Australian Field Hockey Player Aims to Reach Athletes in Home Country

Jessica Blake says she wasn’t sure of the meaning of Easter or Christmas before she came to the United States to play field hockey for the University of Michigan in 2001. But, because of a teammate who was involved in Athletes in Action campus ministry and a staff intern who took the time to talk with Blake, she is now sharing the true message of those holidays—the opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus Christ—with athletes at Sydney University in Australia.

Blake says her journey began when a teammate, who was speaking that night, invited her to attend the weekly AIA meeting.

“I didn’t know Athletes in Action was a Christian organization, but I was going to support my teammate, and it was being held in my dorm so I really didn’t have much of an excuse,” says Blake.

Even though she went to a church-affiliated high school she says she never heard the true gospel until that evening. “I had never heard about having a personal relationship with Jesus before,” she says.

Robin Scheer was an intern with the AIA campus staff in 2001 and met with Blake to talk about faith in Christ on a more personal level.

“I told Robin that I could believe the New Testament, but there was no way I could believe the Old Testament,” Blake says. “I grew up loving science, and while I would not call myself an atheist, I discounted that God could be responsible for creation.

“(Scheer) told me she didn’t have an answer for me, but that God would.”

Two weeks later, God did make it possible for Blake to reconcile her views on God’s role in creation and in her life.

“My instructor in a biology class asked my discussion group if any of us were Christians,” Blake recalls. “When none of us raised our hands he said he would show us how God and science aren’t mutually exclusive. He made it clear to us how it was possible to understand things from a scientific view and still have faith in God.”

Blake’s heart was set at ease and she prayed and asked Christ to be her Savior soon after. As she began to grow in her Christian faith, she surrounded herself with fellow believers who helped her see what it means to “live out one’s faith” in the real world. Blake says a new direction in her life became clear while in one of her environmental science classes.

“One day I heard this voice and I would say it was almost audible,” she recalls, “God told me, ‘this is not how I want you to spend your life.’” Blake knew that she was supposed to spend her life helping others understand the true Christian message.

While on a trip to the Czech Republic in 2004, the mission became even clearer to Blake after she encountered a coach from an Australian national junior basketball team who said, “There is no room for God in sport in Australia.”

“Right then I knew what God was calling me to do,” says Blake.

She returned to her homeland and began working with Student Life, the Australian equivalent of Campus Crusade for Christ. She was invited by the staff of Sydney University to join them and begin the AIA campus ministry there. To that end Blake started playing for the Sydney University field hockey club program. She was voted the program’s 2010 “Person of the Year.” Winning that award gave Blake the platform she needed to launch the AIA ministry among the scholarship athletes on the Sydney campus.

With the help of volunteer Michael Foxall, Blake has been able to start a chaplaincy program and Bible study for the cricket club, as well as begin a weekly “social sport” (organized pickup games ) time followed by Bible study.

“Sometimes we can get 20-30 people to come out to social sport and 10-11 to stay for Bible study,” Blake says. “Some of our biggest challenges are finding where the student athletes are and how to reach them. We are willing to try just about anything, and we have done lots of random things.”

Blake says that in these early days of the ministry she has not yet seen anyone make a decision to follow Christ, but she continues to push on with the goal of being a part of God’s work in changing people’s hearts, changing lives and changing the sporting culture in Australia.

By Tommy Young, AIA Communications

Photos courtesy Jessica Blake

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