Catching Up With ...
        Father-son soccer duo Mark and Jeffrey Collings (June 17)
        Track record holder and longtime SPU leader John Glancy (June 24)
        U.S.Olympic Track Trials competitor Jessica Pixler Tebo (July 1)
        State championship gymnastics coach Kathie Cradduck Koch (July 8)
        First-ever women's soccer signee Jennifer Hull (July 15)


By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Mindy Lee Ferguson had the 40th birthday of her dreams.
 
Literally.
 
It didn't involve some long-awaited trip to an exotic locale. It wasn't a shopping spree. Not a new red convertible.
 
Instead, that dream birthday this past January was former Seattle Pacific national-champion gymnast Ferguson (now Mindy Lee Irvine) presenting a $40,000 check to longtime charitable organization World Concern toward its efforts to stop human trafficking.
 
"Last September – I was still 39 – there were tons of conversations with some friends like, 'What are you going to do for your 40th?'" Irvine recalled. "The options are endless. But it's a milestone that you want to put a rock on."
 
Shortly after having one of those conversations, the answer came to her while she lay sleeping.
 
"I woke up about 4 in the morning," she said. "I was standing on a stage in front of a number of friends and people, and I was holding one of those fake cardboard checks. It was written out to World Concern for $40,000.
 
"I went to bed that night thinking, 'Wow – this is interesting.' And I woke up again and went, 'That was really real. I need to do this.'"
 
So she talked to husband Doug Irvine (whom she met while both were students at SPU), and also reached out to Andy Layton at World Concern, a Christian global relief and development agency this is a part of Crista Ministries and based in Shoreline, just north of Seattle.
 
Her birthday was still about four months away – Jan. 23, to be precise – and Irvine wasn't yet 100 percent convinced she was on the right track.
 
"I told Andy what I had experienced," she said. "I waited it out a little bit. I just wanted to make sure it felt right."
 
Certainly, Irvine could have chosen from among many charitable causes, and many reputable groups that focus on them. Even World Concern has several specific areas toward which it directs its efforts and resources in various impoverished parts of the world: disaster response, small business and economic development, livelihood development, clean water / sanitation …
 
… and child protection.
 
That last one includes human trafficking, a cause every bit as important as all of the others, but one which often flies under the radar.
 
"It's coming to be more popular," Irvine said "When I wanted to do this whole fundraiser thing, I knew I was partnering with World Concern. I just started thinking, instead of doing a fundraiser (just) for World Concern let's pick something more specific.
 
"This just felt right."
 
SETTING THE (UNEVEN) BARS HIGH
When she arrived at Seattle Pacific from Albuquerque, N.M., in the fall of 1993, it never would have occurred to Irvine that she would someday put so much time and effort into as worthy a pursuit as ending human trafficking. She was here to do gymnastics and study communications, with the idea of someday getting into sports broadcasting.
 
"Laurel (Tindall, SPU's long-time head coach) recruited me, and she recruited me well," Irvine said. "Part of it was, 'We have a national title under our belt.' (The Falcons had won in 1992, for the second time.)
 
"Small school, big city, and I knew I was going to be able to compete."

 

Compete, she did. An uneven parallel bars specialist, she twirled to an All-American sixth-place finish as a freshman in 1994, helping the Falcons place third as a team. For that season, she was named one of the two team captains – a distinction that usually goes to a junior or senior.
 
 "Like any freshman, you might have your doubts, like, 'What have I done?,'" Irvine said. "But it didn't take me long to say, 'This is where I'm going to be. This is a good place.'"
 
Irvine was seventh on the bars as a sophomore for another All-American award. She moved all the way up to second as a junior, then won it all as a senior in 1997, helping SPU take the national team championship that year, as well. Her 9.95 bars score during the regular season in '97 still stands as the school record.
 
She even made it into the "Faces in the Crowd" section of national magazine Sports Illustrated.
 
"It's hard to forget a national championship team. That was our goal," said Irvine, who is the only Falcon in the record book to be listed as a captain for four seasons. "Part of the reason I came to SPU was they had won a national championship. I knew that could be an option."
 
By her junior year, she also was competing on vault and balance beam. But bars always remained her favorite.
 
"A lot of that had to do with my height," the 5-foot-7 Irvine said. "I think that length helped me swing. It had a different kind of essence. It allowed me to add to my creativity."
 

'SUPER WOW – IT WAS A MIRACLE'
Between the time of that initial dream and the time of that rapidly approaching 40th in late January, Irvine's creativity – and that of a few other people she knew – got quite a workout.
 
She put a Website together through World Concern. She posted on Facebook. She made a video.
 
"I have two friends who are very creative and in the event-planning industry, and I said, "Am I crazy (to try this?),'" Irvine recalled. "One of them said, 'Mindy, this is just you being you'
 
"To me, that was an affirmation from God that I was on the right path."
 
Certainly, her life was already busy enough. She and Doug, married for 15 years, are parents to Sophia (13), Elliott (11) and Preston (4), and the two older ones are home-schooled.

 

But in every spare moment she could find, Irvine put out the word.
 
"I said, 'Hey guys, this is what I'm going to do: I'm throwing this party on this day. I'm inviting everyone I know. I'm going to give you some beer and some food – come party down with us. Otherwise, it's whoever wants to come and donate some money and help us reach this vision.'"
 
By the night of the birthday party at Hilliard's Tap House in nearby Ballard, Irvine was already at about the $18,000 mark, just through the Website.
 
Turns out, she was merely getting started.
 
"A friend of mine was the MC, and she took over," Irvine said. "We watched a video that World Concern had put together for me. We were talking about the kids and how effective this organization is. When you supply a family with jobs and get them out of poverty, they're not so desperate for money. Sometimes, they're so desperate that they will sell their child.
 
"I don't know what that desperation looks like or feels like," Irvine added. "I want to help people not be that desperate."
 
Irvine made sure that there was also some fun in the fundraising: the food, a lip sync contest, a table labeled "Mindy's Favorite Things," and an auction.
 
The evening approached its conclusion, and Irvine was called up to the stage, where a large covered cardboard check was in position.
 
"When they pulled the cover off of the check, it said $41,000," she said, still with a sense of awe in her voice in describing the moment. "Super wow – it was a miracle. It was crazy."
 
MORE TO DO, SO SHE'S STILL DOING
Even six months after that night, Andy Layton, Irvine's World Concerns contact, remains just as moved by what was accomplished.
 
"We'll have a black-tie event where you raise (that kind of money)," he said. "Essentially, she was soliciting friends and family to support this cause. I've never had anybody raise that individually before."
 
SPU coach Laurel Tindall, who just finished her 41st year at the helm, isn't at all surprised that Irvine pulled it off as successfully as she did.

 

"Mindy was one who wasn't sure she wanted to come to SPU originally. She came and was challenged by the atmosphere of the school, and I think her world was opened up a little bit," Tindall said. "She was a natural leader right from the start. I just felt we had to get her leading in the right direction – which is what happened. She has gone on to pursue that in many great areas."

A couple weeks ago, Irvine's phone rang. It was Layton.
 
"He said, 'Hey Mindy – I just want to tell you your birthday party is continuing.' I said, 'What are you talking about?'"


 

What Layton was talking about was someone who had been at Irvine's gathering had just donated $10,000.
 
That pushed the total well beyond $50,000.
 
"God is working," she said.
 
For Irvine, this wasn't a one-and-done kind of thing. In May, she put together a team for a World Concern 5K run. She and Doug have their kids getting involved, too.
 
Through it all, she would still rather dish out the credit than take it for herself.
 
"I saw this (endeavor) as being a God-sized thing, and I think He blinded me from seeing it as a God-sized thing," she said. "I think He kind of fooled me and said, 'Just move forward.'
 
Mindy Lee Irvine did exactly that. In so doing, she wound up addressing a societal challenge …
 
… and celebrating the 40th birthday of her dreams.