Friday, June 13, 2014

The Bear Necessities, The Simple Bare Necessities...

Proverbs 30:8-9 "Keep deception and lies far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, that I may not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the Lord?" Or that I not be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God."

This verse has been on my mind a lot lately. I've been on staff with Utah Fellowship of Christian Athletes since April 1st, and it has been quite a transition to working for a non-profit organization.  

This year we are celebrating our 60th anniversary as an association. We have an active chapter in every state in the USA as well as 11 different countries. Even with how well the organization has been established we have only had a chapter in Utah for a year and a half. Utah's population is less than 4% Bible believing Christians with the predominating religion being Mormon (LDS). In the year and a half we have had 47 athletes and 2 coaches come to Christ through our huddles at the 3 major northern Utah universities and our brand new regional Highschool and Jr high huddle.
 
Through God's leading I came on staff with FCA Utah back in April. My job is a combination of Field Staff and Marketing and Communications. Right now our staff as a state consists of me and our state director. As Field Staff I am over our Northern Utah region of over 30 high schools and Jr highs. We are currently doing a regional huddle with these athletes every couple of weeks so that I can train them how to run a huddle and help them through the process of finding campus sponsors and getting started at their schools.

One of our biggest struggles as a state chapter is that there are so few Christians in this state, and that every nonprofit is trying to pull from the same group of people. FCA is a 501(c)3 so all of our funding is mission support based. As a state we are only around 77% and my personal support is only sitting around 23%. My personal support covers: my salary, my travel to and from schools, Bibles and resources for the huddles, as well as misc expenses. It's like running your own small business basically, and I can't work beyond what I have in the account.

So right now we are trying to get the word out to people about the situation here in Utah. Right now I'm facing the decision of having to get my support to 50% or better or I can't continue to stay on staff because I can't even put gas in my car. God is moving here in Utah, but without the support of other Christians the workers will remain few.

As we work through the process of trying to raise funds for the ministry of FCA and "Impacting the world for Christ through the influence of coaches and athletes." the verse above has been my prayer. Many nights have been spent in tears of frustration over finances and the desires in my heart to be financially independent and able to support myself. At the risk of sounding desperate I ask you to please pray about financially supporting the ministry of Fellowship of Christian Athletes. You can find more information on our state Donate page and more information about FCA in general at FCA.org.

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