No one ever told Alex Saldarriaga he was loved. Not his father, who worked for an armed group in Colombia financed by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. Not his mother, one of many in a long line of his father’s conquests. And not one of his 24 siblings.
His father taught him only one thing: how to excel at a life of crime.
“At the age of 8, my father was already involving me directly in his work, having me help clean his guns,” Saldarriaga said. “When I was 12 years old, I fell in love with weapons. Damaging society became one of my passions.”
But at 17, he had another passion: soccer.
For two years, one of Saldarriaga’s friends had invited him to a soccer practice that he said was “different.” Christians ran it.
Saldarriaga finally relented. He had no idea that decision would change his life. And he had no idea he would be one of countless young men across Medellín who found God at soccer practice during Colombia’s infamous decades of drug cartel violence.
In 1988, he joined his friend at a field—a dirt patch in the dangerous Los Colores sector of Medellín—and saw a man with a big book in his hand.
“I came to play fútbol, not read the Bible,” he recalled saying to his friend. “Where are the soccer balls?” The coach, Alvaro Cano, overheard him and assured him they would practice, but first they would have a time of reflection.
“For God so loved the world,” Cano began to read. Then he repeated the verse: “For God so loved Alex,” he said.
Saldarriaga went home after practice pondering what he had heard. There was someone who loved him and died for him whom he had never seen?
That practice was part of a sports ministry now called the Christian Union Sports Club (CUSC; also known by its Spanish acronym COSDECOL—the Social and Sport Corporation of Colombia), which I first visited in 2015 on a short-term mission trip. Along with other high school soccer players connected to my home church, I went as a volunteer to play soccer and share the gospel with kids, as well as help with upkeep of the facilities. We stayed at CUSC’s stadium complex, and as we sat on the concrete stands overlooking the Andes, the ministry’s founder, Mark Wittig, shared his story.
In 1985, Wittig moved to Medellín with his young family from Chicago to teach at the Biblical Seminary of Colombia. That same year, at Escobar’s behest, M-19 guerrillas seized Colombia’s Palace of Justice and took 300 people captive. Almost 100 people died, 11 of whom were Supreme Court justices. Pablo Escobar, in targeting the enemies of his drug-trafficking empire, had declared war on his own country.
The murder rate skyrocketed as cartel members battled rival groups and killed any government officials who threatened their control. By 1991, Medellín was the homicide capital of the world, and the proportion of murders among total deaths in the city had increased to 42 percent from 3.5 precent in 1976.
I once asked Wittig what compelled him to move to a city entrenched in such violence. The seminary invited him to teach, and—along with his wife, who also felt called to mission work—he accepted. But he told me he was simply unaware of the danger. “Nobody told me what was going down,” he said.
Image courtesy of Hannah HerreraHe soon learned. On the family’s first night in their new home, he heard machine-gun fire. The next morning, he saw a corpse in the street. The cartel was drawing boys as young as 12 into its vortex—and they were paying for it with their lives. In 1991, males in the 20–29 age group had a murder rate of 1,709 per 100,000 people. By comparison, St. Louis, the most violent city in the US today, has 69.4 homicides per 100,000.
Wittig puzzled over how to reach the youths killing and being killed outside the seminary walls. What could he, a gringo seminary professor, have in common with them?
Through prayer, he said, one thing came to mind: soccer.
In Colombia, soccer is a religion. It is the most-played and -watched sport in Latin America, and children start kicking around balls—or bags stuffed with paper—as soon as they can walk.
Wittig himself learned to play as a child growing up in Colombia, where his parents served as missionaries. He honed his skills with friends in his father’s fields until he moved back to the United States at age 14.
Years later, as a seminary teacher, Wittig invited himself to pickup games in his neighborhood. Despite initial hostility toward the Bible-teaching American, his neighbors softened. Alvaro Cano, a new friend of Wittig’s from the games, came to know Christ and renounced his job working for a local cartel leader. He helped Wittig start a soccer tournament on seminary grounds. They shared a devotional before each game, then formed a weekly Bible study. It was the first time many of the boys had ever opened a Bible.
The ministry grew exponentially. Recent converts, young men who risked their lives to leave their gangs, established teams in Medellín’s most-at-risk neighborhoods. Their model was simple: provide quality soccer training and read from the Bible before every practice. But their job was not easy. They dodged shootouts, intervened in gang disputes to save players’ lives, witnessed murders and knife fights, and defied death threats. Wilson Rojas, the ministry’s chaplain, called Santa Cruz, the neighborhood where he coached, “the mouth of hell.”
In time, Saldarriaga, too, became a coach—and nearly paid for it with his life.
In 1991, after accepting Christ and relinquishing his livelihood of crime, Saldarriaga returned to lead his neighborhood’s team. His players abandoned theirarmed groups, angering the local gang leaders. They told Saldarriaga they would kill him if he didn’t stop talking about God. He said he couldn’t do that.
“Back then, if someone didn’t obey [the gang leaders’] orders,” Saldarriaga said, “they would simply show up at the house, knock on the door, and if the person didn’t come out, they would break down the door and kill them.”
One night, a loud knock sounded on Saldarriaga’s door. He peered through the window and saw 20 young men from the local gang. He was sure he would be killed, but when he opened the door, the leader told him they wanted to talk—they asked him to be their coach. When Saldarriaga said he would do so only if they allowed him to share his faith, the leader said, “We want that, too. We want you to tell us about your God.”
Several of the young men in that group went on to become coaches at CUSC.
In 2021, I returned to Colombia as CUSC’s summer communications intern. I lived with Saldarriaga—now sports director for the organization—and his family for two months, and he became like a father to me. He still calls me hija, or “daughter.”
Saldarriaga turned 48 that summer, and their home was packed with friends and family for his birthday party. Everyone cheered as a candle shot up, sparks almost touching a balloon on the ceiling. “Palabras, palabras,” the people shouted, calling for a toast.
Several people shared their appreciation for Saldarriaga before a 5-year-old boy came to the front. “I love you, Grandpa,” he said, his tiny voice barely audible. He hugged his grandfather’s leg, and tears came to Saldarriaga’s eyes.
Saldarriaga remembered his dad once saying the life of violence has only two outcomes: the prison or the grave. Saldarriaga ended up with neither.
Today, Medellín is an internationally recognized miracle of urban transformation. National Geographic listed it among the world’s top 25 best places to visit in 2026. Various factors spurred the change, including Escobar’s assassination in 1993, shifts in the country’s leadership, and investments in infrastructure that made gainful employment more accessible for residents of Medellín’s mountainside neighborhoods.
Image courtesy of Hannah HerreraBut Wittig believes God’s grassroots soccer movement has something to do with it too.
“We have evacuated the gangs, so to speak,” Wittig said. “Many more kids have come away from that lifestyle. I’d say we’ve had a pretty good influence in the change in Medellín.”
In CUSC’s 35 years, it has served over 45,000 youth, the group said. This year, its citywide soccer tournament has 90 teams and 2,300 participants. And it has expanded to the rest of Colombia too. CUSC’s extension program—which plants satellite soccer-ministry programs in coordination with local churches—has 38 sites across 19 of Colombia’s 32 departments, or states; the Amazon region of Peru; and soon, Venezuela.
CUSC also ministers to Colombia’s large displaced population—residents of rural areas forced out of their homes due to ongoing civil conflict—in makeshift housing developments outside Medellín. The ministry runs a community center, too, in an at-risk neighborhood and has its own brownie business that provides employment opportunities while supporting the ministry.
Through mentorship, prayer, Bible lessons, retreats, workshops, visits from US soccer teams, and home calls, CUSC’s coaches can deeply influence their young players’ lives. Being part of a soccer team not only occupies the players’ time but also provides a sense of belonging—two things that prevent youth from entering gangs.
Every Saturday, hundreds of parents and their children in brightly colored jerseys pour into CUSC’s stadium complex in Medellín. The back of their jerseys reads, “Jesús es el Señor” (Jesus is Lord), a marker of CUSC players throughout the city. Above the field hangs a mural of a robed Jesus playing soccer with children.
Image courtesy of Hannah Herrera“[CUSC] has a calming atmosphere. It brings us a sense of peace,” Flor Corrales, a CUSC parent, told me. “I say it has absolutely everything to do with God.” Her 12-year-old son, Juan Pablo, has played with CUSC for six years. He and his teammates told me they like playing at CUSC because they love soccer, the coaches are humble, and they teach them to respect and support each other.
Claudia Quintero, another parent who attends a nearby church, called CUSC “a family” and loves that it teaches her son about God.
“Before practice, they pray. They talk to them a lot about God,” she said. “I really like that they emphasize the spiritual aspect—God—so much. That’s the most important thing. Because God is everything.”
Although Medellín’s transformation exceeded what Wittig ever believed possible, he said violence still touches the group and its members. Last year, a gang member killed a CUSC player with a machete for refusing a challenge to fight. “We are saddened by his premature death, but more motivated to ‘be there’ for these youngsters with the message of the Gospel,” Wittig wrote to CUSC supporters.
Through the trials, dangers, and disappointments of almost four decades of ministry in a complicated context, Wittig said one thing has kept him going: God’s love.
“It’s hard to complain about anything when you very undeservingly receive the gift of God’s love. … If we’re ungrateful for any reason, then we’re easily taken down,” he said, “but when we’re grateful for God’s love, his grace, then it’s a fortress.”
A few Saturdays ago, during the weekly games at CUSC’s stadium complex, I talked with Ivan Cuervo, a CUSC coach who serves western Medellín. Players’ shouts and referees’ whistles punctuated our conversation. He said he first encountered CUSC as a young man at the tournament on the seminary grounds and has attended the same church for the last 25 years. He told me “God has transformed many lives” and done “marvelous” things in him and the city through CUSC.
“Our motto in this ministry is that when we kick a ball onto the field, the child follows the ball, and behind the child comes the whole family,” Cuervo said. “That opens up a whole new opportunity for us to share the gospel.”
The post Cartel Violence Gripped a Colombian City. Then Came a Soccer Ministry. appeared first on Christianity Today.
