Sioux Lookout,
Ontario Canada
Winning the Right to be Heard
by Rick Martin
“Frey Cup Won by Moose Factory Team” was the headline in the Elmira newspaper. This was the headline but there was so much more to this story. This isolated Cree community of Moose Factory is a long way from Elmira and can only be reached by a railway they rightly call “The Polar Bear Express.” We have often ministered in this beautiful community. It sits on the tip of James Bay, which is connected to Hudson Bay in the far north of Canada. Elmira is in southern Ontario not far from Toronto and the United States border. But how did a Native team from so far away end up playing in a thirty-nine-team hockey tournament in the south? The answer is simple. God was up to something.
My wife Linda and I continue to be involved in a counseling ministry among her Cree people and other tribes and we often end up working with the youth. What has been such a real challenge for us is to find common ground with the youth. It is often difficult to find a tool or platform that gives us the opportunity to share the Gospel and it is a challenge to gain a listening ear and the right to be heard.
Over the years I have seen it again and again. Sport’s attract young people and bring people together. More than this it gives leaders in sports an amazing platform to speak into the lives of young people. I have seen this with soccer around the world and I saw this with rugby on a recent visit to South Africa. In fact my missionary friend there argued that Nelson Mandela used rugby to pull the country together. Mandela used their passion for rugby as a tool to bring unity in a very dark, dark hour. The movie “Invictus” demonstrates this in a powerful way. In the United States God has used football, basketball, baseball and other sports as a platform for His followers to share their faith. Where I live in Canada it is, of course, hockey and this is especially true on the reservations.
So maybe I should not be surprised that I see God using hockey to minister to native youth here in Canada and that He keeps using my boyhood passion for hockey for His purposes. I find it somewhat mysterious. Linda and I have been so busy, in counseling itself, that over the last few years I have purposefully tried to stay away from hockey ministry. Yet, somehow God seems to keep bringing opportunities back to minister through hockey and when I follow them He blesses them. This recent experience with the Moose Factory team in January of 2011 was no different.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:22, “ . . . I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (NIV) Earlier in verse 19 of the same chapter he declares, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” (NIV) It has been our desire to share the message of hope with as many native youth as we can and to do it in such a way that they really understand so that we may indeed win some. We need to go where they are at; on their playing field, on their turf and on their ice. I love a great theological discussion and I loved my seminary classes listening to my learned professors going into the many deep truths of the Gospel, of Scripture and life itself. But for many native kids the best place and maybe the only place you will get a listening ear is in a sweaty, sticky, messy dressing room after a grueling game of hockey, not in a classroom.
There are so many stories within this story. This was the first time a native team would be playing for the top prize. Not only this, even though the core team was from Moose Factory, other players joined them from other parts of Canada. It seemed almost miraculous the way the team came together. Two players flew in from as far away as northern Quebec. Our goalie, yet from another tribe, drove in from Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron. One of our best forwards “Brock,” an Iriquois, came in from Six Nations. They truly came from hundreds of miles away in trains, planes and automobiles. Not only was hockey bringing native tribes together they also asked me, a non-native from the “Swiss German” tribe, to help lead their team as a player coach. My cousin “Brian,” also non-native, was invited to join.
My desire from the beginning was to share Jesus with the hockey players. So I asked native pastor Mervin Cheechoo, father of professional hockey player Jonathan Cheechoo, in advance to share the Gospel and his story in the dressing room. He too was originally from Moose Factory so he knows how difficult it is to get native youth into a church setting. Many simply will not enter a church building and so the dressing room became our meeting place. We had laughed and talked and related to each other for four games now and had connected on so many levels but it was the final game that brought it all together. I was so excited about how God seemed to be setting things up even though I must admit I was not exactly calm.
Mervin felt strongly that he would and should give his message after the game. I remember thinking, “but what if we lose?” “Will the guy’s still be willing to listen?” Yet I followed Mervin’s heart and after a short talk on strategy, and a few words about God’s interest and care for us all, I simply stood up and prayed for them out loud. I asked that God would enable them to play the best game they possibly could. And the rest is history. They were amazing. The game was so fast and it was so tough and yet they skated so beautifully and so smart and clean. It was a joy to behold.
They did it and they did it in style! After receiving the trophy we all piled back into the
dressing room. After a time of celebration Mervin began to speak. Yes you could have heard a pin drop. It was so quiet and everyone listened to every word Mervin spoke. He shared the Gospel with passion and clarity. He talked about his own struggle with alcohol and anger. He spoke of how God saved him from that as a young man and how God turned him around and gave him a life more meaningful and full than anything else ever could have! I knew that most of these players had never heard the Gospel in this way before and that maybe they had never really heard it at all! But I knew now that they had. God truly was up to something good!
Many fans came to see this intriguing native team, from so far away, play for the championship. God used hockey to bring two cultures together and He used it as a platform to bring His Gospel. I am blessed by the fact that Steve Cheechoo, one of the Christians on our team and a very respected hockey player in Canada, also a close friend, is coaching hockey full time in the north and is using it as an opportunity to share Jesus. I pray for him daily. My question for you today is this. What has God gifted you with and what platform do you have that you may indeed, by His grace, share the Gospel? How can you, by God’s grace, make an impact in your world to win some and reach some for His Kingdom?