Super Bowl interns serve Host Committee, JAX Baptist Association as NAMB missionaries

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Photo by Joni B. Hannigan

Super Bowl interns serve Host Committee, JAX Baptist Association as NAMB missionaries

Eva Wolever (left), a 2004 graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Zac Gorley, a senior at Washington State University, are serving as semester missionaries through the North American Mission Board. The duo is responsible for helping to organize about 9,000 volunteers who will staff NFL sanctioned events throughout Jacksonville before and during the Super Bowl game Feb. 6. They also serve as liaisons with the Jacksonville Baptist Association to facilitate community-based opportunities for church members and their guests throughout “The City of Seven Bridges.”[Click here for article.]

JACKSONVILLE (FBW)—For both Eva Wolever and Zac Gorley, the idea of interning with the Super Bowl Host Committee wasn’t exactly his or her idea of doing student missions. For one, it wasn’t summer and Jacksonville wasn’t exactly next door to either of their home states of Washington or Oklahoma. In addition, instead of a lengthy application approval process, each had just days to decide whether to accept that challenge then to pack up and head out towards Jacksonville.

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Wolever arrived just before Thanksgiving. Gorley arrived a month later, just before Christmas.

The duo is part of a plan by the North American Mission Board to offer college students the opportunity to complete a stint as a semester missionary at a location where their work will interface with that of a local association—in this case the Jacksonville Baptist Association.

And instead of spending a semester doing more traditional missionary work, the interns are actually placed in a secular organization to serve as a much needed liaison for the thousands of volunteers recruited through the local Baptist associations.

Their work doesn’t stop there, however. By serving as full-time office workers, the interns have responsibilities related to organizing, outfitting and training more than 9,000 volunteers who will perform a variety of community-based and Host Committee “sanctioned” functions in the days leading to and during the Feb. 6 Super Bowl game.

In Jacksonville since before Thanksgiving, Wolever told Florida Baptist Witness she basically runs the Host Committee command center in downtown Jacksonville—and recently compiled a handbook for the volunteers.

A 2004 graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University, Wolever was recently presented with a “Silence All Critics” award during a staff meeting.

“I think that the way you respond to different situations can be almost a ministry in itself,” Wolever said of how she maintains her Christian witness. “It’s always difficult to really be an outspoken ministry person in a secular environment, especially one as secular as the Super Bowl Host Committee.

“I think the best way to do that is to just build relationships with the people that you meet, the people that you work with,” said Wolever. “You have a spirit of peace that Christ gives you.”

At first Wolever said she wasn’t too impressed by Jacksonville, known also as “The City of Seven Bridges.”

After a wrong turn which landed her at Amelia Island instead of at the Jacksonville Baptist Association office, the honor graduate with a degree in English said she questioned why she had accepted an assignment so far from home when at that point she could have been doing data entry in the doctor’s office where she has worked on and off since she was 14.

Within a short period of time, however, she met a US2 NAMB worker at the Jacksonville Baptist Association who included Wolever in activities at Neptune Baptist Church.

“I think that’s whenever I realized, ‘God, it’s been a little iffy so far, but maybe this is really where I’m supposed to be,’” Wolever remembered praying.

Gorley said when he received a phone call about the position while working on a paper in his school’s library, he initially scoffed at the idea. “I’m like, I can’t do this, I need to finish school because I was expecting to graduate in May,” he told the Witness. “And then I hung up and thought about it and called him back.

“It’s not too late, is it?” Gorley said he remembered asking Marc Johnston, who is with the Greater Orlando Baptist Association. Last summer Johnston served as Gorley’s supervisor at GOBA where Gorley served in summer missions.

Gorley said he credits God with working everything out so that he could serve as an intern. He looks forward to working in a sport-related field after he earns his degree in business from Washington State.

“I have a passion for sports and I want to do something with that,” Gorley said. “I am just trying to find out what’s out there.”

In Jacksonville, the two work closely, juggling job responsibilities and building friendships with Host Committee volunteers and Southern Baptists throughout the area.

“I have learned to love JAX and the people here,” Wolever said. “I expected to come to a big city– [and to be] thrown out of the water a little bit and so I was really surprised. People here have been so welcoming and so loving.”