Khaya (center, wearing the hat) with the men from the 2012 summer missions team

A team of American college students and Cru staff, including Cameron and myself, arrived onto campus at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in July of 2010.  At that time, Cru hadn’t been on the campus for decades, and there was very little evangelism happening amongst students.  Our team’s goal was to launch a student-led movement that would help bring non-believers to know Jesus and also raise up Christ-centered leaders to be sent throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fast forward to three years later.  Cru has committed to sending American summer and year-long mission teams to Port Elizabeth.  As a result, there is now a movement of 50 students.  These students are being equipped to walk with Jesus and sent out to reach their fellow students.  In fact, because of the help of the South African students, Cru in Port Elizabeth has expanded to 5 campuses.  The movement is also beginning to be self-sustaining.  Khaya is a great example of this.

Our team met Khaya in 2010.  He grew up in a legalistic church and didn’t understand grace very well.  Previously lacking Christian community, he began to find it in Cru and a local church, where he was discipled by a few godly men.  It was obvious that Khaya had natural leadership abilities.  However, when given the opportunity to lead in 2011, he turned it down in fear of messing things up in the ministry and bringing shame upon himself.

Keith, the leader of the 2012 year-long team, began to pour into Khaya and challenged him to lead a discipleship group.  Keith helped Khaya see that while leadership is a big responsibility, there is also abundant grace.  Khaya finally accepted the challenge to leadership and began to lead a weekly discipleship group.

As Khaya moved closer to graduation, he began to sense God’s call to full-time ministry to help continue leading the movement in Port Elizabeth.  He is now doing full-time ministry with Cru, leading the same movement through which he was raised up as a Christ-centered laborer.

The time is in sight when we will be able to fully turn the movement in Port Elizabeth over to South Africans and go somewhere else to plant evangelistic campus movements.  Praise God for such fruitfulness in such a short amount of time!

Thank you for helping make an impact for eternity in the lives of South African college students!

Prayer Requests

Pray for the Lord to bless Khaya’s leadership.  Pray that he would experience grace continually.

Pray for South African college students to come to know Jesus.

Pray for our current summer team that left for Port Elizabeth on July 9.  Also pray for our current year-long team that has been there since January.