Lancer Athletic Camps were held on the Grace College campus early in the summer. The camps are now finished. The recent Grace Connection shared how campers during the week went above and beyond to help their counterparts in Africa.

Coach Jim Kessler, who leads the boys’ basketball camps, reported that Lancer Campers recently donated more than 90 basketballs, 63 pairs of shoes, and $250 to Martin Ombok, a young athlete from Nairobi, Kenya. Kessler, who took a basketball team to Kenya in 2004, met Martin at that time. Kessler’s daughter, Jenny, was working then with the Baptist Aid Response Agency in Kenya, and Martin also worked for the agency in sports ministry. Many of the young people Martin worked with have no shoes. Few players have basketballs; in fact, some teams don’t even have a basketball.

Lancer campers receive a basketball at camp, so Kessler asked if any of them would like to donate their camp basketballs to “Martin’s kids.” (Martin, who is currently in school in the States, spent three weeks coaching at Lancer Camp.) Kessler said the response was overwhelming – and many of the boys signed their shoes and gave them to Martin as well. The $250 the boys donated was from their own camp snack money. The basketballs, shoes, and money will go directly to help young athletes in Kenya.

Pictured above are Coach Kessler, Jarrod and Jenny (Kessler) Lovette, and Martin Ombok.