A basketball for a boulder – giving up a dream for a “ROCK”
Posted by The Skyliner on September 17th, 2008Chris Bullard
Guest Writer
At the age of 16, Nathan Bramsen traveled with his parents, Paul and Carol, and his two older siblings, Andy and Corrie, across the Atlantic to the United States in order to pursue Nathan’s big dreams of a career in basketball.
“Basketball dominated my life completely. When I was 13, I was a 60 percent NBA range 3-point shooter and 90 percent free-throw shooter. I practiced four to six hours a day, and after coming to the States, I was lined up with an NBA trainer and college scouts,” said Bramsen.
This teenager with hopes of becoming a sports star would soon find another way to shine. As he abandoned the game, he was consumed by a calling that resembled the life he had growing up.
Bramsen was born and raised in Senegal, West Africa where his parents were church-planting missionaries. Now, at the age of 24, he has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Senegal but considers home in the Middle East, where his life is dedicated to mission work with children.
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, Bramsen was the final speaker at North Greenville University’s Global Missions Conference, after he spent two months traveling across the country for medical training and speaking engagements.
“The emphasis scripture was Haggai 1:2-4, and I encouraged students to put their life in God’s plans, not put God’s plans in their life,” said Bramsen, who is a 2006 NGU graduate.
After a semester at Winthrop University, Bramsen transferred to NGU on a full scholarship and earned his degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on business administration and broadcasting.
While a student at NGU, Bramsen traveled to the Middle East for a semester to study abroad through a connection made at the Global Missions Conference. Like many missionary kids at NGU, Bramsen had a close relationship with Global Missions Director Dr. David McWhite and his wife, Ruth, who is now the Director of Women’s Ministry on campus.
“Nathan would come to our house, and we would drink coffee and talk about where he wanted to be one day,” said Ruth. “He spent his senior year drawing out his future plans.”
Just one month after graduation, he headed to the Middle East to work with abused and sexually exploited children. Bramsen said he soon realized he would need a platform upon which to base his work, so he founded Relief Opportunity Care for Kids, better known as ROCK International, in 2006.
ROCK International is a non-profit organization that works with children and teenagers to provide medical care, disaster relief, camps and several other volunteer opportunities to serve people.
“There are two types of care: intervention and prevention. Intervention works directly with those on the streets to teach them current medical treatments they can use while prevention goes into communities that are vulnerable to try and stop people from ending up on the streets,” explained Bramsen.
ROCK is continuing to grow. Beginning with just Bramsen in 2006, the organization now has 15 workers in the Middle East, five to seven workers stateside and is adding three new workers who are set to move to the Middle East this year. The Greenville-based organization also has a five-member board, which includes Ruth McWhite. She traveled to the Middle East this past March with Bramsen, visiting some impoverished areas and seeing ROCK at work first hand.
“I had just joined the board in December of 2007, and being there with Nathan, I was able to see him beam as we looked over those places; I could see his love for the people,” said McWhite. “There is work with street children going on right now,” said Bramsen Thursday after the conference.
“Growing up gave me the vision for what I’m doing now and North Greenville encouraged that vision,” said Bramsen. “We’re not trying to change their government, make any country look better than another, or create an emotional response. ROCK’s goal is to be the lap of Jesus like in Mark 10, holding and caring for children in these places.”
Tags: Fall 2008, Vol. 108 Fall - Issue 2