Kiara Gianfagna

Kiara Gianfagna - Arkansas Razorback Gymnastics 

Kiara is a junior from Brownsburg, Indiana who found her way to Fayetteville after the University of Arkansas asked her to graduate high school early to get a jump start on her collegiate career. Kiara was looking for a college that was geographically beautiful and felt like home. She wanted to be comfortable and know she’d be taken care of. Despite being 600 miles from home, Fayetteville seemed to check all the boxes and has been the place Kiara has called home for the last 2 years.

Like many student-athletes that head off to college, one of Kiara’s fears prior to leaving home was feeling homesick. Over the last couple years she has certainly missed her family, but she has never crossed the line into truly feeling homesick. For her it was about getting plugged in early and often and staying consistent with her commitments. Early during her freshman year she found herself regularly attending Cross Church and C3, participating in the gymnastics team Bible study, and, as soon as we arrived, plugged into FCA. Kiara has and continues to seek out places where she can grow in her faith.

The gymnastics team Bible study was led by assistant coach Catelyn Orel. Kiara leaned on Catelyn as a spiritual and personal leader during her first two years at the U of A. In July of 2021 Catelyn was hired as the new head gymnastics coach at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. As excited as everyone on the team was for Catelyn, it left a vacant leadership role and questions started to arise in regards to who would step into that position. Two of Kiara’s teammates, Emma and Jensen, both approached her about being that leader. Kiara put it before the Lord in prayer and the Lord called her to take over that position!

Kiara has seen the Lord move in and through the gymnastics team. The fact that so many people from so many different walks of life who are at different stages in their faith journey can still gather with, confide in, and lean on each other is what makes their team huddle so beautiful.

Kiara started a personal project over the summer she calls “Diving Deeper”. The inspiration came after going on a vacation with two of her roommates during which time they found themselves in some deep theological conversations. One of her friends started asking some really challenging questions about God and the Bible that Kiara felt unequipped to answer at that moment. In addition to not knowing the answers, she also knew her friends weren’t the only ones seeking the answer to those questions.

Kiara has always had a great passion for her faith, she loves the Lord, loves serving, but where she felt like she had room to grow was getting deeper into the Word. Her friends asking her these pressing questions did not shake Kiara’s confidence, but inspired her to dive deeper into scripture. Her goal is to be able to address those challenging questions from a statistical, logical, and scriptural perspective. Through Diving Deeper Kiara hopes to not only provide answers to the tough questions, but equip other believers with the resources to address those questions with their friends in addition to strengthening her relationship with the Lord.