The Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization invited students to the annual Fields of Faith at Woodforest Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. Where students from the district and area joined in on “a celebration of God in teenagers lives.”
“I think it’s important for us as believers to be the light and show that to other people,” junior Kathryn Kaminski said.
The event funded by Fellowship of Christian Athletes director Jeff Martin which is meant to bring the “spectator generation youth” together to read the bible and interact more with God according to Fields of Faith.
“We need to focus more on following Jesus and the loving concept of religion because that is broken, especially now,” Grand Oaks High School junior Valentina Coloma said. “I feel like this is helpful to us in showing other people Jesus and not just shoving our religion in peoples’ faces.”
Junior Maddie Villa from Covenant Christian High School thinks that being “fully Christian” is hard in her age group.
“I just think it’s harder now than it ever has been because of all the influences and opinions from social media,” Villa said. “ Satan uses it (social media) to attack us and hold us back from giving our lives to God or things like being bitter toward people, which can really close us away from following God and giving our hearts to Him.”
The event began with an opening prayer and song from the band First Worship. Then eight student communicators went on stage to give their testimony and words of encouragement.
“I feel like hearing people being bold in their faith inspires me to be bold in mine,” Coloma said. “Especially, sharing testimonies with others because they can impact people’s lives.”
Kaminski was the student communicator representing the school and her church, Grace Woodlands.
“I wanted to emphasize how important it is to remain strong and persistent in your faith,” Kaminski said. “I hear lots of people say ‘If you pray everything’s gonna get better,’ yes I believe that praying is good and that miracles can happen, but I kind of wanted to say that life is going to be difficult and that doesn’t mean that praying or believing in God will fix it, instead you should remain persistent in Him.”
This was Kaminski’s first ever public speaking experience, giving her sermon-like speech in front of the crowd of students and parents gathered in the bleachers.
“I was just glad that my aunt was there, she was touched by what I had to say,” Kaminski said. “I think the thing that made me the happiest was that my speech helped her a lot. She was asking me for the scriptures that I included and that made me feel accomplished. It’s just one person but it’s still something.”
At the end, a closing prayer was given and the group was dismissed. Students were also invited to speak their struggles and thoughts to leaders on the field while the band played its final songs.
“I want to be an example for Christ and his love while showing students that a life dedicated to Christ and his teachings is an incredible life,” Kovach said. “I want to live my life in accordance to God’s will for me because he has provided everything in my life and I am eternally grateful. We have a huge group of Christian teenagers who are living their faith and want to share what God has done with anyone who will listen.”
Apart from giving her speech, Kaminski said she liked helping students out and connecting with one another.
“It was good to see all those kids there and getting to see how they benefited from the experience,” Kaminski said. “I also like us all connecting as believers and touching other people.”
