Monday, July 21, 2014

Karen grew up attending a Mission Arlington® Bible Study at her apartment complex and now teaches other children about the love of Christ throughout the week.  At the end of the school year, her Wednesday night class had about sixty boys each week, but as summer began the boys stopped coming.

“One week we only had five,” Karen remembers. She says she would see her kids walking off into the neighborhood and wanted to follow them to discover where they were going and why they stopped coming.  It broke her heart to see them leave.

Instead of packing up and moving to a new neighborhood or “taking the summer off” or any number of other options, Karen felt God calling her to do more to encourage the children to come back – and a soccer team was born.

Karen has plenty going on in her life.  She has a job and a son.  When God called her to add on the role of “soccer coach,” she didn’t have extra time.  She didn’t even have a soccer ball.  But while God supplied her with energy, the other staff members at Mission Arlington were on the lookout for donated cleats, cones, and jerseys.

Now on Wednesday nights, the parents and children gather to worship in their small central Arlington church.  After breaking into their classes by age group, they teach the Bible, then Karen and another teacher stay extra late to practice and play soccer with dozens of excited children.  Many of the boys have come back.

The children are learning the Bible. They are learning that Karen loves them, and, most of all, they are learning that Jesus loves them.  Thanks to God that Karen chose to go the extra mile and not let these children slip away.