"I can't tell you what a profound impact it left on my 8½ year-old son as he looked under baseball and saw Sammy Sosa's name. What a thrill to a mother's heart to see his face as he read Sammy's testimony."
"My admiration which I have for you, made me to find my way, my star! I dare to wish you a Romanian well-wishing: Long life Doug! Yours, Vasile." (He accepted Christ while reading the website.)
These two testimonies are shared by webmaster Doug Reese from To The Next Level. He shares how he was led to start being this ministry:
"I was directed by the Lord to start a web-based sports ministry. I was on along trip home after a wrestling tournament when the Lord clearly spoke tome. He told me to call it To The Next Level and showed me rather clearly the layout of the site. I argued with Him about that I could not do this. I had really no knowledge of websites. He told me that 'not too long ago you did not know anything about the sport of wrestling.' (I am a college and national coach in the US.) There was no arguing with Him. I knew I had to do this, but I did not know where to start. I put it off for two months, then I felt like Jonah, so I thought I better get going. I started surfing the web and found the Web Evangelism Guide. I read everything I could, I checked hundreds of links from the site. I then sought some students from our college who were in studying computer science. I wore them down with numerous questions. Slowly but surely, within three months of part-time work, our website was on-line and growing. I felt I was not qualified or skilled to do this kind of work. But, what I learned was: if you are called by God, He qualifies you to do His work. And that is a tremendous blessing!
TTNL is a "covert" ministry. Our website looks like a sports magazine, drawing in coaches and athletes to articles and resources to help them reach the next level in their sport. Articles on nutrition, strength training, physiological development, mental skills, and coaching and program development fill our pages. Also it is our goal to bring back integrity, sportsmanship, and character back to the field of play - as we stress these ideals.
But the magic of the website is articles and testimonies of over 400 professional and Olympic athletes in all sports. Gently the Gospel message is there presented by sportsperson, to sportsperson.
We are averaging 270,000 hits per month and lately we have been reaching some 70 countries world-wide. It is exciting when I see hits from the Middle East and China. I know that God's word is getting out in these closed environments. Currently we are translating the website into Spanish. I would also like to translate it into some other languages."
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