lacrosse portion of our camp, so that we can start a team here in Ambridge!

Please be praying for us as we learn to become parents and also pray that the God will provide for the staff of the camp and each of us may have his peace which "transcends all understanding."

Where we may be headed

I am hesitant to write anything that pertains to the future because we just have no idea how things may turn out. However, I feel that the Ambridge Sports Camp is moving toward becoming so much more than a "summer camp". A large part of the reason that Shea and I (Eric) moved here was because we have a desire to see the sports camp become a year round ministry. There are 5 ways that I see us doing that in the future...

1) creating or helping other organizations perform tutoring sessions, computer classes and career training for youth

2) creating Christian focused sports leagues like the ones that upward does; this will hopefully include basketball, soccer and flag football

3) creating a ministry that gives youth a chance to dream; I mean in the most literal sense, a place where youth can come hash out their God given dreams and we will attempt to point them in the right direction...for example Jimmy comes to us and he wants to play the guitar, we help him find a teacher either for free or for a fee (we will pay the fee) and set up his guitar lessons; while encouraging him as he discerns whether or not this is where he and God want him to be

4) we have the youth serve the community, everything from picking up garbage to tutoring younger peers to helping out with the Ambridge Food Pantry

5) lastly but not least we will continue the KidzLife meetings that give the youth of Ambridge a time of fellowship, food and time to learn about Christ their creator

Those are some of the ways I feel that we are headed and why we are here, these ideas continue to morph and change into new ideas so stay tuned, who knows what we will come up with next...

The Story of the Ambridge Sports Camp

In the year of 2004, the Ambridge Sports Camp began as a second summer project of Rock the World's Josiah Project. Josiah Project is an intense ministry training summer program which gives its participants the chance to create their own ministry after completing the first summer. Eric Geisbert and Shea Rankin, two former JPer's, created the camp to give the youth in Ambridge, PA the opportunity to interact with Christians and also have a safe environment to learn about sports, good sportsmanship and healthy competition.

During their first summer in Ambridge they felt that the community lacked activities for the youth, especially during the summer. Eric and Shea, being passionate about sports, felt that a sports camp could be used as a tool to interact with the youth in the area. They began forming a team of Christians to lead the camp and minister to the youth relationally. The ultimate goal of the team was to show the love of Christ, to each other and to the youth.

From the moment the idea of the ASC was first spoken God was at work. From the very beginning He began opening doors and helping Eric and Shea build relationships that would continue for years and help the camp to flourish. As the summer began God moved in many miraculous ways, ways that forced the team to cultivate an amazing dependence on Him and made the camp an incredible success.

Having no previous camp starting experience, Eric and Shea knew that trusting in God was the only way this camp was going to happen. The fact that the camp took place was amazing and was the biggest miracle of the summer. All kinds of things fell into place before the camp started. The Ambridge High School agreed to let the camp use their brand new football field to host every week of the camp except for basketball week. One month before the camp was to begin; Eric and Shea had managed to find only one volunteer for the summer. God provided two more volunteers that month, and three more the week before the camp started. Basketballs were donated as well as 20 lacrosse heads, lacrosse balls, and two goals, which were all received the day lacrosse week started.

During the first year Eric and Shea prayed that someone would take over the camp and run it for years to come. That person was Tim Vitunic. Tim was born and raised in Ambridge; he loves the Lord, loves youth and enjoys sports. He was the perfect fit for the sports camp. Tim took over leadership of the camp for the second summer and with the help of David Morris they took the camp to another level. They not only ministered to the youth in the area through the sports camp but they also created an evening program each week for the youth. On top of that they also decided that they did not have to just minister to the youth but they could also disciple the leaders on staff.

Tim and David both decided that they did not want to head the camp up for the third year, so God rose up another leader, Dave Bull. Dave is another local guy from Western Pennsylvania, who loves Jesus, loves youth and loves sports especially soccer. Dave and his staff learned from the success of the second summer and were blessed with tons of young people. Much of the staff and including Dave were not able to give all their time to the camp as most everyone worked a part-time job.

The camp has now come full circle as its co-creators have returned to the Ambridge area. Eric and Shea Geisbert (yes they got married), have moved back to Ambridge to be a part of the community and expand the sports camp into a year round ministry. They felt very strongly that God had called them back to this community and they desire to see the community fall in love with Jesus Christ.

The feeling from many of the leaders who have ran the camp is that God is going to use whoever puts themselves out there for this community. He will use anyone, including those who aren't good at sports, have never been in leadership positions, those who don't even understand the sport that we are teaching; he will use anyone...

Hello Everyone

Welcome to the Ambridge Sports Camp Blog...I am starting this blog to let people know about the happenings with the sports camp. Please feel free to ask questions, make comments and help us allow God to use us to glorify himself in this community.