The Beginning

Welcome one and all to the world of Cross Over Basketball in which this blog aims to keep all you lovely followers up to date with all things Cross Over. Got to admit this is the first time I done anything blog related in my life so it might not always be written to an incredibly high standard of grammar and compete with the likes of my friends with incredible blog's that I love to read, however, it will be all from the heart and hopefully will come across with the passion I have for Basketball and God in my life.

By the way my name is Jamie and I am the founder of Cross over Basketball. Every story has a beginning so let me start from when I was younger, I loved Basketball ever since I started playing it in Middle School. Can't say that I was the best by any means but managed to pick up a few skills and a knack for shooting the ball pretty well. Fortunately, Worthing the town I grew up in had a Basketball team in the top league of British Basketball (believe me there weren't many of them in England) and me and my Dad became regular season ticket holders of the Worthing Bears. Despite seeing far many more many losses than wins the passion still remained for the game I grew to love. The game itself was fascinating to me, the skill level, fast pace, show boating, intensity and competitiveness where all aspects I loved about Basketball. Later on in life I went to Sixth Form College and manged to make the team and enjoyed a number of appearances for them, mostly off the bench I will admit, but it was great to feel part of a team and being part of a group of players looking for victory together.

I continued to play Basketball throughout University but more on a social level due to the standard of competitive Basketball at University level was so much higher. Due to this I started going to Christian Union meetings instead, this is when I really started to know what living a Christian life was. For some reason the penny never really dropped when I was in Worthing about what it was like to live for God, however, being round other Christians my age and starting to attend small group sessions with others helped me develop my Christian character, it also made it easier to be open up about the struggles I felt and I owe a lot to my first cell groups as this is where I felt I started to try and live a life for God.

So this is how the two managed to merge, my love for God and love for the game of Basketball. After university I went to work at a summer camp in the USA called Camp Tecumseh, owned by the Salvation Army. It was a place where kids from the New Jersey area came to spend a week out in the beautiful outdoors and basically have lots of fun doing activities and where they had a chance to listen to the gospel. I had the opportunity to do devotions in the evening with a different group kids over the six weeks of camp. It was great to speak about my testimony in front of them and was amazing to see the amount of children accepting God in their lives. I also got the opportunity to coach Basketball and go through some of the drills and skills that I have picked up over countless coaching sessions that I have being part of growing up when I was a kid. It was so much fun and as for so many others who worked and attended Camp Tecumseh, it was a pretty special place. I never felt I was serving God more than when I was working there and some of the campers I had I will never forget. We always got told by Major Scott who headed up that particular camp the impact we would of had in these children's lives and it was hard to disagree with him.

So there is the back story, all that is left to say is that I started to work for a Christian charity called Compassion and this is where I met Paul who runs Onside Soccer, a sports ministry with the same aims as Cross Over except using football as the tool. This is where he gave me the opportunity to go to Uganda (only 5 days to go) and use my love for Basketball to go alongside his passion for Football and to see children come to know Jesus Christ.

Now at this point in time, I can't wait to see what God has planned for us when we go out to Uganda and can't help but think that God has led me to this point through the experiences I have shared to have a real vision to share the Gospel through sport, particularly Basketball. I got told not to believe in coincidences so due to my connectedness (google it!) personality I believe that there is still so much more to happen through putting Basketball and the gospel together. I heard this quote from Steve Chalke, the founder of Stop the Traffik, and thought this is how I love to live for the vision of Cross Over Basketball:

A visionary is someone with a dream and a passionate determinations and strength of will to make their dream come true. A dream without action floats around in your head and eventually evaporates without ever becoming visible. A dream with action is called vision. Vision gets out of your head and into your hands and feet. Vision changes the way you spend your days, the way you spend your money, the decisions you make, the things you do...it changes you.

I love seeing the passion people have, whatever it might be, so many of my friends seem to really want to make changes in this world in their own individual ways, I feel this is my way of putting my passion into action and will certainly enjoy sharing it with you all....... I promise the future blog's won't be this long but now you know a little bit more about me. Keep checking out the blog while we are out in Uganda :-)

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 15:16