Winter Conference
Wow! The month of January got away from us. It feels like we spent more time away than at home! But there are many fun stories to tell! December ended with Winter Conference between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. 500 students attended from around the Pacific Southwest to connect with each other, worship, and get trained in how to live out their faith on campus.
Students worshipping at Winter Conference!
Summer Missions
Thanks for praying for Becky and I to be able to give appropriate summer mission assignments to our 220 staff and interns. During the Winter Conference, we successfully placed all but a few! Another answer to prayer is finding two more summer mission directors for Santa Monica. Even better news, Becky was one of them! We get to lead the Santa Monica Summer Mission together this summer! In January, we kicked our leadership of Santa Monica Summer Mission off with a trip to Denver for Becky,
me, and our Santa Monica Leadership Team. We received training and time to plan for our summer mission. We have a fantastic team and we’re pumped about the summer! 14 students have already been accepted, and 32 more are in process!
Cal State Bakersfield
In the middle of January, Scott went up to Cal State Bakersfield with our team to give extra manpower to the Cru staff team’s efforts there. We spent two days sharing our faith on campus and discipling some of the student leaders. Scott got to spend part of the first day with a petroleum engineering student named Joel. Joel enjoyed hearing about Scott’s call to ministry as an engineering student, and got some experience in sharing his faith.
Joel’s now considering a summer mission trip with Cru.
Scott sharing the gospel with David at CSU Bakersfield
The highlight of the Bakersfield days, was a girl named Katia. She approached our booth on campus to take our pictorial questionnaire, called Soularium. Margo, one of our teammates, engaged her in conversation. After the survey, Margo asked Katia if she would like to hear a short outline of how the Bible says we can know God personally. Katia said she would. Moving to a concrete bench nearby, Margo shared the Gospel with Katia. And Katia received Jesus as her Savior that day!
Margo sharing the gospel with Katia, who received Christ that day!
Our time in Bakersfield ended with attending the ministry’s weekly meeting at a student’s home. 20 students showed up from all corners and cultures of the campus community. They shared their stories and journeys and so did we. It was a wonderful time of community and encouragement the Lord allowed us to be a part of!
Family Update
Ok! We’re running out of room! But a quick update on our family. Sarah and Ethan each got there own room again for Christmas. They are super stoked about that! We took about a week of vacation in between trips. Ethan started Pony baseball the end of January, and Sarah started up lyrical dance again. Both kids are also enjoying rehearsing for two musicals they will be in this Spring. Becky’s returned to homeschooling the kids daily and we are soaking up this season of enjoying our kids.
Thanks for all you invest with us in trusting the Lord to bring college students into a relationship with Himself! We are grateful, and you are in our hearts and prayers!
(The above link is the print version of our prayer letter. You can use this to print a copy to stick on your fridge and remember our current prayer requests:))
cru.org/summer – Click here to learn more about all of Cru’s summer missions, or start an application!
THE SLAMERS 