From August 19 to August 27, from the start to the end of the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Jacqueline Schneider and her teammates will be offering their assistance as experienced sports chaplains. Fourteen-time Swiss diving champion, finalist at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 and fourth at the 1998 World Swimming Championships in Perth (Australia), the 51-year-old Zurich native, like her husband Jörg Walcher with whom she set up the Beyond Gold website, has been dedicated to this mission for twenty years and is therefore not in unfamiliar territory. They offer their prayers, a place of welcome in a chapel and Bible studies.
Easing the pressure
"Many of the athletes are open, and of all faiths. They like to be prayed for, and they enjoy Bible studies. I see more and more of them being receptive to the words of Jesus, and that's great!" she enthusiastically explains to Evangeliques.info. While most of those who come to the chapel on their own are Christians, "others believe in something greater or in a God, but they don't know Jesus Christ. They don't know exactly who this God is." Nevertheless, both are under intense pressure.
Chaplains also offer one-to-one prayer. Often, it's when athletes are facing an individual competition that they wish to be accompanied in this way, to release the tension they feel. Jacqueline Schneider is also called upon afterwards, when some of the athletes want to thank God for what they have just experienced. "We're there for them all, to encourage them and help them where they are with their beliefs. We let them know that there is a God from heaven who cares for their lives, and share with them what we believe as Christians."
A spontaneous interest in prayer
The chaplain recounts her astonishment when, one morning, on arriving during breakfast, English-speaking athletes asked her directly to pray. "It was like an adventure for them, and they really appreciated it. I didn't have to look for someone who needed spiritual support, or be in a position that would look like someone saying, "I've got something to sell, I'm here!" It was like being in a movie." Indeed, Jacqueline Schneider went on to have many other opportunities to support these grateful athletes.
She also relates that when she was a top-level sportswoman herself, she did believe there was a God. "The one in the Bible, but I didn't read the Bible so I didn't know this God," she smiles. It was because of the pressure on her that she ended up literally crying out to God before the 1998 World Championship, so scared was she. Narrowly missing out on the silver medal and with a persistent sense of emptiness, the overworked diver nevertheless continued to develop her relationship with a God who had become real to her, and soon found her happiness in Him.
Next stop: the Paris Olympics in 2024. So far, she points out, championship organizers in France only accept French chaplains. "But there will be athletes of so many different nationalities! We pray that they will open up to international chaplains."
Here you find the original publication: https://www.evangeliques.info/2023/08/27/sport-lancienne-championne-jacqueline-schneider-soutient-les-athletes-aux-championnats-du-monde-d-athletisme/