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Soccer Madness
Soccer is by far the favorite sport in Zambia. Being a huge soccer fan, missionary
Chris Ness occasionally gets to go to a game. One year he went to the Mosi
Cup Finals, which was the championship for the Zambian professional soccer
league. The game was between the Nkana Warriors from out of town and the
Army Buffaloes, who were from Lusaka and were favored to win.
At halftime, all the people in the stands were told to look under their seats.
Chris looked under his seat and found a slip of paper. The paper told him to go
out on the field and take a penalty shot against one of the goalkeepers. Of the
30,000 people in the stadium, only five people were chosen to do this. Those
who scored would win 50,000 Zambian Kwacha (the equivalent of $14 U.S.
dollars).
Chris made his way to the field and managed to score and win the 50,000 Zambian Kwacha. But on his way back to the stands, he could not get through
the locked gate. He ended up near the sidelines of the field for the rest of the game.
The game ended in a tie, so it went into overtime. No scores were made during the overtime period, so the game went into penalty shots. The Nkana Warriors scored all five of their penalty kicks. The home team, the Army Buffaloes,
scored four kicks. As they made their fifth kick, the ball hit the back of the net,
but the referee blew his whistle and called it back, telling the Army Buffaloes
to take it again. This time the shooter missed, and the Army Buffaloes lost the game.
One of the Army Buffalo players ran up to the referee and punched him in the
face. This sparked more violence, and soon the fans began climbing the fence
onto the field, chasing the referee. Chris watched as the army personnel, who
were stationed around the stadium for security reasons, began to run onto the
field. He thought they were going to break things up, but they joined in the
fighting, since it was their team, the Army Buffaloes, who lost.
Somehow the outnumbered police formed a circle around the referee, protecting him. They began to head toward the exit, which was right where Chris
was standing. As the police and the referee came closer to the exit, angry fans
began to throw rocks. The rocks sailed near Chris’ head. Chris then noticed
that the police had tear gas canisters in their hands. Wanting to get away from
any tear gas, Chris climbed the tower where the camera crew filmed the game.
The police fired shots into the air to try to settle the crowd down. Finally Chris
was able to make it out of the stadium and into his car. People in the crowd
started shaking his car back and forth, but he was able to make it out safely.
Later, Chris learned that the referee had been beaten up and an innocent
bystander who had been standing near to Chris ended up on the ground bleeding.
Chris thanks the Lord for His protection that day. His experience opened
his eyes to the lostness of Zambia, a country in need of Jesus.
Information for this story was provided by missionary Chris Nessand is
used with permission from Assemblies of God World Missions.
©2007 The General Council of the Assemblies of God. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce and adapt lesson components for exclusive use in the local church. Any other use requires written permission. |
