Gonzalez Serving Athletes

Gonzalez Serving Athletes Through AIA

by Jan Joslin / File photos

Jazmin Gonzalez is passionate about athletes. As a former member of the Buccaneer soccer team, she knows their world and how they think.

Gonzalez, a 2019 graduate, is currently preparing for a full-time ministry position with Athletes in Action, which is a branch of CRU (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ). She is raising funds to support herself and has been assigned to work with athletes at North Carolina State University and Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Gonzalez went to church and attended a Catholic school. She believed there was a God, but she found her identity in soccer. Arriving at CSU as a freshman and being passed over as the head goalkeeper started her questioning – who am I? She jumped from major to major and eventually graduated with a human and social science degree.

Observing the Christians on the soccer team and how they lived convinced Gonzalez she wanted what they had. “The discipleship piece was never shown to me; I never studied the Bible growing up,” she said. Fellow team member Lydia Frierson Radcliffe ’18

Jazmin Gonzalez in action with the Buccaneers.

started meeting with Gonzalez in her junior year and talked out Bible stories.

Her senior year, Gonzalez took an Intro to Missions class with Dr. Ryan Gimple. She started meeting with Brittany Gordon, former assistant campus minister, weekly. “I wanted to be there for athletes. There was a fire burning in me, and it was hard to focus on school. The activator in me wanted to put into action what I was thinking,” she said.

The time spent with Gordon and seeing what she did on campus helped Gonzalez see a little bit of what full-time ministry would look like and the sacrifice it would take. Still, the fire burned in her.

She went on a mission trip to Puerto Rico with Athletes in Action and some of her team members. She was baptized during that trip. She began to think, “This desire in me might be more than just a regular desire.”

On a soccer tour with Athletes in Action to Portugal, she played soccer against club teams, worked with a church, and in Lisbon, walked on a university campus just to get to know people and what they believed. It was in Portugal that she realized she was called to work with student-athletes.

Gonzalez asked the Lord for a sign that what she was feeling was the right path. “On the last day of the tour, one of the women on staff with Athletes in Action asked me, have you ever thought about going on staff?”

It would be a year before Gonzalez actually joined Athletes in Action. She was eligible for a fifth season of soccer, so she enrolled in the Master of Science in Christian counseling degree at CSU and lived with a couple who worked for Campus Outreach. She saw fulltime ministry up close and learned to trust the Lord step-by-step as she waited on his timing.

Several of the Athletes in Action staff members who led the Portugal and Puerto Rico mission trips are AIA leaders in Raleigh. Gonzalez said, “After the Portugal trip, they sent me a picture and said we are praying you will be at the table with us.” CRU allows new team members to choose three places, and Gonzalez was awarded her first choice – Raleigh. She said, “God’s plan is so different than anything we come up with ourselves.

Jazmin Gonzalez, second from left, and some of her teammates went with Athletes in Action to Puerto Rico in 2018.

Two years later I’m living in Raleigh and have almost raised my support.”

As an AIA staff member, she will disciple student-athletes, build relationships with a ministry of presence, attend games, lead game day devotionals, plan retreats and mission trips, build relationships with coaches, and more. She said, “AIA is great at collaborating with other faith groups, so sometimes we will collaborate with Fellowship of Christian Athletes.”

Gonzalez credits part of her Christian growth to professors and employees she interacted with at CSU. “Professor Christi Gramling in political science showed so much grace in the classroom and the way she helped me outside the classroom.” Dr. Dan Fultz invited Gonzalez and her teammate Anna Menendez ’19 to church and to dinner with his family. Her supervisor in the Learning Center, Brenda Hanna, inspired her in her faith and in the classroom. “It was an encouraging space,” said Gonzalez. She still talks to Hanna today.

Gonzalez said her eyes were opened to how much her professors cared after she started walking with the Lord. Her time in the Christian counseling program was brief but helpful as she learned to trust the Lord in different seasons. She said, “The counseling professors wanted to help the students get through the program. How they treated everyone in the program was incredible.”

As Gonzalez wraps up the fundraising part of her journey and gets ready to assume a full-time position in Raleigh, she has reflected on how small the Christian soccer world is. “I’ve gone to soccer games at N.C. State and Shaw, and it’s set a fire under me to be there. I can’t wait.”

And though it has been a two-year process, she sees how the Lord was working all the time.

If you would like to contribute to Gonzalez and Athletes in Action, you can contact her through email to hear more at Jazmin.gonzalez@athletesinaction.org, or visit her giving website at give.cru.org/1099170.