During the week prior to Easter, I (Cameron) got to take Kaitlyn, a Sac State student to UC Davis for an Easter outreach (pictured above). The Davis Cru staff and students hid Easter eggs with candy all over campus, and students who found the eggs could enter in a raffle. When the egg finders visited the table we asked about what Easter meant to them. The answers we heard varied: Easter is “a time to eat candy,”  “the Easter bunny,” “a time to be with family,” “go to church,” etc.  

When Jade approached the table and answered that she’s not religious, I wanted to know more. Jade’s parents are atheists and her only exposure to Christianity was when she went to a friend’s youth group without her parents knowing. Jade went on to explain that she believes in some sort of higher connection and power, but one that comes from within and is self-discovered.  

After sharing my own journey of spiritually seeking and encountering Jesus, I was able share how through belief in Jesus, I also believe in a power within me—the Holy Spirit. This common ground gave me the opportunity to share how an all powerful and good God that is far outside us could make His home in our hearts. 

Jade’s views of God didn’t change in that moment, but she shared that her view of Christians did. Having an honest, loving, open conversation about faith altered some of her previous negative views of Christians. It is a great joy to see someone place their trust in Christ, but we also celebrate each little step closer someone takes to being able to believe the good news.

Please pray for Jade and others like her, that God would put believers in their lives who will share the good news in grace and truth. Pray they would hear and respond!

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Pray for those who participated in the Easter outreach, that many students at Davis would hear the good news of Jesus and turn to Him.
• Pray for God to use our student leaders’ steps of faith, especially in sharing the gospel. 
• Pray that we finish the school year well and send students equipped for summer break!
• Please pray for our family to get and stay healthy! Pray for us and our kids to draw closer to Jesus every day!  

“I want to share my faith more.  Specifically, I want to talk with my parents about the gospel.  I’ve been avoiding it until now, but I really want them to know Jesus!” 

Juan (above left), a student at American River College (ARC), shared that takeaway with Steven, a Cru staff member, after this year’s Winter Conference in SoCal. 

As the only student from his school who would attend, which meant he didn’t know anyone else, Juan took a huge step of faith even by simply going. God honored that faith, and for Juan it was a weekend full of learning, challenges, and growth!

God used the speakers to remind him of the good news of Jesus and challenge him to live a life on mission. He got to experience a Day of Outreach by going out into the community to share his faith alongside other students from Sacramento, San Jose, and the Inland Empire. And he soaked up as much as he could from all the seminars and break out times!

Juan is coming back from the conference and starting the semester encouraged in his faith and excited to share the gospel with others! As a result of the conference, he is also applying to join a summer mission trip this year and wants to see more students come to know Jesus back at ARC. 

Pray for Juan and all the students who went to Winter Conference, that the ripples of what they learned and the steps of faith they take as a result would impact families, campuses, workplaces, and nations for eternity!  

PRAYER REQUESTS

Praise God for His continual work in students’ lives! 

Pray for Juan, that God would use him to bring the gospel to his family and campus. Pray that his parents would hear the good news of Jesus and turn to Him! 

Pray for our upcoming outreach at Sac State, March 6-9.

Pray for our family to get into some normal rhythms as a family of 6!

here’s something about getting away that makes space for the Lord to work in our lives! Our fall retreat last month was no different. Cru students from Sacramento and Davis “roughed it” in Georgetown with no wifi or cell signal, spending the weekend in community and in the Word. 

Through extended time with the Lord, enjoying God’s creation, fellowshipping together, and learning about our identities in Christ, God used the few days away to impact the lives of our students!

Cherish is a freshman at Sacramento State that got involved with Cru this semester through one of our student leaders, Kaitlyn. She came with us to fall retreat and really connected with the main speaker’s talks that weekend! An international missions director within Cru spoke about how Christ transforms our lives in terms of Belonging, Believing, Becoming, and Blessing.  

Cherish was struck by what the gospel says about who we are in Christ and how we are called to live for God and bless others. She was further encouraged by our Saturday afternoon session on how to share her faith using Cru’s GodTools app (available for free on iOS/Android). For many students these messages were a springboard into God’s mission, locally and internationally. 

Flowing out of the weekend, we are running 3-week evangelism workshops at Sac State for students (including Cherish) who want to learn how to engage others with the gospel! Pray that God uses the training to open doors for many Jesus-focused conversations in the upcoming Christmas season!

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Praise God for using fall retreat in the lives of Cherish and others! 
• Pray for the evangelism workshops on campus and that they would lead to students having more fruitful gospel conversations.

“I think Jesus can be whoever we want him to be.”  

Brielle’s sorority sisters each chimed in with who they thought Jesus is or was. Each of these women had come from different spiritual backgrounds. But they all had something in common— Brielle, a friend who invited them to talk about Jesus. 

A senior at Sac State, Brielle approached our Cru table last semester asking how she could get involved. Her mom had been involved with Cru when she was in college, and Brielle recognized our name right away! She immediately joined our training times and learned how to share her faith with others.  

Brielle is also involved in a sorority on campus, Delta Gamma. Through her involvement in Cru, God has grown her desire to share Jesus with her sisters and others in the Greek system before she graduates.  

So, this semester Brielle took a step to faith to start a seeker’s Bible study on Sunday evenings. Sisters from Delta Gamma and other sororities have been gathering together for a meal and exploring topics of faith such as, “What is the meaning and purpose of life?” and, “Who is Jesus?”.

While many of these women come from unchurched backgrounds and have very little Bible knowledge, it is our prayer that those who come would find a safe place to explore Jesus and the Bible. We are also praying that the seeds planted through Brielle’s faith steps would turn into greater ministry opportunities in the Greek system in years to come. 

Thank you for partnering with us and the work God is doing in and through students like Brielle!   

You are a gift to us and these students! 

PRAYER REQUESTS

Praise God for Brielle and how God is leading her!  Pray that God would use her final months on campus in big ways! 

Pray for the DG women and others who are coming to the seeker’s study. Pray that Jesus would captivate the with his truth and love.

Pray that the Lord would raise up more followers of Jesus in the Greek system, and for the gospel to impact each person there. 

Please pray for all of our students to take faith steps to share Jesus with their friends and classmates during the next few weeks leading to Easter. 

Thanks for praying for Winter Conference! We will share more about it in our next update.

Carla, an intern with Cru in Central Florida, and her team walked onto campus at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach with a purpose. They hoped to find students who desired to tell their fellow students about Jesus and would actually take action to do so.

They asked student after student, “We’re here looking for students who love Jesus and would say that they’re passionate about telling others about him in a way that makes people want to listen. Does that describe you?”

Her first day on campus, Carla eventually approached a student named Malik (see picture above) with this question. Malik said that described him, and invited Carla and her teammate, Chris, into his dorm.

Carla and Chris shared more about their vision of finding a student who would share the gospel and make disciples through spiritual multiplication (Matthew 28:18-20 and 2 Timothy 2:2). In turn, Malik shared his vision graphically (see picture). To help him accomplish his vision, they guided Malik through a tool that explains the gospel called Knowing God Personally, which he could share with others.

Soon afterward, Carla was meeting with another student in the student union. She looked in the distance and saw Malik approaching a group of students. It looked like he was sharing the gospel.

“Were you sharing the gospel with those students?” Carla asked Malik afterward.

He was. In fact, Malik said he had gone from table to table of students in the student union with the hopes of sharing the gospel using the Knowing God Personally tool, a tool that he had just learned!

“I was blown away by his faithfulness and willingness to go and interact with strangers on campus to share the good news with them.”

Praise God that he has already raised up students like Malik who will be bold and share the gospel with anyone and everyone, friend and stranger alike!

Thank you for your partnership in raising up spiritual multipliers!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Praise God that he has raised up Malik to share the gospel with fellow students at his university!

Pray that God would raise up many students like Malik in Northern California and Nevada and that our team would be to find them, even when campuses are all virtual.

Continue to pray for our digital missions to Central Asia and for the Lord to raise up a team to go in person this summer.

Please pray for our family and our team to remain healthy, to battle against COVID (and zoom) weariness, and stay connected with our respective communities.  

Please pray for continued joy as our family learns and grows together.  We are loving being a family of 5.  The house is rarely quiet!

Nearly everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19. One of the lifestyle changes has been the cancellation of events. Ministry to college students and young adults, however, hasn’t stopped. Just as classes have moved online, so has our ministry.

In February, a church in a Sacramento suburb (Elk Grove) asked us to train their young adults in evangelism. When the governor mandated that California shelter-in-place, it was clear that we would have to modify our training to be “Zoom friendly”.

Each Sunday night, our team teaches these young adults a new skill to point people to Jesus. During the week, each of these 16 students put what they’ve learned into practice primarily through texts and FaceTime with their friends. Ministry is happening through students and young adults who don’t have to leave their homes!

This pandemic has surfaced major fears and anxiety about life and death, and the quarantine has provided space to address the questions students have. Our involved students and young adults are enjoying meaningful conversations with others who happen to be all along the spiritual spectrum.

We’re excited to see the fruit that God brings that may not have happened without the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you so much for being part of bringing people hope and peace in the midst of such unprecedented times!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Pray for fruitfulness for students and young adults as they reach out virtually to their non-believing friends. Pray that believing students would lean into the peace that the Lord brings in the midst of uncertainty, and that non-believers would place their hope in Jesus.

Pray for us as we continue to adjust to being a family of five. The kids are doing well overall, but life is currently so far from normal for them. It’s hard for 4-year olds and 2-year olds to understand why they can’t see their friends or even do the normal things they do throughout the week. Abby, while persistently joyful even the midst of lots of recent changes, has felt the loss emotionally.

All of us (you as well) are experiencing loss in some ways. Pray that the Lord would use this time to refine our character and deepen our dependence on him.

“You should talk to Scott,” said Pastor Jason said to Lucas. Little did Pastor Jason know that Scott would soon be training 12 other students from his church’s college group on how to share their faith.

Our Cru staff team traveled to Reno at the beginning of the fall semester to find students at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) who had a heart to reach their campus. One of our staff members, Lucas, met with Pastor Jason at his church, who connected him with Scott.

Scott had previously been involved with Cru at San Jose State before transferring to UNR. He had been frustrated by the lack of evangelism happening on campus and was excited that Cru was seeking to reach UNR with the gospel. The same day they met up, Lucas trained Scott to have meaningful conversations about faith with his friends and classmates.

Scott’s vision is to work with his already-existing college group at church in order to mobilize them to reach students at UNR who don’t know Jesus. A few months after meeting Lucas, Scott had gotten the green light from his pastor to share his vision for campus evangelism at an upcoming college group meeting. 

“It would be great to have you come up and do a training,” Scott told Lucas.

“What if you did the training?” Lucas suggested.

“Well, I guess, yeah I could do it,” responded Scott.

Immediately, Lucas took some time to walk Scott through training curriculum that Scott could use to teach his college group on how to have evangelistic conversations on campus. Within a few weeks, Scott had trained his college group. The students are now pairing up to practice sharing their faith on campus with other students.

Please pray that the Lord would use Scott and his college group to bring the gospel to many at UNR!

Thank you so much for partnering with us to train students to share the gospel who will then train others to share the gospel!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Pray that UNR would be reached with the gospel through many more students like Scott.

Pray that churches all over California and Nevada would be equipped to reach out to high school and college students around them.

Pray that our team would be able to train 10 churches this semester on how to have personal ministries of evangelism.

Pray for our family as we soon welcome our son into our family. Please pray for a healthy delivery, sweet time together, and a smooth transition. 

“Hey, what do you think about Jesus?”

Hunter, a student at FLC, has had his life changed by Jesus. He grew up in church, but started living the party lifestyle, and realized he needed to get out of it by the grace of God. He went to church and met with the pastor, and eventually started walking with Jesus.

“Jesus has totally changed the trajectory of my life.” Hunter isn’t complacent with Jesus only changing his life though. “I want to make Jesus available to everyone.”

Hunter is great at making friends. Whether it’s at school, at work, or with the high school basketball team that he trains, Hunter wants to give everyone the opportunity to know Jesus. With such a huge desire to make Jesus known, all Hunter really needed was someone to model what it looked like to share his faith and then some coaching. This happened through one of our Cru staff members, Jill.

“I never knew how easy it is to share my faith until I saw Jill do it.”

Hunter is constantly starting spiritual conversations with his friends using the training that he received from Jill. After finishing a pick-up game of basketball that he invited his friends to, he asked them, “Hey, you guys know that I go to church. What’s your spiritual background?” He listened to their responses, and then asked, “What do you guys think about Jesus?” After listening some more, he asked if he could share what the Bible says about Jesus, sharing the gospel with them.

In response, his friends began asking questions about Jesus, so Hunter started an investigative Bible study through the book of Mark. 11 guys started coming and 6 of them ended up sticking around. All 6 of them have decided to follow Jesus.

Elsewhere, while with the local high school basketball team, he started talking to individual people on the team. Adam and Erick had similar stories as Hunter, growing up somewhat in church and getting lost in the party scene. After Hunter shared the gospel with them, they soon decided to rededicate their lives to Jesus. Hunter is mentoring them in the foundations of the faith, and they are sharing the gospel with their coworkers. Adam has even started a small group bible study with them going through the book of Mark.

Hunter has made sharing about Jesus a way of life, and God is using him in mighty ways!

Thank you so much for helping students like Hunter share the gospel wherever they go.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Thank God for the work he has done in and through Hunter’s life!  Pray that God would continue to use Hunter and bless him in sharing the gospel. 

Pray that God would grow others to take the gospel to their campuses, friends, and communities .

Pray for our team to be refreshed and fruitful in ministry and life!

Please pray for our family (and team) to stay healthy during this cold and flu season.

“We’re looking for students who love God and want to share Jesus with classmates. Do you know anyone like that at Yuba College?”

“Yes, me!” Mason replied.

Lucas met Mason on a Tuesday while our staff team was spending the week at Yuba College and asking students the above question. Lucas sat down with Mason the next day to talk about what it means to be an ambassador for Christ at Yuba College. Little did he know that he’d become a spiritual multiplier that very same day.

After they brainstormed some ways to reach the campus, Lucas asked, “What if we go share the gospel with someone right now?” Mason enthusiastically agreed.

Lucas and Mason walked up to the first two students they saw on campus and asked if they would be interested in talking about life and spirituality. Daniel and Devon were open, so Lucas and Mason sat down to listen to some of their story using a short spiritual interest survey. Daniel and Devon indicated at the end of the survey that they had a high desire to know God personally.

Lucas and Mason began to share the gospel using the “Knowing God Personally” gospel presentation through the GodTools app. It was pretty evident that they had never heard the gospel before, but they were intrigued and drawn to the message of grace and love through Jesus. At the end of the conversation, Lucas asked, “Do you guys want to put your trust in Jesus to bring you into a relationship with God?”

“Yes!” they both responded.

Mason is already planning to regularly meet up with Daniel and Devon to equip them in their new faith. Our staff team is excited to be able to coach Mason as he continues to take steps of faith, both with mentoring Daniel and Devon and also seeking to reach the rest of his campus alongside others.

Pray that God would lead us to more spiritual multipliers all over the Sacramento area and beyond who want to reach their campuses.

Thank you for your generous partnership and investment in the spiritual lives of students on college campuses in Sacramento and beyond!  We are so grateful for you!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Our team is busy at the start of the fall semester searching for students who want to multiply their lives so that every student on every campus can hear the gospel. In the fall semester, we’re hoping to visit 13 campuses to surface leaders. Would you please pray that God would lead us to these students on every campus?

Pray that God would greatly use students on campuses to be part of proclaiming his message of redemption.

Pray for more partnerships with churches in our area so that we can work together to reach every student.

Please pray for our team and family’s health as we enter the fall and start new routines.