Why?

Guess what?! We are only 7 days away from jumping on a plane and heading to Ethiopia! We are so excited!! (if you didn’t know we were going…read here)

Lately, as a staff team, we have been reading the book When Helping Hurts to prepare our minds and hearts for this upcoming vision trip. After reading, discussing, brainstorming, and praying we have a lot of questions on our minds as we travel across the world to serve in a culture not only very different from our own, but with an incredible amount of poverty bombarding us from every direction. The need is great…and we know that we are not the Savior who can alleviate all their problems and change every life.

Reading this book together has helped us focus our vision for this trip and I wanted to share some of those thoughts with you here. In the answers below, you will find some important information about how we are paying for this trip (not out of our general budget), and why we feel called to go. Enjoy!

Why do we raise money for Ethiopia?
Three of our staff members who have been involved in Sports That Serve from the beginning (Rob Shields, Jay Falk, and myself, Nicole Keegan) have spent significant amount of time in Ethiopia, specifically in the capital, Addis Ababa. All three of us served daily in orphanages and/or schools for orphans. And all of us came back significantly changed. When we returned to North Carolina, we couldn’t shake off what we had experienced and been a part of. And we couldn’t forget the great needs we had seen, or the faces of the children we loved who had little hope for their futures.

Scripture draws our attention to the poor and calls us to care for them in several passages throughout the Old and New Testament (some of my favorites: Luke 4:17-19, Isaiah 58:10, Isaiah 1:16b-17). And while ALL of us are poor in one way or another (not just materially and economically), Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert in When Helping Hurts make an excellent point:

“The economically poor are singled out in Scripture as being in a particularly desperate category and as needing very specific attention (Acts 6:1-7). That fact that all humanity has some things in common with the materially poor does not negate their unique and overwhelming suffering nor the special place that they have in God’s heart, as emphasized throughout the Old and New Testaments.” (p. 71)

There are too many instances throughout Scripture which draw our hearts and minds to the poor for us to ignore their plight and not make some effort to love and care for them.

There is a great need to love the poor in Ethiopia…specifically the orphans (see statistics here ). And the Lord has drawn our hearts specifically to them, in crazy unexpected ways. So we are raising money, educating ourselves, seeking wise council, and working hard to love the poor in Ethiopia the way we believe that Jesus has called us to.

Why are we going to Ethiopia for 4 weeks?
As an organization, we feel we need to take this vision trip. We need to go over there and have meetings firsthand with people who can better explain to us the need. We want to better understand the need so that we can better meet it. The last thing we want to do is pour a ton of money overseas that is not helping Ethiopians long term and is just making us feel better about ourselves. We want to be the best stewards of the money that the Lord has entrusted to us. We know that this trip is necessary for us to succeed in the future.

We feel so strongly that we are called to go on this trip, that we are using 0% of the money we have already raised through camps, etc. this year. We had a separate fundraiser (see here) and Rob, Cody, Andrew, Ted and I have all been doing personal fundraising to earn our plane tickets, room & board, and transportation while we are there. This has been a big step of faith for all of us but we have seen the Lord provide abundantly! We have no doubt that He will supply us with all the money we need before we go. We want to make sure that YOU (our supporters, friends, and family) understand how we are funding this trip so that you know that the money that has been given to us is being used honestly and faithfully.


Thank you, as always, for your partnership with us in this ministry. We are excited about this next step and will keep you updated via this blog while we are there.