Our Story
Micah McElveen, a 14-year old, aspiring athlete, woke up in a Tampa, FL, hospital, quadriplegic after a devastating surfing accident, shattered several vertebrae in his neck.
A week in the intensive care unit, connected to life support, turned to two months in a hospital room. After being released he spent around three more months in a wheelchair. Finally, by 1999, after two-and-a-half years of in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation, Micah was able to use his arms and legs and was ready to get back to the sports he loved so much.
But, things had changed during those years of confinement and painful therapies. Physically, his arms, which today still have some paralysis, would no longer allow him to play basketball, baseball and football-sports that he had hoped to pursue professionally. Mentally, the realization that his life was almost cut incredibly short made him begin to view his life and the world differently.
It was the beginning of a new journey…“We’re not guaranteed a long life.” Micah says, during a recent interview. When you realize that, you learn to live it differently.”
After returning to school, Micah discovered that soccer was a sport that he could successfully participate in, as it required mostly leg work. At a private college, in Springfield, MO, he continued to play soccer, serving as the team captain his last two years.
“During that time, we began to develop soccer clinics as a way to minister to children from broken homes in the Springfield area,” he recalls. “It was a way of touching the lives of kids in dysfunctional families. These kids were dealing with drugs, prostitution, and crack addition. We could connect with them on the soccer field.”
As the idea of using sports as a platform for Christian ministry began to develop, Micah kept coming back to his thoughts while paralyzed, staring out his hospital window: God would use him in constructive ways in the sports world. The seed was being planted for what would become Vapor Sports Ministries.
A random encounter with Shawn Koonce, then an administer for the World Hope Project, a faith-based relief and development organization, sent Micah to Kenya in January 2005, where Shawn believed someone desperately needed to minister in specifically soccer.
“Sports are an international language, “ explains Micah. “Worldwide, soccer is the number one sport. In the slum of Kawangware, we chose to leverage soccer. The children didn’t have playing fields, cleats or balls, they would make balls out of trash or anything they could find.”
After one month in Kenya, Micah came back to the United States with a renewed vigor to improve the lives of those in the Kawangware slum. He formulated a plan for Vapor Sports Ministries, realizing as its name suggests that life for those in the slums is especially short and now is the time to help them. Jeff Chavez, Dan Elliot, Jim Wilson, and other friends helped Vapor apply for 501 (c)(3) tax exempt status, as Micah traveled across the country, logging over 40,000 miles in eight months, raising support, and casting the vision of Vapor Sports Ministries.
Back in Kenya, within one year, Micah and his team built 11 soccer fields on five acres of land; started the Vapor Soccer League, a five-days-a-week program with over 500 young people in attendance on a regular basis; trained Kenyan workers to assist with the program; and built a $42,000 water well, bringing clean drinking water to the slum.
“At Vapor Sports Ministries, we establish centers for humanitarian aid and sustainable life-change,” Micah explains. “We believe that life is short and now is the time to bring hope to the hopeless.”
There are currently 36 paid Kenyan staff all of which desperately needed aid, who were trained by Micah and today lead Vapor Sports Ministries in Kawangware. Each leader has a department, set of coaches and multiple responsibilities to oversee.
Vapor’s ten-year goal is to establish 40 of these centers in locations of abject poverty worldwide, generate $10 million a year to fund these centers, and pray that God would bring as many as 40,000 people to commit to following Christ through Vapor.
“Life is short and we encourage people to invest in it with that in mind", Micah explains. “So many things we do with a mind set that doesn’t consider the reality that our time here is fleeting and we can’t take anything with us. God doesn’t care how big our bank accounts are. But, He does care whether or not the wealth and lives He exposes us to are used to make a difference.”
“My passion to help the less fortunate was learned from my greatest role model…God,” he continues. “He left Heaven and all its glory to rescue a nobody like me and everybody else who will let Him. In light of that, who am I to say I’m too big to leave America to help poverty stricken people in need? Sure, there is risk involved, but if you think about it, there is risk in walking across the street.”
Dick, Elizabeth. (2007). Kentucky Families Today, May (16-17).
