GOD AND THE GOALKEEPER

It was the chance of a lifetime. The chance to meet the amazing goalkeeper of the Chinese National Team. Gao Hong was one of the main reasons the ‘99 World Cup ever got to penalty kicks. She was the driving force behind the team, the one player who never gave up. What was so awesome about this 20-something-year-old player? It was something you couldn’t exactly put your finger on. A week or so ago, I found out the reason.

It was Jesus Christ.

Now, many of you have probably heard stories about how coming to know God has shaped people and changed them for the better. God didn’t just change Gao. He rescued her. Gao came from a place that was Communist and just wasn’t into the whole Christian thing. None of her teammates were Christian. No one around her was Christian. But somehow God saw that amazing something in Gao that made her different from all those around her.

Before soccer, Gao was a factory worker in China. Her actual first love was basketball. She was “assigned” the job of playing soccer by the government after people realized that she was a good athlete and was blessed with “quick feet,” essential for a goalkeeper.

At age 18, an American woman introduced Gao to God. Something must have clicked, because suddenly Gao was a changed person. After making it to the Chinese National Team, she realized that God was really the potter and she was the clay. Everything was just part of a bigger plan. If she trusted God, good things would happen. So she did. Gao prayed in the locker room, before the game, after the game. Winning or losing made no difference. She even made up her own prayers to lift up to the Lord to the tune of the opponents’ national anthems before the start of the game. Her teammates, though they were not Christian, respected Gao and her beliefs, and she introduced them to God through soccer.

Her friend in Christ, Michelle Akers, was not on the Chinese team. She was an American. Before games, chatting between two archrivals was not allowed. So before the 1999 World Cup, the game that would decide the reigning world champion, the two athletes looked at each other and pointed to heaven. They knew the outcome didn’t matter. God was at work here. He, and only He, had the master plan.

So now, sitting on a church floor looking up into the eyes of this amazing individual, I tell myself, she must have some guts to have gone on this fantastic journey. Gao shined her incredible light into the lives of her peers, her coach and the kids sitting next to me that day. The fact that she needed a translator to get her message across made no difference. As she told us in parting words, “I hope we can have the same Father.”

— Jodi LeBolt, age 14

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist