FCA/Hume Lake Girls Team Soccer Camp

High School Girls. Coaches. Soccer. Teambuilding. Campfires. High Ropes Course. Silly Games. INTENSE competition.  Amazing Food and Scenery.

Really…what more could you ask for?  I totally got to speak for this camp.   50 coaches and athletes representing 3 HS girls’ soccer teams descended upon the beauty that is Hume Lake a couple weekends ago.  My job?  To speak both mornings after breakfast in the optional chapel time.  So a girls’ gotta earn a right to be heard, right?  So the rest of my job?  To play with them all weekend!  Ropes course it up, participate in their soccer practices, do marshmallow’s over their campfires and help the coach’s team hold the campers’ team scoreless in indoor soccer!  (click on any picture to see it larger)

 

crazy game i don’t remember the name of :)

Bumper Tubes

Deer on the soccer field!!!

One of our high schools

Climbing the wall!

The Screamer!

Me getting to speak to the girls

Get your grub on

As for the speaking, every last one of them stayed to hear me talk about the trust and team and friendship they were experiencing all weekend…and to speak about my BEST friend who has ALWAYS been deserving of my trust…Jesus.  I got to remind them of the harness they wore on the high ropes course.  If you haven’t ever done high ropes, put that on your bucket list!!  You’ll do things like climb a wall, and the harness is there as a fail-safe, just in case you fall.  But then, you perform other elements like the girls’ favorite, the ”screamer”, where the harness is intended to hold your full weight as you trust it and the Belay Guide truly with your life (well, the solidarity of your bones and joints at the very least).  And THAT is the picture when the writer of Proverbs says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (3:5-6). 

So that was my challenge to them and to you to…is Jesus your fail-safe just-in-case kinda Savior?  Or have you placed your entire weight on Him?  Why would you really?  I mean entirely turn over the shot-calling rights to YOUR life?  Only if that Person is Good, trustworthy, and reliable.  The best I can do by myself is SO not worth even camparing next to the best God can do with me as I entrust myself to Him.  Are you “all in”?  

Ps- It blew my mind as I had real talk with some of the girls/caoches and I told them it doesn’t promise that life will be better, definitely not easier, just that Jesus said He’d never leave you and never forsake you…and 20 of them said, I still want Him!  Kind cool.

We love the FC Gold Pride!

It’s incredible when your job becomes leveraging one of your friends for God’s kingdom and setting her up to succeed. 

I met Whit during my time on FCA staff at Auburn University.  Since leaving there, we have kept in touch and she has become one of my closest friends.  When she got drafted to play Professional Soccer and told me she wanted to use her platform as a pro athlete to speak for Jesus, I began trying to connect her with the FCA staff in California.  Little did any of us realize that that email would eventually lead to me joining the Bay Area FCA Staff.  Who knows where she will be next season, but for now, as the backup goalkeeper for the FC Gold Pride’s Women’s Pro team, I get to serve my friend as she is used for God’s Glory. 

In July, we finally got the opportunity to coach together! FCA partnered with a pastor in Tracy, CA to put on a youth sports camp.  Thursday featured soccer with Whit as the showcased clinician.  92 kids crowded the field as they learned about soccer and heard Whit tell her story of faith and sport.  Then on the 19th, She got the opportunity to speak again with a group that gathered from Young life and FCA after getting the 3rd start of her professional career!  Last Sunday marked the end of the FC Gold Pride’s Inaugural season.

Speaking at Power Camp

Power camp in Tracy

FCA loves the Gold Pride

Whit speaking after the game

My Brazilian Sisters :)

On the personal front, it has been so much fun to watch women’s pro soccer make a comeback in the US.  Through Whit, I’ve had the honor of meeting many of the players and office staff in the organization, and am so thankful for some of the friends I’ve made in that.  Some of my closest friends that I’ve made since I moved here are her roomates/teammates.    It’s been incredible to watch a young woman who understands how much she has been blessed and that “to whom much is given, much is required”.

If you want to hear more, FCA’s Sharing the Victory magazine featured her in last month’s issue.  She and Cat Reddick Whitehill are two Women’s Professional Soccer Players who are human, yes…but willing to put their lives out there and use their gifts to bring glory to God.

End of the year- a new chapter begins

What an incredible year this has been!!! Clemson is an incredible place with a ridiculous amount of ministry going on! I am floored by getting to be a part of incorporating the campus FCA with true athlete ministry. We have set several things in place that fulfill Clemson FCA’s goal of “Loving God- Loving Campus” within the arena of the athletic department! There is now an athlete ministry leadership team comprised of 20+ athletes from almost every team. They are gonna be used of God to rock their teams, the athletic department, and this campus!

As for me as an FCA staffperson, however, this has been a very abnormal year. All the other FCA staff in our area have moved on from their time with FCA. Between that movement and the economy, funding for staffing has be lacking. As I look at the ministry needs here objectively, I realize that my strengths matched the need when I arrived, I could meet the current need, but it currently would be better suited to someone else’s strengths. All of this comes together to help me in my decision to accept another position within FCA that is exciting, yet sadly would take me away from Clemson. I will be moving to the bay area (San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland) in California to serve several high schools and colleges. As the door has opened to work there, I have wrestled with the decision, realize that my strengths are needed there, and the position pursued me…all things to seriously consider. I feel blessed to get to remain with FCA as it has had such an INCREDIBLE impact on my life and countless others! I just got to attend the 2nd annual college conference as a Huddle Leader and watch 180 college athletes from across the nation get sold out and grasp their influence. Can you imagine the ripple from things like that?!?!

I’ve been asked what the job description would be…so….the area is only 4% Christian. Talk about being a missionary in your own country. Therefore, the mentality is to hit the open doors and use each staffer’s unique strengths. That means I will spend 1-2 days/week with a handful of highschools to relieve the other campus representative. My unique addition to the team is that I am female and my sport is soccer. The rest of the week would be spent with college and professional female athletes. FCA has presence on multiple college campuses in the area. Also, women’s pro soccer has launched in 6 cities, one of which is San Jose. That should tell you a little something about the soccer community there. There is still a need for the position to be fully funded and that will be a part of my job still, but I will have teamwork towards that. (If you would consider getting involved in that part, please let me know.) All this has happened so fast. I hate that I have not been able to call all of you who have been friends to me through this journey. The intention in coming to Clemson was to be there for the long haul. This doesn’t make sense, yet also makes tremendous sense all at the same time. There’s so much more I would love to share with you…please feel free to call me as I am journeying…and new posts will be coming soon!