Cristobal Chamale, Guatemala Athletes in Action® director, congratulates players of the San Pedro professional soccer club on a good practice.
Cristobal Chamale, Guatemala Athletes in Action® director, congratulates players of the San Pedro professional soccer club on a good practice.
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I want to be a street fighter, thought 13-year-old Cristobal Chamale, who hungered bitterly for respect. After he moved from his grandparents’ rural coffee farm to Guatemala City for grades seven through twelve, classmates mercilessly teased him for being “backwards” and “country.” He studied martial arts and fought at every opportunity. And he earned respect by excelling in school and in speech and debate. Yet over the next five decades, God would enable him to earn respect in a different way. Cristobal now mentors elite professional athletes and influences thousands of people, both in Guatemala and around the world.
Xinabajul Soccer Club players sing the Guatemalan national anthem before their match against top-ranked Comunicaciones Soccer Club in the national soccer stadium.
Xinabajul and Comunicaciones players battle for control of the ball.
Cristobal’s grandparents raised him while his single, working mother lived and worked in the city. She visited on weekends, and he stayed with her during school holidays. They all took him to church weekly, where he was taught to love, respect and fear God, especially if he did something wrong. But God didn’t feel close or helpful.
Guatemala has 37 volcanoes, three of which are shown above: (from left) Fuego (active), Acatenango and Agua.
At 15, a classmate invited him to consider a relationship with Jesus. “I have my church and my faith, and I’m not doing anything wrong,” Cristobal responded. But soon, problems developed in school, speech and martial arts — the areas he’d depended on for respect and influence.
“OK, tell me about Jesus,” he said to his friend. “Maybe He can help me.”
His friend didn’t know how to help Cristobal trust in Christ, but he introduced him to friends who did. Cristobal chose to follow Jesus.
As Cristobal grew in his relationship with Jesus, he let go of the resentment that had fueled his quest for respect. He gave up martial arts and instead ran 10K races. After high school graduation, he went to business school to become an accountant, where he met his future wife, Ishi. They married and had their first two children, Cristobal Jr. and Ruth.
After Cristobal’s first few years as an accountant, the Jesus Film Project®, a ministry of Cru®, recruited him to move north to show the “JESUS” film among the Mayan Ke'k chi people. Cristobal and his family returned to Guatemala City three years later, where he served with Cru’s campus ministry. Cristobal’s speaking skills came in handy, enabling him to give talks about Jesus in college classrooms. As Cristobal’s need for respect from others decreased, God increased his influence.
Originally built in 1545 and then rebuilt after numerous earthquakes, the Cathedral of Santiago is one of more than 30 churches, convents and monasteries in Antigua.
Every summer, Athletes in Action®, Cru’s sports ministry, would send American soccer, basketball and volleyball teams to Guatemala for training. The exhibition matches between American and Guatemalan teams drew huge crowds. American athletes would talk about their faith in Christ. While many chose to follow Christ as a result, the overwhelmed local Cru staff members could not follow up with all the new Christians, especially the Guatemalan athletes. Cristobal recognized that, due to their popularity, elite Christian athletes could influence the whole country for Christ. Although Cristobal had no experience with team sports, he persuaded his leadership to let him start AIA Guatemala full time.
Xinabajul’s goalkeeper blocks a shot by a Communicaciones player.
Guatemalan soccer fans are so passionate about their teams that police show up in riot gear at the national stadium and occasionally use tear gas to break up fights.
God gave Cristobal a vision for a national Christian movement through influential sports leaders that would reach professional athletes, their families, teammates and fans, and spread anywhere they competed. But he was just one man, with no other staff members and no resources.
Lord, I can’t accomplish this by myself, he prayed. God led him to Isaiah 55:5, which says, “Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the LORD your God” (New International Version).
Having no contacts, Cristobal prayed and asked others to pray.
A strawberry farmer sells her wares in Central Park, Antigua’s town square.
Cristobal eventually met Benedito, a professional Brazilian soccer player, who was captivated by his vision. Cristobal led the first athlete Bible study in the man’s apartment, but to be effective, he needed ongoing access to the whole team.
“I’m not bringing church or religion,” Cristobal told the club’s owners. “I’m bringing sports performance principles from the Bible that will help the team.”
They responded, “OK, you have one month to help them improve.”
Cristobal prayed, and God worked through him and AIA’s Sports Performance Bible studies. These studies apply biblical principles to specific problems that players face, with subjects such as Improving Teamwork, Being on the Bench, and Problems With Your Coach. After that month with Cristobal, the team’s performance improved dramatically — going from the bottom of the rankings to the semifinals in one season.
Team members pray along with Cristobal after they receive Bibles.
Other coaches, owners and team board members took notice, calling Cristobal to say, “Hey, we heard you’re giving great motivational talks. We want those too!”
“But they’re not motivational talks, they’re Bible studies,” Cristobal replied.
“We don’t care,” they said. “These Bible studies are working. We need them!”
In Guatemalan soccer, the best players on each team are offered contracts by better teams at the end of every season. So when the best players were hired by next-division teams, they each asked Cristobal: “Can you come and lead Bible studies with my new team?”
Cristobal, center, shares a biblical sports performance principle with the San Pedro team during practice.
Suddenly, Cristobal had more opportunities than he had time for. He drove all over Guatemala, leading weekly Bible studies with different teams. But he was so overextended that his wife told his supervisor, “Cristobal is cheating on me . . . with the ministry.”
Cristobal recognized that he had put ministry first, his kids second, his wife third and God fourth. He needed to reverse his priority list. “Now,” he says, “my relationship with God is first, then my wife, my kids, and whatever time I have after is for the ministry.”
Cristobal celebrates his 62nd birthday with (starting from left) his mother, daughter, grandson, wife and son.
To make that work, Cristobal followed Paul’s advice to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2. “I needed to find a key person in each soccer club to be in charge of the Bible study,” he realized, “and I needed to put the materials into a digital format.”
First, he converted the 72 weeks of AIA Bible studies to PDFs. Then he challenged key players he mentored. “Here are the materials we used,” he said. “Just do with your teams what you saw me do.”
Here’s a look at spiritual multiplication across soccer teams in Guatemala.
Like every professional soccer team in Guatemala, San Pedro has its own youth division to train next-generation players. Here, players practice drills.
One such key player was Carlos Cano, a famous goalkeeper for Deportivo Petapa, Guatemala’s top soccer team. “I want you to start helping me,” Cristobal told him. “This week, I’ll lead part of the lesson, and you take the other part. Oh, by the way, in two weeks, I can’t be here. So that week, you lead.”
Carlos nervously agreed. When Cristobal returned, Carlos said, “That was great! God really worked through me.”
San Pedro coaches Silvio Fernandez and Carlos Cano (both in purple) are two of the many famous soccer-stars-turned-sports-leaders Cristobal has mentored over the years.
Carlos excitedly mentored other players on the team, including a forward named Silvio Fernandez, who was recruited by Chile’s famous top pro soccer club Santiago Wanderers. Silvio led AIA studies the way he’d seen Carlos do. After retiring as players, Carlos and Silvio took jobs as coaches for top league soccer club Xinabajul, where they continued leading Bible studies and mentoring players. Most recently, they chose coaching jobs with San Marcos, a team the next division down, to lead another generation of up-and-coming players.
Cristobal invites members of the youth division of San Pedro Soccer Club to begin an AIA team Bible study.
Cristobal also mentored Gonzalo “Chalo” Romero, a nationally famous soccer player in Guatemala. In 2004, Chalo was captain of Carlos’ former team, Municipal — the most popular top league club and national champion five years in a row. Popular soccer forward Danny Ortiz eagerly participated in Chalo’s weekly Bible studies.
But during a key strategic game, the opposing goalie kicked Danny hard in the chest. Danny later died at the hospital from his injury. People lined the streets for 200 miles back to his hometown for his funeral procession.
Guatemalan soccer draws fans of all ages.
At the funeral, Cristobal invited the more than 600 people present to “join Danny’s heavenly team” by putting their faith in Jesus. At Danny’s burial, Gonzalo Romero, the club captain, spoke. Because of Danny’s popularity, all the national TV and radio stations were linked together in a simulcast. More than 10 million people heard Gonzalo share Knowing God Personally, a four-point outline on how to become a follower of Jesus.
A woman sells woven goods in the historic Spanish colonial city of Antigua, now a popular tourist destination.
Players from Cristobal’s early team studies caught his vision for sports ministry and took it with them to teams in Mexico, Costa Rica and other Central American countries. One soccer player became the president of Guatemala’s national Olympic Committee, which opened doors for ministry to all their teams.
Other players went on to lead Pan American sport confederations. They invited Cristobal to resource and equip Christian athletes to use these ministry methods in their countries and internationally.
Kristian Guzman, holding book, team captain of the Xinabajul Soccer Club, shows an AIA® Sports Bible to one of his players. Kristian was spiritually mentored by Silvio and Carlos.
Through current and former players like Carlos and Silvio, Cristobal has given out 432 AIA Sports Bibles — one to each of the 36 players on the top 12 soccer teams in Guatemala. Each team has a key person who will take the team through the 76 AIA Bible studies over the next two years.
In response to recent requests from universities, Cristobal is recruiting volunteers to serve as sports chaplains to do likewise with all their athletes. He and his wife, Ishi, who works with Cru’s Faculty Commons ministry, host online seminars that provide professional and spiritual instruction for hundreds of professors from the 22 states in Guatemala.
A San Pedro goalkeeper lunges for the ball during a practice.
“Over the years, I’ve learned that God opens many doors of opportunity, but so many people hesitate or stop because the opening is so small,” Cristobal says. “They can’t see all that’s on the other side. Even if it’s just a small crack, I’m like the little mouse that goes through it by faith, and what’s on the other side is huge!”
For the past 30 years, Cristobal has faithfully moved through those open doors, trusting God to move and work. God has responded in keeping with His ability described in Ephesians 3:20 “to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (NKJV).
A Comunicaciones player tries to avoid a fallen Xinabajul player during their match.
Even though Xinabajul lost their match against Comunicaciones, Cristobal encourages Xinabajul’s goalkeeper on a hard job extremely well-done.
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