Baptist volunteers share coffee and Good News in Vancouver
By Adam Miller
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Volunteers from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., joined other More Than Gold volunteers in a city-wide outreach effort in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Working in three- and four-hour shifts, volunteers near the Granville SkyTrain station dispensed hot chocolate and coffee, often emptying their supply in less than an hour and quickly refilled by volunteers brewing three blocks away at Coastal Church. Photo by Adam Miller
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Making an impact at the Olympics means serving others beyond what they are expecting.
“I’m a Christian. Isn’t this what we’re supposed to do?” said Irina State, a member of Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas and part of Eastern European Connection, a Las Vegas church plant.
State echoes the feelings of more than 400 Southern Baptist volunteers from 25 states and two Canadian provinces who decided to join in making Christ known in Vancouver, where the world would converge for a few short weeks.
With a home base at churches throughout Vancouver, More Than Gold volunteers filled large portable containers with hot chocolate and coffee and hit the streets as the days turned cool.
While it’s an awkward contraption to wear for three or four hours, there’s little doubt the large cylinder will snatch your attention from a distance jutting out as it does among throngs in downtown Vancouver.
“Free coffee!”
From train stop to train stop, you can see dozens of these backpack coffee dispensers bobbing around street corners, usually surrounded by volunteers wearing the trademark-blue, More Than Gold jackets. Their backpacks filled with brand new trading pins, city guides and copies of Mark’s Gospel, volunteers engaged passersby with conversation and coffee.
“People come to the Olympics for excellence, and that’s what we want to give them,” said University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Baptist Campus Ministry director Steve Timmons. The pins are premium quality, coffee is organic Nicaraguan, the pocket guides include profiles of Christian athletes and detailed city maps at a glance.
Timmons and a dozen college-aged volunteers form an assembly line along Granville Avenue just outside the doors of the nearby SkyTrain station. Coffee dispenser, cup bearer, sugar and cream holder all perform their jobs working out of pocket-stitched aprons and a large tank strapped to the biggest man’s back. They remain mobile, going where the crowds gather.
If they’re serving hot chocolate, someone stands with a can of whipped cream at the ready.
A crowd will form around them, depending on how cold it’s become. The temperature drops by 15 degrees after the sun descends, and the northwest offers its fair share of rain.
“People really respond to this,” says Justin Aldridge, a volunteer from UNLV who, just two nights ago, was engaged for two hours by an atheist.
“It was an amazing conversation,” he said later. “The guy has two kids and I’m thinking ‘why is this guy out in the cold after dark with kids at home.’ There were some deep issues there.”
Coffee isn’t the only thing that grabs the attention of tourists. Pin trading has always been an Olympic tradition. When handing out the More than Gold pins, volunteers use the colors on the pins to tell about Jesus.
Developed for the 1996 Summer Olympics by the International Sports Coalition in association with the North American Mission Board (NAMB), More Than Gold seeks to provide Olympic cities with a tangible Gospel presence, benefitting cities, Olympic committee work, local churches, and a strong witness for local Evangelical churches. Nearly 1,000 volunteers -- half of which are Southern Baptist -- joined the effort in Vancouver.
“This has been a very unifying experience for our churches,” says Alan Au, a local Southern Baptist pastor who helped plan the More Than Gold efforts in Vancouver. “The results will extend far beyond the Olympics both here and in the lives of athletes and spectators returning home. This is only the beginning.”
With more than a week left in the Games and volunteer teams continuing to arrive, there’s no telling what God will do with the time left.
“Our only hope is that God will use our efforts to create divine appointments,” said Debbie Wohler, a NAMB missionary who who works with Tahoe Resort Ministries in California. Wohler has been a presence at more than a dozen Olympics and maintains contact with people she’s shared the Gospel with over the years. “The world is here. This is our chance!”
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Adam Miller is a writer for the North American Mission Board. He is on assignment in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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