More hoops action.

Here are a bunch of action shots from Artie Marx:

More Than Basketball

Nearly everyone who had been to basketball camp in the past would tell you they came for the basketball, but they keep coming back for other reasons. Basketball may be the platform, but there are many other things that add to the atmosphere.

There's great teaching...

fun extra activities like watching the World Cup semifinals on a big screen...

great morning and evening sessions...

and celebrating victories for eternity.

More of Artie's Pictures

Here are some more action shots from Zakosciele Basketball Camp 2018, courtesy of Artie Marx.

Sometimes size  is a hindrance.

 Alex is displaying a combination you won't see often in the U.S.

Artie's pictures

I hope you're all doing well. Here are the first few pictures of basketball camp taken by Artie Marx from Owensboro, Kentucky. I'll post more each week for a while.

Some people were really anxious for camp to start.

The first session was filled with anticipation.

Maciej and Daniel were our hosts for the week.

Let the games begin!

More photos will be added soon.

Champions Are Crowned

Friday was a day for championships.

First, in international competition, the Lithuanian women defeated Poland for the title. Here is a photograph of both teams together. Poland's players are in red, Lithuania's players are in white. Lie-tu-va!

On the men's side, the Ukrainians defeated Lithuania 1. Again here are both teams together, with the Ukrainians in gold and the Lithuanians in white. U-kra-i-NAH!

In the WNBA, the Aces knocked off the top seeded Mystics to win the championship. Led by Coach Amber, here are the Aces!

In the NBA Eastern Conference, the seventh- (and lowest-) seeded Wizards knocked off the Knicks. Here are the champion Wizards with Coach Gary!

In the Western Conference, Coach Eric led the Thunder to victory and the championship over the Warriors. Here are the victorious Warriors!

The three-on-three winners were:
WNBA: Fortuna over Majestic Monkeys
NBA Eastern Conference: Klausinian over Ben 10
NBA Western Conference: 2 Peat over Zako Mix

The individual award winners were as follows (please forgive me if I misspelled your name):

WNBA
Ms. Hustle: Polina Kobut
Best Attitude: Kamile Mickute
MVP: Malgorzata Murza

NBA Eastern Conference
Mr. Hustle: Mikolai Dzikowski
Best Attitude: Jon Malick
MVP: Titas Brazas

NBA Western Conference
Mr. Hustle: Eugene Kostyvkevich
Best Attitude: Kiryl Mikhailav
MVP: Mintautas Makus

Thanks for all the participation! See you next year.

It's Never Too Late For Thursday's Results

The playoffs start today, so everyone still has a chance to win it all. Best of luck to everyone. Thanks for the competition and energy shown.

Here are the results from Thursday's action:

WNBA
Aces 34, Storm 32
Dream 42, Wings 21
Aces 30, Mystics 26
Storm 40, Sky 21

NBA Eastern Conference
Bucks 45, Pacers 21
Knicks 34, Bulls 17
Heat 49, Wizards 44
Celtics 40, Bulls 13
Celtics 30, Heat 30 (decided by PKs, free throws)

Western Conference
Mavs 49, Spurs 48
Warriors 47, Thunder 41
Spurs 53, Spurs 39
Warriors 45, Spurs 38
Mavs 73, Thunder 65 (overtime)

International Competition
Women's Consolation
Ukraine 35, USA/Belarus 34 (triple overtime)
Lithuania will play Poland in championship today

Men's Semifinals
Lithuania 1 62, Lithuania 2 48
Ukraine 60, Belarus 42
Lithuania 1 will face Ukraine for the championship

It’s Like Getting Married to God

Ilya Tsypko is not your typical participant at this week’s basketball camp. For one thing, basketball is not his favorite sport. He loves playing the game, and he plays it a lot when he’s home in Minsk, Belarus. But his favorite sport to play is football. No, not that football, American football.

“I play basketball just for fun,” he said. “I play American football in Minsk. Minsk has three teams and there are five teams in all of Belarus.

“I play with a team named ‘Pagans,’” he added with a smile on his face. “It wasn’t my choice to name the team.”

He likes the strategy involved in football. For those not familiar with it, it’s a lot more than just seeing who can run over the other team better. Sometimes you try to run around them, and sometimes you do try to run over them. Of course, there’s also the forward pass.

Ilya plays running back, which means he stands near the quarterback as the play starts. Sometimes the quarterback will give him the ball and he’ll try to run it up field, avoiding the defense. Other times, the quarterback will give it to another player, or throw it to another one. He might even keep it and run with it himself.

“American football is like a chess match,” he said. “You should be smart to be able to play it. There’s a lot of strategy. You don’t always have to be physical.”

It’s a lot like his journey to make the commitment to be baptized Friday morning. You have to have different strategies to work through different circumstances. Sometimes you have to attack the problem, while other times avoiding the problem is the better choice. Occasionally you have to mix in the pass to catch the opposition off-guard.

He was raised in a Christian home, but he says his parents didn’t always live like Christians. They argued and yelled a lot and eventually started the process to get divorced. He also felt like the church was too strict, too rigid. It drove him away from the church altogether when he was 15.

“My family was a very bad example for me,” he said. “If this was what a Christian family was like, I didn’t want to be like that. My parents still live together, but I think it would be better to be divorced than to live like they do.”

He started getting into things like drinking and smoking marijuana. “Those things were my way to escape,” he said.

But through that time, he still felt he was a Christian.

He eventually started going to a different church, where he felt welcome. He met Vitaly Valui, who brings young people to this basketball camp every year. “I started going to his church and started playing the guitar and bass guitar for worship,” Ilya said. “I wasn’t baptized then, because I felt like I was a Christian.

“I don’t believe God lives ‘in a box.’ I believe He is in charge of our whole lives.”

He knew that it was time for him to take the next step with his faith. He’s thought about being baptized for the last couple of years, but he just hadn’t figured out when the time would be perfect.

Then he watched Martynas Airosius get baptized in the Polica River Wednesday morning and he decided that this was the perfect opportunity.

“Vitaly told me that I could come here and play basketball,” he said. “I knew I wanted to be baptized, and I thought this was the perfect time. I know that God has hold of me, and I like this spot very well. It’s very good for me.

“It’s like meeting a girl. She becomes your girlfriend and eventually you decide you want to marry her. That’s what it’s like with God. You can know Him. You can know that He’s around you.

“But when you get baptized, it’s a serious step in your life. It’s saying, ‘Yes, God, I want to live with You the rest of my life.’ It’s like getting married to God.”

He believes that God has a perfect plan for him, much like He does for everyone else at the camp. He recognizes that while his story may not be dramatic, it’s unique. There’s no one else in the world who has his exact story.

And he’s fine with being atypical.

Play(s) Of The Day

We're still waiting for all the results of today's action, but we can certainly bring you the Play of the Day. Actually there are two.

The first one was a half-court buzzer-beater that sent the NBA Western Conference game between the Mavs and the Thunder to overtime. Dima Kravchenko was the hero for the Mavs, who won the game in overtime.

The other one came in the Eastern Conference. An hour before their 4 p.m. game, Wlad Rudenko informed his coach that he had a hole in his basketball shoe. He wasn't sure he would be able to play with those shoes, and they were the only ones he had with him. His coached looked around to see if there was someone else who could loan him their shoes for the game.

As the tip approached, they still didn't have a solution, but teammate Alex Bambit overheard the conversation. He asked what size Wlad wore, then raced back to his room. A couple of minutes later he came back with an old pair of basketball shoes, just the right size for Wlad.

Only Alex didn't give the old shoes to Wlad. He took off his good shoes and gave them to Wlad, and then put his old shoes on his own feet.

Those are our Play(s) of the Day!

The Dream Team

There’s a language barrier among players from several different countries, but that can’t stop the Dream, one of the teams competing in the WNBA competition at basketball camp.

Coaches Jeni Agramonte and Vika Lawson have led this group to achieve far more than victories in the competition.

“The language barrier has been the toughest part,” Vika said.

“We have learned to work together and defend the other people,” said Wiktoria Nowak, who is playing basketball for the first time. “Some of us are just learning how to play, or may play only once in a year. Others play very well and practice every day.

The Dream has players from every country represented here, except America. They still sit together at meals and they’ve learned to communicate without knowing each other’s languages. They’ve also learned how to communicate on the court. Often that involves hand motions and head nods.

Another barrier that they’ve had to overcome is a different level of basketball skill. Nastia Grigorkevich from Belarus is quite accomplished, while others are just picking up the game. Grigorkevich says that’s been challenging.

“In my country, we play very aggressively,” she said, “and I pick up a lot of fouls here. They are fouls that are not called in Russia. It’s hard for me because I don’t understand Polish and it’s hard to find words.”

Agramonte says that she has been impressed with the ability of the girls to relate to each other.

Basketball camp is about basketball, but it’s really about so much more. The Dream is a great example of that. They may not have won even half their games, but the impact they’ve had on each other is something you often only dream about.

The coaches have worked together well, with complementary gifts.

“Vika knows the sport very well,” Agramonte said.

“She knows how to encourage us, or build us up when we fail,” added Klaudia Milko.

Ugne Grinkeciciute said, “Making friends away from her Lithuanian friends, and winning games, is the most fun part of this camp.”

A Feeling In Her Heart

There’s a peace at the camp in Zakosciele that is hard to find in the hustle and bustle of city life. You can see the stars in the sky at night, and you can hear the Polica River flowing gently by the campground. If you can’t relax here, you need help.

For Roberta Daraskeviciute, the peace at the PROeM basketball camp is something completely different.

 “When you come here, there is a strange feeling inside of you. When you go back home, and you don’t have Christian friends, you don’t have that. When I come here I feel so good. All the people are so nice to you.”

That peace comes from a comfort she gets when she interacts with other campers. She’s been coming for seven years, and she’s starting to realize that it’s something she wants. She originally came just to play basketball, not having any idea that it was a Christian camp.

“When we got to the first meeting, I realized that it was a Christian camp, and that was strange for me,” she said. “When we were eating, all the campers were praying. I wondered what was happening.”

But she keeps coming back, now for seven years in a row.

“I really like playing here,” she said. “I bring home really cool stuff. So it’s fun.”

She says her family is not Christian, though they will say they are. She says that she has not yet accepted Jesus as her savior, but the smile on her face when she says that lets you know that she’s almost there.

“I didn’t think before this camp that Jesus was for me,” she said. “Now I’m asking a lot of questions, and I’m waiting to learn the answers.”

The great thing for people like Daraskeviciute is that she doesn’t have to get her life in perfect order to be able to have a relationship with Christ. She understands that Christ will meet her where she is, when she’s ready.

“Yes, I understand that,” she said.

When that day comes, that will bring more than a strange feeling inside of her. It will bring a perfect peace.

Can’t Live Without God

Katia Poberezhna attended her first basketball camp in 2010, and she’s been coming back every year since. She came originally because wanted to learn to play basketball better to fulfill her dream of playing professional basketball. But God had other thing in mind for her. Now she’s here as a coach, and she brings most of her team with her from the Ukraine.

Here is her story, through translator Marina Ignatova:

"Before knowing God, I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t smoke, or use alcohol or drugs. In some ways, I always believed in God and knew Him in some way. I considered myself as a believer. I was thinking that Jesus was kind of my brother. Sometimes I even prayed.

"But I really got to know God when I repented. That’s when I started to have a real relationship with Him.

"In 2010, I was working in Kiev and studying there, and I really wanted to play basketball professionally. But God another plan for me. I was invited to go to the international basketball camp in Poland; it was this camp. I agreed because it was a great chance to play more seriously and to meet other players.

"At this camp I saw people who were totally different from the people I had met before. They were friendly and open, and there was no rush here like I was used to in Ukraine.

"Before the camp, my main goal in life was to get married. I considered it very important in my life. I talked to a friend—her name is Ania Gnatenko—here at camp. Now she is my spiritual mentor. I talked with her about my goal of getting married. She said, “If you get married and then your husband gets into an accident and passes away, what do you then?” After that, I started thinking about the real purpose in life.

"Ania started inviting me to church in Ukraine. I had never been to church there. Something was always happening to keep me away. Then she invited me to a conference called “How Great Is Our God.” While I was there, I realized how sinful I was and I repented. I realized everything that Jesus did for me, and that He died for my sins.

"After that, God started changing me. When I went back to work and I heard people talking, something was wrong with how they were talking. They were saying bad things and ugly things. Before that it was just okay. But now it was strange, and I realized that it was not good. Ania told me that the Holy Spirit lived in me, and He changed my heart.

"I started going to the small groups. They were sharing and talking about their feelings, and that was hard for me. I was living in the dormitory at that time, and those friends had an influence on me. This was a very difficult time in my life. I also was scared to tell my Dad and my other relatives that I started going to church.

"I know that when people repent they go to Paradise. I love my Dad so much, and I couldn’t think about the fact that he might go to Hell if he did not repent. All those factors, work, living in a dormitory and my family all took me away from God. I got separated from God and the church.

"Living like that, day by day, I finally realized that I could not live without God anymore. I cannot do anything with Him.

"I had this strange idea. I started praying to God, asking him to let me be in an accident. I had heard that if you were in an accident and in a coma, you see this light and somehow you are changed. Fortunately, God was merciful to me. He didn’t let me be in an accident.

"In 2012, a group of men came to Kiev from Memphis (in the U.S.). They were there to participate in a week of basketball competition in a Christian league. I spent the whole week with them. One of their leaders, Derrick, started talking with me, and I told him the whole story of my life. I told them that I was scared to tell my Dad that I was a Christian. He said, “Do you not think that when Jesus went to the cross that He was not scared?” Of course He was. Derrick told me, “He did it anyway. Why can’t you do the same with your Dad for Jesus?”

"In the last day of competition, we were playing “knock out” and I had an accident and tore my Achilles. Not playing basketball gave me a second chance to become His child.

"He cares so much about me, and I’ve found that He’s so close to me, particularly at that moment. I was really scared to go through surgery; to me it felt like I was dying. I prayed, and God gave me a peace before the surgery. As I was waiting for the surgery, God told me, “Your earthly Dad may not be here, but I am here with you.”

"God was with me during the surgery and after the surgery as I had to recover. My favorite verse during that time was Job 2:10, “He (Job) replied (to his wife), ‘…Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

"I started reading the Bible and it became clear to me at that time. Before that it was harder. I got involved in church and small groups. I got baptized and I started taking the Lord’s Supper. I finally got the real purpose in my life. I want to praise the Lord in everything I do.

"My Dad told me that I was changing him, but I know that it’s not me. It’s God working through me to change him.

"I want to serve Him, and I’ve started to participate in different Christian camps. I have told my relatives and close friends that I go to church. It was hard, but God gave me strength. I am so happy about having this salvation. It is wonderful to have a purpose in life. God’s truths are open to me now.

"God can use you to change people you really love, and He is using me. Now He is my only strength and He helps me deal with every struggle in my life. He knows me better than I do.

"Now I work as a coach in my city. This year, I brought my girls (players) to this camp. Two girls couldn’t come with us, but I know that God will bring them to church as well."

Marina Ignatova and Katia Poberezhna