Fred Osore serves in Kenya together with his wife Esther and three children. He joined FCA in 2018 and has since been leading a sports ministry in the Nairobi and Western regions of Kenya. His sports ministry focuses on reaching out to all high school and university student athletes and coaches in the country.
How did God call you into sports ministry?
In 2005, I was a youth pastor in our church in Nairobi. Our senior pastor called and asked me to help lead a new charity called Sporting Chance International, where we could organize soccer tournaments and distribute lightly used uniforms (kits) to participating teams and pray over them as they received the kits. I was also working as a senior administrator at one of the top universities in Kenya, and then later moved to a financial institution as a business development officer.
Where and how did you connect with FCA?
In 2009, we added lacrosse to the sports we were doing with Sporting Chance International, and in 2016, I came across FCA Lacrosse through connections with friends from Uganda who told me about FCA and how it does sports and ministry. As I researched more about FCA, I became convinced that that is how I wanted to do sports ministry.
I connected with Ghana Director Vincent Asamoah and others from the U.S. who told me more about FCA. In mid-2018, I left my job, and joined FCA full-time later in the year.
How have you seen God move in your ministry recently?
God sent us to Kibabii University in May 2022 to run a 3D Coach training. Over 30 coaches from the university and neighboring high schools attended. God knitted our hearts with one of the coaches at the university. Through him, we started a coaches Huddle, athletes Huddle and a lacrosse team on campus. FCA also became recognized as an official club at Kibabii University, making it the first university in Kenya to not only play the sport of lacrosse, but also the first to officially have an FCA program with an average weekly attendance of 30 students.
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FCA’s “The FOUR” wristbands have had a profound ability to spark conversations on campus. Students spotting these wristbands are often stopped along the way and asked what the symbols meant. In one incident, a girl on campus asked an FCA member what the symbols meant. Instead of explaining, she invited the girl to a Huddle to get more information. She came to the Huddle, and it had such a profound impact on her that she started to grow in her faith and is now serving as a Huddle Leader.
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Photos courtesy of Fred Osore