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Perhaps one of the more difficult parts of our community work comes in the mundane task of sorting through donations. Often times, Soccer Chaplains United receives donations that are thrown together into plastic bags and cardboard boxes, it can take hours to sort and piece things together. And when we get a specific request, like we did from Matthew Hulst and Coram Deo, you end up holding your breath sometimes because you aren’t sure if you can match exactly what they are looking for. But what is amazing is to “pull” the request and see what God does.

Specifically, Hulst and co. asked for 4 different uniform sets — jerseys, shorts, socks, etc. And a few weeks ago when I pulled their request, there were some tense moments of counting and recounting and trying to match. The most awesome moments are when you can match uniform numbers on jerseys and shorts! Let me tell you it’s a lot of back-breaking, back-bending work, but it is worth it.

The sorting and organizing took an immense amount of time, but as I prayed and reflected and listened to music I found a bit of a God-conversation going on. “God, is this really what I ought to be doing with ___________?” I filled in the blank with a lot of different endings to that question: my time, my seminary degree, my family, and so on and so on.

There was one moment when I realized that the shorts and uniforms that I had already sorted and pulled could potentially have matching numbers. I debated for about 15 minutes if I should go back and spend the time to sort through and find them amongst the piles on my garage floor. And then, the thought came to me — I can’t say if it was a God-inspired thought (but it seemed so). “Wouldn’t it make someone’s day and wouldn’t it perhaps make the story of the gospel easier to show or tell if I just spend the extra time?”

I know that when my family makes donations we usually throw things in a bag and imagine that someone else will sort it out and give it away as needed. To be honest, I don’t think much about it. But here, now, in the 50 degree garage on a cold, Colorado night — a little bit of a glimpse came into view. That is God values the recipients of these soccer shorts and jerseys, then so should I and because I am not going on the trip, the best way that I can serve them is to go a little bit of an extra mile to make it as special for them as I can.

So thank you for supporting Soccer Chaplains United. When you do, a portion of your gift automatically goes to help our community projects and requests. 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 individuals or organizations, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!