Soccer is considered a universal language, but it hasn't reached everyone.

In a rural Himalayan village called Yarmasing, near the border between Nepal and Tibet, soccer remained something of a rumor until NSU Academy coach Mick Collins helped introduce the game during a mission trip last spring.

Collins, a physical therapy major at Concordia University, spent two weeks in Nepal with faculty and other students in May. Learning and sharing knowledge of occupational and physical therapy was one aspect of the trip, and Christian mission was another. But Collins' soccer background came in very handy at stops in Yarmasing and Kathmandu.

In Yarmasing, for example, the missionaries stopped at Yarmasing Village School, which serves about 75 students from the area. The “camp” Collins helped organize took place in an old fort above the village, about 9,000 feet above sea level.

“A lot of the kids had never played soccer before in their life,” Collins said. “They'd never had a ball in the village. They couldn't even kick the ball, really, so we did a lot of simple games like Duck, Duck Goose and Red Light, Green Light.”

In Kathmandu, the kids Collins rounded up were more familiar with soccer, but the sport takes a backseat to the daily battle to survive. The street children — known as “The Untouchables” — are social outcasts who sit at the bottom of Nepal's caste system. Collins related one story of introducing himself to some boys and inviting them to play soccer, while other Nepalis hurled insults at the boys and questioned their worth. They were all boys, Collins said, because girls don't last long on the streets before they are sold into sexual slavery.

The Carcup Ministry provided food and jerseys for the boys, who paired up and played a spirited game (above).

A second camp in Kathmandu (right) took place at Elim Christian Academy. The youth ages 12-18 represented a number of nationalities, including Indian, Somalian and Costa Rican. A field that is reputed to be among the best in Kathmandu was flooded after just 30 minutes of torrential rain, so the event was instead held on an outdoor basketball court.

In addition to sharing the sport of soccer — and leaving behind some Cedarburg Soccer Club gear for posterity's sake — Collins visited a teaching hospital, worked in a leprosy clinic and saw a special needs school. The latter is a rarity for Nepal, where disabled children are often just locked away in their homes. Collins found the deep poverty and plight of the children to be very moving.

“It's hard to put into words some of the things you saw,” said Collins, who has a renewed appreciation both for the facilities and training available in his field of study, as well as for soccer.

He expects to graduate from Concordia this May with a degree in physical therapy.