About a month ago, while in the middle of the recruiting process that I mentioned earlier, we got a call from a woman who played with the Lady Eagles two years ago. She wanted to know if we had room on our roster for one more player she had been getting to know.
My first reaction was that we were too far along in the recruiting process to even consider another player, but the Lord really laid it on my heart to find out more about this player and to see what we could do.
From there, I found out that the former Eagles player was named Abby Crumpton, the assistant womens soccer coach at Syracuse University. I had never talked to Abby or knew much about her during her time with the Eagles, but our head coach Lee Horton remembered her and thought very highly of her.
So I decided to call Abby myself and talk to her to see what she was thinking in regards to this new player she wanted us to consider. Abby told me that within the first couple of weeks of coming to SU, she was introduced to Megan, as she was not only a leader on the team but a very strong player. Megan was coming off of double knee surgery to clean up tendonitis in her knees.
Abby also mentioned that Megan had brought to her a list of six or seven teams for which she was considering playing this summer. One of the teams on the list was Charlotte, only because she knew two people living in the area.
She did not know that Abby was a former player or anything about the Eagles, including the fact that we are a ministry-driven organization. Abby took the opportunity to explain to Megan every detail that she could about the ministry of the Eagles and about what she could expect if she were to play for us.
Abby told me that she had assumed that telling Megan about the ministry of the Eagles would turn her off to the possibility of playing with us. Instead, the opposite happened. Megan became more interested in our team and the possibility of playing in our environment.
One thing that you should know about Megan is that she comes from a Catholic background and was not a believer. Because of the questions that Abby answered about the Lady Eagles, it opened a door to discussing Christianity in more depth with Megan.
A week after talking to Abby, I called Megan to hear from her and make sure that she understood what our ministry was all about. As I talked to her, I quickly realized that she was very excited at the opportunity to play in the unique environment of the Lady Eagles. She was not at all turned off by the ministry or talking about Christ, yet she was honest that she did not have a personal relationship with Him.
Normally, the Lady Eagles do not bring on players who are not professing believers in Christ, but as I started to pray about it and as others began to pray for and with me, we were all drawn to having Megan come down to Charlotte and be a part of the team.
Three days after my call with Megan, I received a call from Abby. She was giddy with joy because Megan had prayed to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior that day!
This just happened to be the day before I was planning on calling Megan to offer her a spot on our team. It served as confirmation to me that I had made the right decision in inviting Megan to serve with the Lady Eagles this season.
What is so awesome about this story is that it demonstrates all that the ministry of the Eagles and Lady Eagles teams (and MAI as a whole) can do in people's lives. Abby came in, was trained in sports ministry, did sports ministry with the Lady Eagles, and then was deployed to her current mission field at Syracuse University, where she impacted the life of Megan. Now Megan gets to come and learn more about Christ and about sports ministry, and our prayer is that she will use her training to impact the life of someone else in the future.
MAI's goal is to "develop culturally relevant soccer ministry programs that become self-replicating." Even on an individual level, each and every woman that comes to Charlotte to be a part of the Lady Eagles is a part of a ministry. This ministry changes her life, but it also trains and empowers to go and impact someone else's life for Christ.
Megan's life is forever changed. This is a glimpse into how all of your prayer, support, and gifts can be used to bring glory to God and change lives. I implore you to continue to pray for the ministry over this upcoming summer. Our dream is to see lives changed and God glorified through soccer.
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