Perhaps you have heard there has been an unexpected problem with one of the teams who will be playing in next Sunday's Super Bowl football game. Some have accused one of the teams of under-inflating the footballs they used when they won their respective title game a week ago. I won't comment on that.
However, do you ever wonder who makes those footballs? Jane Helser of Ada, Ohio, is one person who does. She began working for the Wilson Sporting Goods company in 1966, two years before the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I.
At the age of 19 she began working there because she wanted to buy a new car, and since then her career with Wilson became part of football history. Jane Helser has personally stitched more than one million official NFL footballs in her 48 years with the company before she retired in 2014.
Her mother taught her how to sew her clothes, so she found enjoyment in her new job back in 1966. “But,” she admitted, "it’s a lot different sewing footballs than sewing clothes.” There are 25 steps to crafting a single ball, three of which involve sewing the exterior out of four strips of Illinois cowhide (not pigskin). In a typical day she sewed 150 footballs, contributing to the ten thousand or more NFL game balls used each year.
Ms. Helser has met some NFL players during her career and when she retired, she received a signed football from her favorite player, Peyton Manning. Naturally, it was a Wilson, one of those she had sewn herself.Our Creator God gives us a life to live and work to do, labor to help ourselves and also to help others. Jesus also calls workers to labor in the Kingdom. He said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38)
Whatever work we do, let us do it to the glory of God.
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