Brittney Gadd steps up her game on the soccer and mission field

               Photo by Liesel Totch
Gadd posing with kids from
an inner city Philadelphia soccer camp.

Brittney Gadd, known to most as BGadd, has a spirit of risk and adventure. She’s passionate about the Lord, loving others, missions and soccer. She makes this known from the moment people meet her. Gadd said some people might criticize her from flying by the seat of her pants. She has big plans of serving the Lord because as she would say, she serves a “big God” who works in her life radically. However, she was not always this passionate. Gadd’s life took a while to get where it is today.

“God worked through my brokenness,” said Gadd. “To know that things that happened weren’t done on my own abilities because I was so broken myself, it was all God. I was being used by the Lord.”

            Gadd was raised since toddler age by her grandparents in Mercer, Pa. When she came to them, she hadn’t been fed or taken care of properly. Before her mom lost her rights as a parent, Gadd had to visit her. One time when she visited her mom, she was seven years old and remembers being aware that she wasn’t safe. She ran away in the snow from everyone. She began running from an early age because of fights with her brother, to get home safe from school, sports practices and everything.
            “High school was rough,” said Gadd. “I was made fun of a lot because I was the only girl that wrestled. I always thought I had to be tough. As a little girl too, I was such a tomboy. It hardened my heart. I was a stubborn, determined little girl.”
            Gadd and her brother were always outside. They were locked out of the house sometimes so they caused havoc in the neighborhood.  Her grandparents provided for them, but the environment they grew up in was manipulative and controlling, and there was also fighting. Her brother had chemical imbalances as a result from fetal alcohol syndrome because their mom drank alcohol during pregnancy. The imbalances in his brain had triggered anger issues. She had to protect her grandparents from him sometimes by hitting him and running away.  
            “I had to get away from all the stuff that was happening at home,” said Gadd. “I just felt like I was suffocating. That if I stayed I would fall into the patterns of my family and just be manipulated.”
            Sports gave Gadd a sense of hope. She received affirmation from her teammates, coaches and aunts and uncles. They cared, but her grandparents didn’t and weren’t very involved. She had to ride with friends to the games.

                  Photo provided by University of the Cumberlands
Gadd defending the goal during a game against
Lincoln Memorial University in 2009.

            When Gadd was twelve, she went to a Christian sports camp and was surrounded by Christian love for the first time. At the camp, she accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. She still struggled with a lot and didn’t start living for Him until later in life. When she became independent in college, she saw her family for who they were. Gadd said she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She tried to find herself through partying and drinking. It made her feel sad, alone and angry.

              “B-Gadd was so loud, in your face and intimidating,” said Emily Maddux, senior at University of the Cumberlands, friend and former teammate of Gadd’s. “She got in the goal and you just sat back and watched in awe. She had that confidence, almost borderline arrogance. She knew how good she was and wasn’t afraid to prove it to you.”
             Gadd came to University of the Cumberlands to wrestle and then was also offered a soccer scholarship. She was good in both, but soccer was her passion. According to Gadd, she found her identity through sports instead of Christ. The void she had in her life was filled with athletics. She was an All-American twice in wrestling and received All-Conference in soccer.
             “God gave me those abilities,” said Gadd. “I didn’t have the perspective of the field being my sanctuary and it can be an act of worship in anything I do on the field.”
             Gadd discovered she needed to have balance of God and her God given abilities when she played on the Christian sports ministry soccer team, the Buxmount Torch, the summer after graduation in 2013. That summer began her transformation to who she is today.
              “B-Gadd and I met to talk about her life and struggles,” said Magan Atwood, Director of Appalachian Ministries and Associate Campus Minister at University of the Cumberlands. “I listened to her as she poured out her past pains, current struggles and future dreams. I prayed with her, shared scripture with her, and journeyed with her through it. She was strong enough to lean into the hard stuff, to face her pain and struggle, and to let God heal her.”
               When Gadd started out, she wanted to use her degree in Exercise and Sports Science and Public Health to get a job that would provide for her. When she started to follow God whole heartedly, she wanted to use her skills to serve others.

                    Photo provided by University of the Cumberlands
Gadd with UC's women's soccer team 2014-2015.

                Gadd was the first to graduate in her family. While she’s getting her masters in special education, she’s the Graduate Assistant coach for University of the Cumberlands’ women’s soccer team. The team she was now coaching were some of the people she used to party with and who saw her before she was changed. She also started a weekly team bonding last year and incorporated scripture and faith. People were really confused and conflicted. She was confused herself about why God wanted to use her as a witness in the soccer team. The transformation in her own life and in the soccer team’s girls’ lives showed her that it was all for God’s glory.
                “She really focused on like she says, 'doing life' with us,” said Maddux. “Trying to pull us together to make us become more of a family. Kind of changed our team into more of a positive, loving environment. It’s one thing to be teammates and another thing to be a family.”

                                                         Photo by Liesel Totch
Gadd playing with children at an inner city Philadelphia soccer camp
 July 2014.

                Gadd wants to build relationships with people, love them where they’re at and experience life with them. She still struggles with staying in the Word and being led by the Spirit. When she was coming back from her summer mission trip to the Dominican Republic where she felt like she was being led to a life of full time ministry and missions, she was on the bus and a woman asked her if she was a missionary. Gadd just said no and the women replied, “Well, you should be. You just radiate Jesus.” Afterwards, Gadd wished she had said yes because as a follower of Jesus she’s a missionary. 
                 Though she loves the Lord and soccer, last year she didn’t want to come back. As Gadd put it, she was under spiritual attack. After talking with Atwood, she realized she had to finish God’s work. This year, she’s planning a trip to take the women’s soccer team to Haiti on a mission trip.
                 “It’s not about me, it’s about others. Being a light is exhausting, but I can’t quit. That looks like abandonment. That’s what happened to me and I don’t want to do that to them. I want to be there for those girls.”
                  Gadd is looking forward to next year when she’s hoping to graduate with her masters and then accept a job in Vienna, Austria. Surge International Soccer, soccer ministry, has given her an opportunity to do outreach while playing soccer. She would be a referee at soccer camps every week, teach English, play on a professional team and encourage other Christians on her team and in the city.
                   “She is a beautiful example of what it looks like to surrender to God and trust Him with everything,” said Atwood.