THE SLAMERS

The student lead team for SaMoSuMi15! So excited to see what the Lord is going to do with these 7 leading their peers for the next four weeks!

July 4th – Baptisms and Tug of War on the beach!

Scott did a great job kicking off Seeking the Lord week last night! “Sonship is not based on merit but relationship!”

Since arriving on June 2, the days have been incredibly full as we have trained our staff team, been out sharing our faith in Third Street and Santa Monica College and have prepared for the arrival of 75 students!! Grateful we get to be a part of what God is doing!

The next several posts will be social media posts that Becky made during the summer to chronicle some of our summer ministry. She has a way with words and pictures:) Hope you enjoy them and are encouraged!

The day the students arrive is my (Scott) favorite day of a summer mission! On the Santa Monica Summer Mission this summer (affectionately nicknamed “SaMoSuMi”), the students arrived on Friday, June 12th. Some literally coming directly from their last final exam, and others flying into LAX from all over the country.

Our staff team has already been together for a full week by this time. We’ve been praying, planning, preparing, and training to serve these students. Just hours before they arrive we bustle about The Palm Motel, putting finishing touches on welcome gifts, room arrangements, and door hangers with their names. The air is filled with tons of hope and anticipation!

The Palm Motel

Decorated Doors!

For the next four hours students and parents will arrive with car, truck, and van loads of suitcases, guitars, bicycles …and anxiety. It’s tough to walk into a new place with 75 soon-to-be friends, and 27 Cru staff people bustling around! We greet them as soon as they step out of their vehicles, or pick them up at the airport. As soon as we hear their name, we already know a bunch about them. These are the students who applied 4 months ago to come. We’ve talked on the phone, communicated on Facebook, and prayed many times for them.

They’ve all arrived! After dinner together at the church and a quick orientation of the weekend, they’re back to get settled into their rooms at The Palm. As the sky grows dark, light pours out of the once empty doors and windows of the motel. Sounds of chatter and laughing float through the air. We’re all excited and expectant for what God will do with this new community of faith in the weeks to come!

The First Night

Who would have guessed that just two weeks later, this community would have 1,275 spiritual conversations, give 386 gospel presentations, and see 22 people receive Christ, in a 6-day period!  God is awesome!  By the time we (staff team) left and handed off leadership to the students, they were no longer an anxious, fragmented group of college students.  They were a body of fellow believers trusting God for big things in them and in Santa Monica!

And the best part is, they’ll never be the same!  God has been in the process of growing and changing them.  After 8 weeks in community, taking steps of faith in Jesus together, they’ll each have a bunch of stories of God’s faithfulness to give them confidence to trust Him for the future!

SaMoSuMi15

A New Summer Opportunity 

What do the thousands of college students involved with Cru do during the summer?  In our region (Pacific Southwest – CA, AZ, HI) a few hundred will participate in summer missions with Cru, but the vast majority go back home to work, vacation, take summer classes, or get internships.  How will they stay connected to God during the summer?

When Becky was on campus, she would prepare a binder for each of the women she discipled, full of resources on walking with God, studying the Bible, sharing their faith, and much more.  It was a way to keep those students connected to God and his mission over the summer. 

Well, Cru has taken that idea and put it into an online format.  Not only written resources, but video messages, live stream weekly meetings, and even local meet-ups!  Now, staying “on mission”  and in community over the summer is accessible to every student, anywhere!  We call it Summer Connect.

Scott led in recruiting our regional coordinator for Summer Connect, and has been helping to organize it on several of our campus ministries.

To explore Summer Connect more, or register, check out this link:  http://www.cru.org/campus/summerconnect.html

Prayer & Praise

• Praise God that we’ve finished evaluating the 58 graduating student applications to intern with Cru next year!
• Pray for their training weekend, April 17th-19th.  For good equipping and connection.
• Praise God for the scores of students who attended Big Break LA, and the 707 initiated conversations, 320 Gospel presentations, and 16 people who received Christ!
• Praise God for the 65 students accepted to Santa Monica Summer Mission!
• Pray for 10-15 more men to apply.
• Pray as we meet April 20th to lay out the summer schedule.

Thank you for all you invest in prayer and finances to give every college student the opportunity to know and follow Jesus!

Just 4 months ago, over 400 soon-to-be college grads, gathered at our Crossroads Conference to consider in what ways God would use them in a career.  This month 55 of them completed applications to Intern with Cru on a college campus!  Some are applying to work on a campus here in our region, and others overseas in one of our 10 partnership cities.

Students at Crossroads Conference considering ways God might use them in a career

Watch this video of a Cal Berkeley grad’s journey to Intern with Cru:  https://vimeo.com/121187485  Meagan’s preparing for her second year as an Intern at Cal, along with 28 others in our region!

And please pray with us the month:

• As Scott helps to lead in evaluating these applications
• For wisdom, grace, and truth in our evaluation process
• For wisdom as the last few students decide about Interning next year

March is an extremely significant month in Cru ministry!  Not only are many college students applying for a year of missionary service, but Spring Break missions trips are happening all over the globe.  Students are taking their week off to engage people with the gospel from Puerto Rico to Tokyo to India.  Pray for these students:

• To grow in their ability to share their faith in Jesus
• For many to come to faith through their outreach
• For safety in travel
• For students to gain God’s heart for the world and ministry

Big Break LA starts this week and goes through the following two weeks.  It’s our regionally sponsored venue for Spring Break outreach.  Campuses from all over the country are coming to Long Beach to share their faith and get trained how to do it well.  50 students are registered to come next week alone!  To learn more or register, go to http://big-break-la.com/

Students sharing their faith with other students at Cal State Long Beach during Big Break LA

Pray for Big Break LA:

• For more campuses to come and sign up
• For safety and protecting during travel
• For many to hear and receive Christ through the outreaches
• For unity among the students and staff
• For the trainers and teachers to be effective
• Against the enemy and spiritual battle

Preparation for the Santa Monica Summer Mission is coming along great!  We praise God for a new, fantastic church partnership, and 42 students already accepted to the summer mission!  It’s exciting to get to know these students as we review their applications and accept them.  We can’t wait to see what God does this summer!

Santa Monica Summer Mission 2014

Pray this month:

• For wisdom and discernment in evaluating the last half of our applications
• For more men to apply
• For unity among our leadership team
• For wisdom in planning weekly content and calendar
• For the Lord to establish our new church partnership and unify us in His mission

Thanks for all your prayer and partnership!  They are inestimably valuable to us!

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!

Prayer Letter – February 2015

(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!