THE SLAMERS

Click on the image above to watch our update now, or read the previous post for the print version.

June of 2024 marked 28 years of being on staff with Cru. Seeing the lives of students transformed and resourcing and caring for fellow Cru staff, has allowed me to see God work in so many ways! It has grown my view of who God is and grown my heart for others. We are so thankful that as I was homeschooling the kids, I could engage in a variety of ways in the mission of reaching students for Jesus!

As I enter this new season with both of our kids in college, I am now engaging full time with our national  Mission Trip Team with Scott! We both wholeheartedly believe summer missions are one of the best things Cru does. I have spent many summers on Cru Summer Missions in Newport Beach, Central Asia, Ocean City, Santa Monica, and East Asia. Those summers were life changing! I love that the Lord lets us be a part of what He is doing to draw people to Himself! 

The first role I am taking on is working on our Summer Mission Team Leaders Conference (SMTLC) that happens every January. It is where we train and equip all of our summer leaders, from all over the country, to lead a summer mission team! I will also be adding in handling some communication for our team in the coming months. 

Growing into adulthood and raising a family on staff with Cru has been such an incredible blessing.  We have been consistently surrounded by leaders and friends who are full of faith, wanting to grow and desiring His name to be glorified above all else! I look forward to many more years of serving the Lord and serving others SO THAT His name is praised among the nations!

PRAISE & PRAYER REQUESTS!

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what He has done!” – Psalm 105:1

Click on the image above to watch our September video update now, or go to the previous post to read the print version.

We thought you’d like to hear some recent news in the Cru world. In June, David Robbins was selected as the 4th president of Campus Crusade for Christ International/Cru. Robbins, 46, brings more than two decades of experience with Cru, most recently serving as CEO of FamilyLife, a ministry of Cru dedicated to helping families grow closer to God and each other, and impacting their corner of the world. David Robbins is a familiar name to Cru staff, and we are excited for the leadership he will bring to Cru in the years ahead!

Oops!

We had an omission in our prayer letter last month. We left off the last couple sentences of our daughter, Sarah’s summer mission trip experience in West Asia, this summer! Here’s the rest of her story:

“I hope and pray that I can continue to practice boldness in these ways in my ministry at my church, in my family, school, and in every mundane moment of my life! Finally, getting to worship in a different language with people of a different culture gave me such a beautiful picture of what heaven will look like!”

These are a few more quotes from students who went on summer mission this summer.  Thanks for investing with us in students like these, and their ministry to thousands this summer!

“I feel a lot more confident with initiating spiritual conversations, and I feel like I better understand how to share the gospel with people that I am friends with. I was also challenged to be more humble when it came to being a part of a team and considering other people’s interests.” – Aksanti – North Africa Summer Mission

“I went into the mission in a season of spiritual burnout, and through prayer and scheduled time in the Word, God renewed my desire to spend time with Him. God was also moving in incredible ways through our outreach — over 3,000 people heard the Gospel and 548 people indicated decisions to follow Christ!” – Lydia, Ocean City, NJ Summer Mission

PRAISE & PRAYER REQUESTS!

Praise God for the changed lives of students who went on summer mission and the tens of thousands they reached with the gospel!

Please pray for Cru’s new president, David Robbins. That he would continue to walk closely with God and that God would guide and protect him.

A Gift from Cru!
Use this promo code (CRUTHANKS) to get a major discount on FamilyLife’s “Weekend to Remember” marriage getaway!
http://www.familylife.com/weekend-to-remember

Last month, our very own daughter, Sarah, went on one of our Cru Summer Mission Trips to West Asia! As a 20 year-old college student, she got an inside look at our international trips, and had a fantastic experience! We’ll let her tell you about it in her own words:

“Our main ministry on the trip was going out to local cafes and a University campus to make friends with students. Once we built relationships with students, the hope was to have spiritual conversations with them! I had the privilege of meeting a University student on our second day of ministry with my teammate, Riley. The English name we gave her is Ellie, so that is what I will call her here! For safety purposes, we cannot share her name or face. Spiritual things came up quickly and we eventually learned that Ellie really was not sure what she believed, but she was open. Riley and I had the opportunity to share the gospel and thanks to the GodTools app, Ellie was able to read it in her heart language. She was not ready to make a decision that day, but she wanted to hang out again!

We hung out with Ellie two more times and she came to church with us! At coffee after church, we introduced her to our local friend from a church there – we will call her Dani. Dani asked Ellie if she was interested in Christianity and Ellie responded “maybe.” We prayed for Ellie before we said goodbye to her and Dani plans to meet with her. I am confident that the Lord is working in her and that she is not too far from a relationship with Him. I am so honored that we got to be a part of Ellie’s spiritual journey!

Ellie was just one of the students our team got to meet and connect to local believers. Through this experience and many others on the trip, I learned to be bold in conversations and in prayer. I hope and pray that I can continue to practice boldness in these ways in my ministry at my church, in my family, school, and in every mundane moment of my life! Finally, getting to worship in a different language with people of a different culture gave me such a beautiful picture of what heaven will look like!”

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

-Revelation 7:9

PRAISE & PRAYER REQUESTS!

• Praise God with us for the gospel going out all over the world through Sarah, and 1,592 other students just like her!

• Please continue to pray that those gospel seeds would grow roots and result in eternally-changed lives. 

• Pray also for what the students experienced to forever change their relationships with God and service to Him.

• Pray for Sarah & Ethan as they are all moved in on campus at Biola and start classes on September 3. Pray for us as we already miss them at home and are also hopeful for this next season!

Cru has a lot of different types of summer mission trips for college students, and a few of them are even for specific majors. At the end of June I (Scott) visited one such mission trip. At the University of Redlands, here is SoCal, 15 students came to our Healthcare Summer Mission. They were medical students, PA students, and nursing students from Georgetown, Michigan, Marion, Loma Linda, and more. For four weeks they received professional training to ethically and sensitively assess and address the spiritual needs of their patients. They got to work with and learn from seasoned Christian physicians and healthcare professionals who regularly integrate their faith into their patient care in a variety of specialties and settings. They also had opportunities to do the same with real patients in both clinical and hospital settings!

The day I visited they heard from two different healthcare professionals. Dr. Jessica Tse Cheng is an assistant clinical professor at City of Hope in Orange County, and a former participant in the Healthcare Summer Mission. She presented a wonderful session on “Spiritual Care in the Healthcare Setting” and answered questions. She even had one of her patients on a video call sharing about the impact of her spiritual care, and how it gave her incredible hope and revived her relationship with God!

In the afternoon, Dr. Joel Brothers, an oncologist at Loma Linda University Medical Center, shared about prayer in the clinical setting. “You’d be surprised how many patients have said, “No doctor has ever prayed for me before,” and it has been a defining moment in their healthcare journey.” explained Dr. Brothers. Later that day, the students would enter the oncology wards and engage with patients, asking them, “Would it be helpful if I prayed for you?”

What a blessing to experience another way our summer missions are helping college students to spread the love and gospel of Jesus now, and in their future careers! 

PRAISE & PRAYER REQUESTS!

• Praise God with us for the very practical ways students in healthcare programs are learning to care for patients and bring the gospel in to their careers!

• Please continue to pray for the 1600 students on summer mission trips right now! Pray especially for them to consider and plan for how they will take what they have learned and experienced into their classrooms and careers in the fall.

• Please pray as we prepare to move Sarah & Ethan to Biola in August! 

“and he [Jesus]sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” -Luke 9:2 

Sometimes you are just walking in obedience to your call and you don’t realize in the moment how God might be using it. About 4 years ago I(Scott) started work on completely updating our application for summer mission trips. It hadn’t been done in decades and we had been receiving complaints about its function. The update process involved input from every level of the campus ministry, and from a wide variety of staff and students. After 18 months and tons of work, it was complete, and we held our breath as it rolled out, Fall of 2022. 

“This is a major leap forward for us in reducing a barrier to Summer Mission attendance,” wrote Dan Trenda, Cru Director of Mission Trips.

Not only was it a hit within the campus ministry, but soon I was being asked by other Cru ministries to glean from it. Even ministries outside of Cru had seen our application and wanted to use it as a foundation for their own, which we were happy to do. 

Since the new application rolled out, over 6,000 students have worked through the application, and that is just within the campus ministry of Cru. Each application is a springboard for discipleship conversations for most students, and the beginning of a life-changing summer mission trip for many! Through the filter of this application, summer mission teams are formed that go all over the U.S. and to 30 different countries annually. The Lord uses these summer missions experiences as a huge spiritual milestone for each student involved. These teams also increase the reach of our ministries in each country and ultimately lead to more people from every tribe, tongue, and nation knowing who Jesus is and giving them the opportunity to know Him!

We share this only to give you a greater glimpse of the scope and significance of God’s work that you are a part of through your prayer and financial partnership. We couldn’t do so without you, and wouldn’t want to. We love being a part of God’s work in this generation of college students, and we love doing so with you!

PRAISE & PRAYER REQUESTS!

• Praise God with us for the development of new tools that enable spiritual growth and life change!
• Please pray for the 1600 students on summer mission trips right now!
• Pray especially against the enemy getting footholds in the lives of students, but for the Lord to capture their hearts.
• Praise God with us that Ethan graduated from homeschool high school this month and is headed to Biola University with his sister in the Fall!

“For we are his [God’s]workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

-Ephesians 2:10