From Montréal to Xenia, Prague to Windsor…

I never dreamed that one simple phone call four years ago would lead me to have an influence in the lives of basketball athletes in Canada, North America and around the world.

One morning in October 2003, I got a phone call from the coach of the Athletes in Action Women’s Basketball Fall Tour exhibition team inviting me to play with them…immediately. The team was already one and a half weeks into their training camp, and I was in the middle of the fall semester serving with AIA’s campus ministry at McGill University in Montréal. I was also well into the regular season of the college team I was coaching. However, a day or two later I committed to the tour and took hold of this unbelievable opportunity to play basketball, not fully understanding at the time the magnitude of saying “yes.”

Only a few days later in Xenia, Ohio, at AIA’s World Training and Resource Center, I was not only telling my story to people I had just met, but embarking on a four week adventure with women who share the same passions for Jesus, life and basketball, where they became a part of my story.

Through the tour God allowed me to experience authentic, loving relationships that I had never known existed outside of my family. In this environment, He brought healing, restoration, and freedom to my heart, all the while whispering his vision and heart for the Canadian basketball community. As I returned to Canada, my heart began dreaming of what a Canadian AIA Basketball ministry could look like, now that I had seen and experienced it in the United States. How could I be a faithful steward of these experiences with Fall Tour, not only by telling others about them but also by providing similar transformational opportunities for Canadian players?

In the spring of 2004, my dreams began to materialize as AIA Canada sent its second women’s international basketball tour to Slovakia and Czech Republic. While I had never led any tour before, I was asked to direct, play and teach Christian principles to the team. This Canadian AIA tour was almost entirely based on my Fall Tour experience just months earlier.

On this tour, we did a joint training camp with Sparta Praha, a club team from Prague, Czech Republic, where I met Iva, their starting center. We spent most of the practices and games matched up against each other and before saying good-bye I prayed for her, not dreaming that our paths would ever cross again. However, God was at work behind the scenes.

This fall for the second straight year, the AIA Fall Tour team made a stop at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The team practiced with and competed against the Windsor Lancers, all the while communicating their stories and building relationships with them. Interestingly enough, Iva is now playing for the Lancers, a program where four AIA Canadian tour alumni are either coaching or playing; God continues to intersect Iva’s life with authentic followers of Jesus.

Adding the University of Windsor to the Fall Tour schedule the last two years has not only given the tour an international component, but has also helped to enlarge my platform for ministry within the Canadian Basketball community. Just weeks ago, I was privileged to be a part of the AIA staff team leading the Fall Tour, the same tour that was so valuable in my life and, subsequently, also in the lives of women like Iva in Canada. Building relationships and reflecting God’s love to this basketball community has now become my focus as a part of the AIA ministry in Canada and as I coach the women’s basketball team at McGill University.

What a difference a phone call can make. After six Canadian Women’s Basketball AIA tours to five different countries and the birth of a Canadian AIA Basketball ministry, I have seen God bring me full circle—beyond all that I could ever have asked or imagined. I am now the one making phone calls (like the one I received in 2003) as God continues to impact athletes all over Canada, North America, and the world.

Stephanie D. has been on staff with AIA Canada for seven and a half years. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she now serves in Montréal, Québec, where she is the only staff member in the province of Québec.

Full names of Athletes in Action staff members have been withheld to protect those serving in religious-sensitive countries.

Photos:

Top: Stephanie (right),on the basketball court at the University of Tennessee. AIA's Fall Tour team played the women's college basketball powerhouse in 2003.

Middle: Stephanie with Iva.

Bottom: AIA's 2007 Fall Tour team and the University of Windsor Lancers gather after playing on the court and running a basketball clinic for children.