By: Bob Rose
GREENVILLE, S.C. – In sports, the mission is simple: win the game.
For several Conference Carolinas’ student-athletes last summer, however, their mission was of a higher calling. These young people traveled thousands of miles over part of their summer break doing missionary work in impoverished communities ranging from Puerto Rico to Australia to Africa.
Here is a sampling of their stories, personal memories that will last a lifetime.
EMMY ESTRADA, Converse University
A 5-9 redshirt junior on the Valkyries’ volleyball team, Estrada spent time sharing the Good News in Puerto Rico. The one-week trip was particularly poignant for the Jacksonville, Fla. native, as she was accompanied by her mother (Yadira), who was born and raised in Yuaco, Puerto Rico
“Puerto Rico is a special place because my mom is from there,” shared Estrada. “It was very powerful to go with her. We still have family there, including my grandfather. I hadn’t been there since I was really young. Essentially, I was going back to my roots.”
The trip, which was organized by her church in Florida, provided a wealth of opportunities for her and her mother to engage with the local community.
“Being Puerto Rican, we were both very excited to serve an island that meant so much to us,” Estrada adds. “While we were there, we served with a local ministry called Terraviv. Throughout the week, we went to different towns serving in different ways, such as working at a soup kitchen, painting homes, and visiting children at an orphanage.”
Estrada, a biochemistry and healthcare major who has earned academic all-aonference honors, said her favorite memory was joining six other missionaries and her mother in painting a family’s house.
“We painted it lime green,” she chuckled. “It fit into the coastal vibe of the neighborhood that was by the beach.”
The mother of the family was so grateful for their kind gesture, she rushed out of the freshly painted house with plates of food for Estrada and the others.
“She wanted to give us what she had. We had fried plantains and some type of meat. We thought it was pork, but it was actually chicken gizzards with some type of garlic sauce. It was delicious!”
Emmy and her mother stayed at a house on the outskirts of San Juan, sharing a bunk bed and enjoying the food, music and other cultural norms from their homeland. They had one free day in the city and took advantage of some shopping and eating a scrumptious meal at a vendor’s food stand at the side of the road.
One of the mission challenges Emmy faced was changing many local opinions about organized religion.
“Through my mom, I knew that Puerto Ricans have some hurtful memories about the church,” Emmy said. “There have been so many rules, like not wearing a dress above your knees. We came with no sense of judgement. We just wanted to bring love with a simple prayer.”
Clearly the mission trip has changed her life.
“The main takeaway was realizing how much we complicate life and truly how blessed we are. There is such power serving people. As a student-athlete, I have a really demanding schedule. Going on this mission was a great reminder that life can be really simple.”
“Being able to share God’s love and grace with these people has truly been such an honor and a privilege. I hope to eventually return and serve the beautiful people of Puerto Rico.”
Estrada will graduate this spring from Converse. She plans to move back to Jacksonville for a gap year to build up patient care hours as a nursing assistant before pursuing a master’s degree. In fact, she is even considering earning that advanced degree in Puerto Rico.
“I’m definitely already in love with the culture. You can always go to medical school in Puerto Rico. One of my cousins is a pharmacist there and might be able to help me. And, of course, my grandfather lives there.”
CODY MCKINLEY, Southern Wesleyan University
McKinley, a sophomore outfielder on Southern Wesleyan’s developmental baseball team, spent nearly two months down under in Perth, Australia. A native of Apopka, Florida, whose parents are both retired from law enforcement careers.
Working with SWU’s Global Partners, he personally raised the necessary $5,000 to cover the expenses for the mission with donations coming from family members, friends, past coaches, two churches and several other sources.
Cody explained why he opted for a trip of Christian service over a summer job or leisurely vacation:
“God called me to do this,” he said. “I was wrestling with a couple of options, but with the ministry and business being my college majors, I thought I could address one of my areas of study with this mission. I felt that God kept pushing me to do it.”
McKinley and six others stayed with a local family in the Perth suburb of Landsdale, with the four males sharing one bedroom in an adjoining guest apartment and the three females living nearby. An outstanding perk of staying with the family was having a traditional Australian dish for dinner.
“Lots of sausages and meat pies,” recalls Cody. “I did try some kangaroo. It was kind of like tough beef. When we went out, I found a large amount of Asian food, like Thai and Indian.”
The group needed their protein to fuel a demanding weekly schedule.
“On Mondays, Wednesday and Thursdays, we would make grilled cheese sandwiches or pancakes for the kids at Landsdale Primary School (K through 6th grade) and the Alinjarra Primary School,” said McKinley.
“On Fridays, we would spend a few hours prepping for our presentation to a group of kids in middle school and high school at the Landsdale Community Center. Then on Sundays, we would help during regular services and the Sunday evening youth adults at the Wesleyan Church.”
Also, the missionaries ran youth soccer and cheerleading camps during two weeks of their stay.
For Cody, the trip to far-off Australia was a natural extension of his travels. He and his family had already taken cruises to Mexico and Central America.
“I also had done a 10-day mission trip to Romania in 2025, so it kind of set the stage for this. It gave me my first experience learning about overseas travel. I realized that there were different people all over the world that you can share the gospel with.”
For McKinley, just meeting new people was a reward in itself.
“I think it’s the small moments. Little conversations you have with people in the church or communities. When we talk, we sound different than them. It gives us a chance to talk about Jesus. It’s neat to see their brains turning and thinking about religions.”
During his free time, Cody enjoyed exploring a new country and culture.
“A couple of nights we all went line dancing. I also took advantage of lots of public parks that overlook the city. They also had cool malls.”
He also treasured the new friendships formed with his fellow missionaries.
“Living with three other guys in the same bedroom, you get to know each other. We got really tight, really fast. We were from a lot of different places, interacting from different cultures. In the group, three were from Buffalo and one each from Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Canada. But there was unity because we were all Christians. It added a level to the trip.”
EMILY COLLINGS, UNC Pembroke
On the volleyball court, Collings is a veritable assist machine. Last season, the Jacksonville, Florida product ranked second on the Braves team with 3.90 assists per set. And this fall, she has rattled off a team-leading 130 assists thus far.
Yet her greatest achievement might very well be her missionary work last summer in the East African nation of Kenya. Her choice to serve there should not be a surprise. Afterall, in the “favorites” section in her online media guide bio, Emily listed “Jesus” as her idol.
During two weeks in May, the star setter joined Sports Camp International to lead sports camps and visit three orphanages funded by the Integrity Foundation. Joining Collings in the group were volleyball and beach volleyball players from LSU (3), Alabama, Florida International and Arizona State.
“I didn’t know any of them, but we got close really fast.”
Two of the orphanages housed youngsters aged five to 18 and the third home was filled with children nine years old and younger. The towns visited were Kaptagat, located in Southwestern Kenya and famous for world champion runners; Maai Mahiu, 53 kilometers from the nation’s capital of Nairobi; Mogogosiek, a Western village known for tea production.
They spent two to three days at each orphanage, providing a day-and-a-half of sports camps as well as morning devotionals and nighttime worship and singing.
“Seeing the kids playing the games and just getting to know them was so much fun. Many told me that they had never participated in an organized sports camp. They were really excited to have us there and it was really cool to worship with them. They would share verses (from the bible) with us, and we shared some with them."
It also served as a cultural exchange of sorts for Emily.
“They asked me a lot of questions. Maybe the funniest were the kids that asked if I had ever watched MrBeast (a YouTube sensation). They also asked us what food we ate and what music we listened to. We asked them the same questions.”
Collings and the other missionaries stayed in guest homes at each orphanage, packing up and moving every three days. While Swahili is the national language, most staffers and children at the homes also spoke English.
“The food at each place was amazing,” Emily gushed. “It was the same food the kids would eat. It was grown at or near their property. Some of the foods we have never seen in America.”
They included ugali (a thick cornmeal porridge made using maize flour and water), chapati (soft unleavened flatbread) and samosas (meat or vegetables wrapped in pastry).
Collings, an elementary education major and Conference Carolinas Presidential Honor Roll recipient, also will never forget the final day of her mission.
“Our guide Peter, who drove us to all the homes, let us hop on a safari tour with him. It was called Long Claw Expeditions, and we saw lions, hippos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs and other wild animals!”
Echoing other Conference Carolinas student-athletes in this story, Emily said her mission has left a lasting impression.
“It was a cool reminder of how grand God’s work is. The world is so much bigger than you. Also, I’ll never forget the kids and staff. They embodied the selflessness of Christ. They just put everything they had in it. It was just inspiring to see. We sang, we danced and we had so much fun. It was super joyful.”
GARON BLALOCK, Southern Wesleyan University
A junior forward on Southern Wesleyan’s basketball team, Blalock joined up with a well-known organization called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to serve a summer mission in South Africa.
As part of FCA’s Global Impact Program, Garon was part of a 20-member team that featured 15 Americans and five Africans that were based in Stellenbosch, a wine-producing village of 80,000 located about an hour outside of Capetown.
According to Blalock, every day of the mission was a surprise.
“FCA wouldn’t give us our schedule in advance,” he said. “They’d just tell us their plan when we woke up every morning."
On a typical day, the group would be up at 4:45 a.m. They would utilize FCA’s club membership at a local gym at Stellenbosch University.
“We would then shower and eat breakfast,” Garon said. “After that, we would spend an hour or two preparing lessons to teach life-skill seminars about the Bible. In the afternoon, we would do some outreach work with the local community or share the gospel in public. Sometimes we also held a 24-hour children’s camp by ourselves on campus. Finally, we would have a debriefing at night, talking about the highs and lows of the day.”
Garon also recalled one trip to Kayamandi, a historic township north of Stellenbosch with impoverished residents.
“There was only one church in the community with many children. The kids were brought to the area so we could teach them sports and about Christ. The roads weren’t really paved and the people lived in tin houses that looked like a box. They were stacked on each other, making it a super densely populated city. There were families of five or six living in a house the size of our bathrooms. There were no bathrooms or running water. No plumbing. Sewage went out in the street or downhill.”
So, what could Blalock and his group tell these people suffering from extreme poverty?
“Our main message was to share Jesus’ love with them. Also, we wanted to teach them that God was the heavenly father. There was a high ratio of single-mother households, so kids didn’t grow up with a father. We stressed to them that God could be their father.”
Blalock, a native of Pendleton, South Carolina and proud member of the Conference Carolinas Academic Honor Roll, also saw the value of each of the missionaries’ athletic background in spreading the Good News.
“Being college athletes definitely helped in a way of sharing the gospel,” he said. “With our sports backgrounds, we could make things fun and exciting through various activities. I think it helps kids listen when they are active and running around. In Kenya, the two main sports are soccer and rugby. Basketball wise, it was a shock to me to see a group of teenagers wanting to start a recreational team. We had the privilege of running a practice with them. It felt good to lay a foundation for basketball in South Africa.”
And of course, Garon and his team taught more than basketball.
“We did a prayer retreat one day. It lasted eight hours, nothing but prayer. Everyone learned to be more intimate with the Lord through praying and fasting. It took place in silence, and I felt like God was with us.”
Ironically, maybe the person Blalock influenced the most during his mission was someone he met even before landing in South Africa.
“On my way there, the flight path first took two hours to Chicago, eight hours to Amsterdam, and 12 hours to Capetown. I was jet lagged by the time I was on the last leg of the trip. I was about to go to sleep but began a conversation with an English guy named Isaac sitting next to me. We spent the first six hours of that flight in deep conversation about theology. I wanted to emphasize God’s love to him. We talked about what both of us believed.”
“He said he was agnostic but was open to converting.”
That was all Garon had to hear.
“I asked him a bunch of questions, planting a few seeds. I didn't want to over explain. Kept it simple. Jesus is love. And that love has no boundaries. I also emphasized how important it is to make a decision. It’s not a normal yes or no. The end result has a much higher consequence or reward. I said I’m telling you this out of love, not to scare you into making a decision.”
When the two deplaned in Capetown, they exchanged phone numbers.
“I just told him I knew he didn’t know what to believe yet. Then I just told him to pray."
Bob Rose is a longtime sports public relations executive who has worked for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, the NFL Cardinals, Cal, Stanford and other organizations. Bob works with the Conference Carolinas office to help tell the stories of the tremendous student-athletes, coaches and administrators in Conference Carolinas.