Monday 18 April 2011

Kingdom Builders 2011

When I was in the Philippines in 2009 we went on a camp for the kids there, run by our new friends at Grace Covenant church. The young leaders there who call themselves The Upright Generation were far and away the most amazing, inspirational, full throttle, sold out for Jesus group of young people I've ever met. They were an inspiration in every way. Their faith, their fearlessness, their boldness and their love for the kids on that camp still motivates me, two years on.

At the weekend Des put together this brilliant promotional video for the camp this year that Upright Gen can use over there to encourage more kids to go on the camp and meet with God. It featuresa few of my friends here, all have been involved with skate ministry and all have been to the camp either last year or the year before with me. So click below and check out what happened when Dan, Cheets, Des, Shannon, JC, Wolfie and myself went to Kingdom Builders.



Kingdom Builders 3 Promo from Des Rountree on Vimeo.

Stunt Wooding in Cambodia




Since moving to Cambodia from Australia, my friend Luc had become really involved with Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (For a Child's Smile), a youth skate project there teaching kids how to skate and there were plans afoot to build Cambodia's first ever skatepark.

Meanwhile Munners from ThreeSixty Project had been in touch with Skateistan, a project bringing skateboarding to youth in Afganistan, offering them ThreeSixty decks. They then put him in touch with the project in Cambodia which coincidentally is the same project Luc is working with!

So earlier this month Kodan and Dubsy headed out to join Luc in Cambodia. Dubsy had thirty decks from ThreeSixty and Boris and Rob hooked them up with ten sets of trucks, wheels, bearings and heaps of protective pad sets to take too.

The first week of their trip they spent skitching tuktuks, telling locals it was all called "stunt wooding" and building ramps with the locals getting ready for the big opening. 2500 kids turned up to the park launch and watched a skate demo and music and dance acts. 2500! The massive interest in the project led to local and national companies lending their financial support to the programme.

Before they left the boys built more ramps and heard that Skateistan have said they want to get more involved, providing financial support and even a salary for Luc! Amazing.

Please do pray for the project there and for Luc as he doesn't have any Christian brothers on the project there to work with and I know that can be a really hard place to be.



Cambodia Daily's article on the project (and Kodan's second ever full page!)


The presentation of the goods


A Boardstore deck being put to good use!


ThreeSixty Yeuw!

Thanks to ThreeSixtyProject and PSE for photos.