Archive for category: Community

You are here: / Community

Soccer Chaplains United Team Retreat 1 Week Away

, ,

Above, looking down into the South Park valley in Colorado at the 2014 retreat. Soccer Chaplains United will be retreating near here for this year.

I am excited as next week, myself and team members of Soccer Chaplains United will get away for a retreat up in the mountains of Colorado. November 9, 10, and 11 — the weekend that I am tempted to call something clever like The Founder’s Retreat or Founder’s Weekend may become an annual retreat for our team. (Not me as founder, but St Martin of Tours, the founder of chaplaincy).

St Martin of Tours’ Feast Day is November 11, a fitting time for Soccer Chaplains United to get away for a time of rest, renewal, and reflection

We’ve got chaplains, counselors, and community coordinators that will be taking part in this important time of spiritual renewal as we complete a busy season of ministry and look forward to another year of serving people within the sport of soccer.

Don’t ask me if I’ve got things planned out, yet! Gulp! But I have been up the mountain before and seen the ways in which God meets his people and refreshes his servants.

The opportunity for retreat has been a gift from one of our supporters who is allowing us the use of their mountain home. This will be first “team-only” retreat for Soccer Chaplains United, and even going back into our historical days of CrossTraining, I think we’ve always had a mix of team and board. The truth is that we’ve grown too much! We can’t have both at the same time with our current resources and connections (maybe you know someone that can donate a bigger retreat space to us in the future).

I have begun putting a bit of things together just to mark our time, but I am wary — often, the Holy Spirit wants to do more or different and I’ve learned to simply just try to create space.

Please pray for our group.

Pray that we listen — to God and one another.

Pray that we hear — from God and one another.

Pray that we are replenished and renewed.

Pray for us while we are on retreat.

Space for 2 Additional Community Project Requests

Soccer Chaplains United has space for two remaining community project requests for 2018. This year already, we’ve seen projects go out to Liberia, Costa Rica, India, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, eSwatini, Ethiopia, and Ghana. We’ve got capacity to help two additional projects before the close of 2018!

If your church or non-profit is heading out on a short-term mission project or sending a work team somewhere in the world, consider making an application to take some soccer gear and equipment with them.

Also, it’s not too early to begin making plans for 2019! Tell us in advance of your mission trip plans.

Simply click this link to learn our submission requirements and to make a request.

A Gear Drop Off In Pictures and Not So Many Words

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (57.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Email | Youtube Music | RSS

From sorting and packing to dropping off and blessing —

Rev Brad Talks About the Indestructible One World Ball

Rev Brad Encourages the Team to Bless the in-country Drop Off

Rev Brad Talks about Reproducing Generosity

Rev Brad Shares a story – Size 12 in Haiti

Thirty Year Relationship Still Going Strong

Ministry partner, Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church (CCPC), partnered with La Iglesia Maranatha in Juarez, Mexico thirty years ago.

Katherine Plank, Cherry Creek Pres. team member, shares with Soccer Chaplains United what a typical mission trip to Juarez is like.  We will drive from the Denver-Metro area and spend six days living at the church compound. Although this is a short-term mission trip, we always accomplish as much as we possibly can!

In the past years I have attended, our main focus was to host a Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the community. At VBS, we play games, sing songs, dance, read bible stories and craft. We also offer crafts to engage the parents who stay with their children during VBS!

Another objective of our time at La Iglesia Maranatha is to build homes for church or community members.  We repair houses and buildings on the church’s compound and we have helped repaint many buildings around the property. Any small fixes with maintenance such as damaged pipes or drywall is attended to our by team as well. Most years when we go there, we even build fun things for the kids! In the past, we have assembled a basketball hoop and trampoline and re-built their playground and soccer goals.

When we go to Juarez, my favorite day is always Sunday! We like to get involved with the church services that take place during our stay. Sometimes we sing a song, pray, or share a sermon with the congregation. After church, the congregation goes to a nearby park and we enjoy a delicious picnic. Following the picnic, nearly everyone plays a huge soccer game together. Before the game begins though, we pull out the jerseys we brought for our Juarez friends. Everyone gets so excited and immediately puts them on! We play until we are all exhausted and our jerseys are soaked with sweat. The kids continue to wear their new jerseys for the rest of the week, every day at Vacation Bible School!

Although our week spent in Juarez is jam-packed, we still find time to play soccer. Soccer removes all language barriers and provides a way for us to come together through a common love, and A LOT of laughing.

Remember, when you support Soccer Chaplains United a portion of your gift automatically goes to help projects and requests like this one for Juarez. You can give specifically to help cover our costs by making a gift through PushPay — simply select Community from the selectable funds. Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

###

From Castle Rock to Addis Ababa, Footballs Bridge Many Gaps

Soccer Chaplains United believes that out of our abundance, we are to give graciously and abundantly.  This year has provided Soccer Chaplains United with numerous opportunities to send soccer gear across the world.  This story highlights a family’s trip from Castle Rock, CO to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and how a few soccer balls impact the corner of their world.

Sydney Dragovich, 13, writes about her recent trip to Africa. 

In August, my sister, mom, and I traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for ten days to visit the children of Hope for the Fatherless (HFTF).  HFTF partners with Believers in Ethiopia and around the world to develop a culture that values and cares for vulnerable children and places them in loving families.  

Hope for the Fatherless believes that children deserve to grow up in a home with a family.  Until the children of HFTF are adopted into forever families, they live together in a family setting.  There are currently two homes that each have ten children, Hope House and Faith House.  The children attend great schools, receive medical care and excellent nutrition, and now have people in their lives who know and love them.  It is a much better situation than the orphanages they came from – after a year at Hope House, the children are healing and growing physically, mentally, and spiritually.  

HFTF also sponsors another ten kids who still live with their moms but are in at-risk situations.  Through HFTF support, these children hopefully can stay in their homes and not have their families disrupted.

During our time in Ethiopia, we mostly hung out with the kids and got to know them.  We ate together, worshipped together, and played together.  Some of the kids speak a little English and loved to practice with us, but most speak Amharic.  With that language barrier, playing together was our best form of communication.  We played board games, jump rope, and lots of soccer!


Ethiopian children and adults love soccer!  The main place for the kids to play soccer is in the street.  The street in front of Hope House is a beautiful cobblestone, but it was not very friendly on the traditional soccer balls they had, which were all pretty beat up!  When we gave the kids the One World Futbols donated by Soccer Chaplains United, everyone was very excited and immediately wanted to play with them.  They love the One World Futbols because, unlike their old ball, it won’t go flat, pop, or fall apart.  It is indestructible!  Thank you, Soccer Chaplains United, for providing Hope for the Fatherless with these amazing gifts!

Remember, when you support Soccer Chaplains United a portion of your gift automatically goes to help projects and requests like this one for Ethiopia. You can give specifically to help cover our costs by making a gift through PushPay — simply select Community from the selectable funds. Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

###

KICK THIS BALL ACROSS THE WORLD!

Friends, we’ve plum run out of One World Balls to send out with out teams when they ask for gear donations. These are normally $40/apiece, but through our relationship and non-profit status, we’re able to get them at about half of that price when we bulk order.

Consider making a gift today to send one of these around the world with one of our next project requests that come in.

Click here to go to PushPay and select Community to make a specific gift toward this fund!

Community Project Update from Momentum FC India

,

Our friends from Valor Christian High School and Momentum Global went to India earlier this year and requested soccer gear from Soccer Chaplains United.The trip which featured some students and teachers from Valor were visiting a Valor alumnus in effort to build out a more sustainable soccer program to reach out to the community and make a lasting impact.

Momentum FC wants to thank you for the generous gifts that were donated…We thank you for the amazing jerseys and soccer balls that [you] provided, which has been a great blessing to the club.

Click the link below for a pdf version of their message to us and see what Momentum is about and how the donations made an impact.

Momentum Global India Soccer Gear Report

Remember, when you support Soccer Chaplains United a portion of your gift automatically goes to help projects and requests like this one for India. You can also give specifically to help cover our costs by making a gift through PushPay — simply select Community from the selectable funds. Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

Students Grow in Unexpected Ways During Month In Guatemala

,

Valor High School senior, Class of 2019, Colin Kemp spent the month of June in Guatemala with a team of his school peers and a few teachers and mentors.  Kemp shares about the trip from his perspective in this post.

The first two weeks in Atitlán were harder than any of us ever thought they would be. We launched our trip by studying for six hours in a Spanish school every day, 1 on 1 with a teacher.  We also empathized with the local residents after a volcano eruption changed the village, and even took the lives of many families.  We struggled not knowing what to say or do to show them how we cared and were there for them emotionally, spiritually, and in as much of a physical sense as we could.

Kemp goes on to explain how the rest of the time in Zacapa unfolded.

We filled the remaining weeks with sweating with everything we had in us to play with the kids and do construction for local churches by day, then pouring into the lives of those who have never seen the true love of Christ by night.

As a team, we were there for each other and supported one another in the midst of some of the most challenging moments we’ve faced in our short lives.  We also built each other up by loving one another in the midst of our greatest joys and laughs. This trip was more than just an everlasting memory to me, says Kemp, it was an experience that will forever change the way I love on friends and family that deserve it, and it will impact how I show the unconditional love of Christ to those who have never seen his beauty.

To support future ventures like this, please donate through PushPay — simply select “Timothy Project” from the selectable funds to contribute to.  Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

###

One Child Matters Takes Soccer Gear to Hundreds of Children

,

In May of this year, One Child Matters (OCM) sent a team of 11 workers, including the president of the organization, to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  The purpose of the trip was to witness the impact of child sponsorship firsthand and to deliver soccer equipment.

This was the first time Soccer Chaplains United and One Child Matters have been able to partner.  These ministries were brought together by Soccer Chaplains United Chaplain Kurt Trempert, who chaplains the Colorado Springs Switchbacks based in Colorado Springs, CO.  By partnering with Soccer Chaplains United, we were able to provide an unexpected surprise for the children, who typically visit the Hope Center for a hot meal, help with their school work, spiritual teaching, and other activities.

One Child Matters in Honduras has 34 Hope Centers with 4,190 registered children. We were able to deliver soccer equipment to four Hope Centers, three in Tegucigalpa and one in Choluteca. A total of 694 children attend these Hope Centers.

The uniforms were a hit for both boys and girls. They were very excited and thankful that they now look like a more official team. Our staff in Honduras regularly organizes soccer tournaments in which the various Hope Centers compete with each other. These uniforms and equipment will be a great benefit for future competitions. Thank you Soccer Chaplains United for making a dream come true.

To support this specific request for One Child Matters, or future ventures like this, please donate through PushPay — simply select “Timothy Project” from the selectable funds to contribute to.  Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

###

Soccer Chaplains United Partner, Cherry Creek Pres, Goes Back to Ghana

,

In 14 years we have sent ten mission trips and helped to establish 42 churches, explains Helen Grace Norblom,  who works with Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in the kids@creek department.  In a few weeks, we will be sending another group of missionaries to continue to serve villages in Ghana.

Our service will include running a Vacation Bible School (VBS) program for kids and supporting their villages. This VBS program will involve Biblical lessons and time for kids to play and participate in fun activities. We hope to impart a message about God’s presence in their everyday lives and His unconditional love for all of His children.

While participating in VBS, we also provide the children and their parents with meals and shelter in a nearby school since many of them are coming from distant villages. Most of the adults who come are mothers and during VBS there will be programs for them as well. They will receive training in vocational studies, parenting, marriage, and basic self-care practices among other things to help improve their lives.

Part of our goal is to extend our reach beyond the children and adults who attend our program. We will teach lessons that we hope they will relay to their community members. We would also like to send soccer equipment with them to bring back to their villages.

Another part of our service to these villages is through fundraising to build wells and schools. The task of funding, building, and incorporating a well in these village can be immensely challenging. The cost can range from $5,000 to $7,000 which we raise through monthly donations and fundraising events. Even after a well is paid for and constructed, some villagers may be wary of using it because they have grown so accustomed to traveling to a farther, often less safe location for their water. This is where the importance of our longstanding relationships come in and allows us to reassure and encourage people to make use of the safer and more accessible source.

Through these various programs and services we will reach upwards of 400 people in Ghana and provide them with important resources – both physical and spiritual.

To support this specific request for Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church, or future ventures like this, please donate through PushPay — simply select “Timothy Project” from the selectable funds to contribute to.  Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor an individual or organization in an outreach effort, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!

###

Community Projects

Contact Us

Chaplain Login

Privacy Policy

© 2026 Soccer Chaplains United

Donate via PushPay

X-twitter X-twitter
Mail Mail