RAMS CLUB UPDATE
Mission Quality – On and Off the Field
Ever since CIU began competing in intercollegiate athletics in
2012, transformation has been taking place on campus with
79 athletes added to the student body and athletic facilities
constructed and/or renovated. The Moore Fitness Center
is now the “Home of the Rams” for basketball, a collegiate
soccer field was constructed, and cross country paths cut
through the 400-acre campus. Women’s soccer and men’s golf
are scheduled to start this fall, with softball soon to follow.
Meanwhile, the old recreation field is being improved this year
and will be used for intramural athletics and other activities.
Campus life has a school spirit about it with encouragement
and support at its foundation. But there’s more; things you may
not see.
One of the goals of CIU Athletics is for each team to be a
“mission team.” In January, we saw that vision become reality
for the first time. The men’s soccer team, led by Coach James
Whittaker, ministered in Guatemala, sharing the gospel with a
variety of people including professional soccer players they met
in competition.
(See page 18.)
“The score definitely didn’t turn out in our favor, but it was a
blessing to be able to gather with those guys [afterward] and
share our testimonies with them,” Whitaker said.
Not only did the Rams play three exhibition games, they
also hosted soccer clinics for children, visited terminally ill
children at a cancer hospital, ministered to people who live
in a community built on a trash dump, and even did a little
construction work — all the while sharing the gospel wherever
they went.
“We were able to love on a lot of kids who don’t have a lot of
love in their lives,” junior Ethan Chandler said.
But in the mystery of ministry, not only were lives of
Guatemalans changed,
so were the lives of the
members of the CIU
soccer team.
“The amazing thing is that
we were the ones who
ended up being blessed,”
Coach Whitaker added.
“I think God used this
trip to make a profound
impact on each one of us.
For me the highlight was
recapping each day and
hearing what God was
doing in the lives of each
of these guys.”
These student-athletes are admirable representatives of CIU on
the field and in the classroom. God is equipping each of them
to impact the nations with the message of Christ, whether it is
in sports, in ministry, in the marketplace or as in the case of the
soccer team, on the mission field.
Athletics contributes not only to the growth of CIU’s enrollment
but has created a new component to campus life, with students
proudly wearing their “Rams Army” shirts as they cheer from
the stands.
And
you
can be a part of the excitement.
Check out the athletics schedule and support the Rams on the
CIU campus, or when they compete near your home. Go to
www.ciuathletics.com.While you’re at our website, consider becoming a member of
the Rams Club. When you join the Rams Club, you are more
than an athletic booster. You
are assisting CIU athletes who
are being educated from a
biblical worldview, and
impacting the nations with the
message of Christ.
One of the goals of CIU Athletics is for
each team to be a “mission team.”
CIU FAST FACTS
21
The number of athletes
on the men’s soccer
team mission trip (18
players, 3 coaches).
26
DEVELOPMENT
CIU Today
Summer 2015