By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Neighborhood boys who play soccer under a Seventh-day Adventist coach in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan have more to worry about than the usual yellow and red penalty cards.

They also try to avoid the special blue card.

Coach Bakhriddin Sanginov flashes the blue card when he hears a boy utter a profanity on the field. Two blue cards mean the player is out of the game.

Parents like the discipline, Sanginov said.

“Parents have noticed that their children are starting to help them at home, are swearing less, and are not spending as much time playing computer games,” he said.

The soccer team is part of an Adventist Church effort to reach out in Tajikistan, a predominantly Muslim country of 8 million people and only 204 church members. More than 1,000 church members have left Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan and China, amid instability over the past decade. But church leaders are hopeful after 18 people were baptized in 2016.

With a national ban on public evangelism, church leaders are developing outreach programs such as the soccer team, an English-language school, health and family expos, and a bicycle club that attracts 12 to 20 people for rides twice a month.

“These programs are an opportunity to make contacts,” said Edward Dylev, a local Adventist leader. “This way we can contribute to the improvement of society.”

A portion of the Thirteen Sabbath Offering in fourth quarter 2017 — U.S.$7,000 — will be allocated for outreach programs in Tajikistan, part of the church’s Euro-Asia Division.

The soccer team, which plays on a field near the only Adventist church in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, was formed in late 2015 when neighborhood children saw Sanginov playing on the field and asked him to be their coach. Sanginov immediately embraced the idea.

“I thought, ‘Why not work with children and through the children reach the parents?’” he said.

Sanginov acquired the needed equipment — three soccer balls, a whistle, and a stopwatch — and then received certification to coach children’s soccer from the Asian Football Confederation, the governing body of the game in Asia.

These days he coaches two or three 90-minute matches a week. Fifteen minutes of every session is set aside for a moral lesson. Sanginov said he has seen the boys, ages 11 to 13, quit using drugs and other harmful substances as they get involved in sports.

No blue cards for profanity were flashed during a match on Thursday morning. The boys chased the white ball with determination as they played in a light rain on the metal fence-enclosed field. They smiled widely whenever Sanginov addressed them. A half dozen boys watched the game. Sanginov said the spectators would have an opportunity to join the team.

Parents, meanwhile, are inviting Sanginov into their homes for tea and conversation.

“Parents are glad that the children are serious about playing,” Sanginov said. “They come to me and tell me, ‘We are glad that you have organized this team to put them on the right track.’”

Boys taking a break during a soccer game coached by Bakhriddin Sanginov.

A player trying to make a goal.

Neighborhood boys watching Bakhriddin Sanginov's team play.