International Praise Festival

Last night we had the International Praise Festival at the University of Central Oklahoma, in partnership with a few different Christian organizations on campus and several local churches in the area. It was probably one of my most favorite events I've ever been a part of!

One of the worship bands from a local church here played throughout the evening, while we had some Latin American students sing a couple praise songs in Spanish, two Nepali students and three Japanese students share their testimonies, a whole group of African students and performers sing and dance, and the student director of Impact (a ministry for African American students in partnership with Campus Crusade) shared his testimony and a brief Gospel presentation. We had over 200 people come, and at one point in the evening everyone was out of their seats, dancing and singing with the African band!

Through donations we were able to give out about 150 New Testaments to everyone that came, and we had about 30 international students say they wanted to celebrate Christmas with a Christian family in the area. But, by far, the most exciting part of the evening was to hear the five international students share their testimonies of how they came to believe in and follow Jesus, especially with all the Japanese and Nepali students in the audience!

Please pray for these students and for God to use last night to bring many international students into new life in Christ! Also, pray that the Spirit would continue to move in many of the Christian's hearts to reach out to international students more and more!

*We filmed the whole event, and I will put some of the video up as it is available.*

2007 Oklahoma Catalytic Summer Projects

A slideshow of pictures from our students' summer projects. They went to Branson, Santa Cruz, Breckenridge, Thailand, Italy, and South Korea.

SWOSU: new beginnings

Last fall was a difficult semester for our students at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Over the course of the semester they experienced a significant drop in morale, a decrease in students involved, and the loss of one of the student leaders. Then in the spring, just as things were getting started, one of the students involved was killed in an auto accident. The year ended up well, though, with nine of the students going on summer projects to Missouri, California, and Italy.

At the beginning of this semester we weren't sure what to expect, but we knew that we had a great leadership team and were excited about them and optimistic about the year. We started the year with a retreat for our leaders and went out to SWOSU's organization fair a week later. At the organization fair, about 6 students helped with the FSK table at which more than 300 surveys were filled out. Later on, after discovering that their old meeting place would no longer be available, the ChiAlpha director offered for the students to use their building, and eventually the Lord provided the ballroom as a place to have the weekly meeting. It's bigger than the old room, and there will be plenty of room to grow. Generosity everywhere!

On the Sunday following the FSK table, after calling all of the contacts, the student leaders got together to talk about the semester and about 15 extra people showed up who wanted to be more involved. They all then went out and chalked the campus to advertise for the first weekly meeting. So, the next day, they had the first weekly meeting with free pizza like they have for the past few years. Usually they order about 15 pizzas, but Ty, our student director, called me sometime during the meeting to let me know they had ordered a few more, 31 in total, not because people were hungry, but because there were nearly 300 people there! The meeting was outside so they played some games and all stood around a talked. Ty said that as he went around to the different groups of people, he saw at least one Cru student greeting people in each group. At the end of the evening, James, one of our student leaders, shared about the vision and mission of Campus Crusade with all of the people there. All in all, it seems like a pretty incredible start to the year! I told Ty that although we had talked about rebuilding last semester, it seems that the Lord may have been at work building in people's hearts all summer long.

Please pray that both we and the student would be good stewards of what the Lord has done so far and wise and Spirit-filled in the following months as we work help all those students get plugged into the movement at SWOSU. Oh, and there is also a basketball player who has been on an AIA summer project who has become involved and wants to do some things to reach athletes at SWOSU. Pray for multiple movements!

Santa Cruz, CA

As you may or may not know, my summer plans have changed a little bit and I'm now with the summer project in Santa Cruz, California. It came up two weeks ago that they needed another guy for the staff team. After thinking and praying about it for a week, it seemed best to me and to the Lord to come to Santa Cruz for the summer. What I'm most looking forward to and what I feel like the Lord has me here for are the opportunities to do some new things to reach out to the community and to internationals, growing in my discipleship skills, and growing in the Lord with the other staff.

The rest of the 56 students arrive tomorrow, and everything will be in full swing! Please pray for everyone to settle in and get to know each other easily. The few students that are here have been great, but having so many more will certainly be a challenge for everyone! It will be really neat to see how the Lord uses so many that have set aside a summer to be used by Him here in Santa Cruz.

If you're interested in knowing some more about Santa Cruz or our project or one of the churches I'll be working with this summer, you can check out these links:

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/news/local/index.html
http://www.santacruzsp.com
http://www.vintagefaith.com

Stay tuned for updates and pictures!

Virginia Tech

As I'm sure you've heard about and seen much of the news about the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the following is from an email that Mark Gauthier, our national campus director, sent to all of us staff. It has some ways that you can pray for the students at VT as well as the Campus Crusade staff and students there. For up-to-date info from the CCC staff at VT and stories of what God is doing there right now, you can visit campuscrusadeforchrist.com/virginiatech. There are stories and links to some of the students' television interviews.

As you go to prayer, I want to simply remind you of the promises of God. He promises to move on our behalf when we seek Him in prayer. How and why He condescends to us remains a mystery but "this is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." (1 John 5:14) God promises to glorify His name, the name above all names, as we walk in dependence and submission to Him. (2 Thes. 1:12) And finally, God will bring people to Himself as He is lifted up. He is drawing people even now as students are looking for comfort, as they join Christians who are praying on campuses, even as they search the internet for the answers that they seek. I am convinced that He will use this tragic event in the lives of people all over the world to bring many into the only relationship that offers real and lasting peace.

The staff at Virginia Tech have asked us to specifically pray for the following things:

1. The families of the students who were killed

2. The students who were injured and still in the hospital

3. 4 students that were involved with Campus Crusade were killed. Please pray for their families and friends.

4. Survivors of the shootings who witnessed the horrors of that day. Pray for God¹s grace and comfort

5. Pray for wisdom for the CCC Staff and other campus ministers and pastors as they seek to counsel and love the hurting students

Pictures from Florence

07.03.25 Italy Vision Trip

We're back from Florence! We had a great time getting a taste of ministry in Florence and seeing Italy. We visited three of the different campuses of the university in Florence (the departments are separated into different campuses, called Faculties), Engineering, Architecture, and Novoli, the Law campus. Novoli was the nicest campus, architecture the coolest, but at engineering students were the most open to talking.

One of the best parts of the trip for me was the time I spent with Gary Runn, the campus director and national director of development, and the Stint team. Because they are all in the same place I was while in East Asia in terms of having to make a decision about what to do after this year is up, it was encouraging to me and to them to be able to talk about their options and what the decision process was like for me. I told them all at the end that while my heart still beat for Asia, it had grown room for Italy too! You can see some of it for yourself by checking out some of my pictures from the trip by clicking on the picture above.

Vive Firenze!

Two students and I are leaving for Florence, Italy tomorrow! We'll be there for a week helping the long term staff in the city with ministry on the University of Florence campus. It should be a great time to encourage the staff there, to get a taste of the ministry, and to gain vision for how God could use Oklahoma Catalytic staff and students to help reach Italian students in Florence for Jesus. Please pray for safe and smooth travel and transition into Florence, for energy and dependence on God to work through us, and for the two students, Brad and Becky, to grow and be equipped to share their faith and have a global perspective for the rest of their lives.

Also, the rest of my team will be going to New Orleans to continue the relief work down there. There will be hundreds of students from across the country there to help, both those that know Christ and those that don't. Please pray for God to use this week to bring healing and restoration to the city and people of New Orleans and growth in following Jesus in the lives of those involved.

"Back to you Steve..."

Last week our students at SWOSU had an opportunity to be part of a video conference with Campus Crusade for Christ president Dr. Steve Douglas, the national campus director Mark Gauthier, and several others from the national office. It was an invitation to and informational for considering a future with Campus Crusade. It was as good as video conferences can be. There were three other campuses that were in on the video conference, so it was great to for our students to see other students just like them. It was also an incredible opportunity for them to hear from and interact with Dr. Douglas and others from the national level leadership. At one point, Dr. Douglas really got going as he was giving vision for what God is doing in the world and how students could be a part of that. It was awesome! One of the humorous aspects of the time was when Dr. Douglas got something in his throat as he was speaking and had to pass it off to someone else, who did an amazing on-the-spot job of covering for him for a minute, before passing it back over with a "Back to you Steve." It was just like News at 5!

Also, this weekend I somehow lined myself up for a part in an evangelism training time at SWOSU, as speaker for their Monday night meeting, and as the point person for our team's trip to Chickasha that Monday to launch a new ministry at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. It was quite a weekend, but I think that everything went well. We made a few contacts with some students, a member of the school's administration, and one guy from a church that is seeking to minister on campus. Please pray that the Lord would use these contacts directly or indirectly to start a spiritual movement to reach the entire campus so that everyone would know someone who follows Jesus!

3...2...1... Launch!

Part of what we do on my team is called "movement launching" wherein we usually travel to a campus that doesn't have a Campus Crusade ministry to identify interested students, faculty, and community members and churches. We will usually set up an information table, hand out Bibles, silly putty, and music cd's, and host an informational meeting for students that have come by and expressed interest. We're experimenting with other ideas for casting the net wider to more students, but the table is the main thing we do right now. Believing that within five miles of every campus are the resource to reach that entire campus for Christ, we also try to develop partnerships with faculty, administration, and local churches and ministries in order for every student on campus to have a chance to respond to the Gospel.

This semester we decided to try to "launch" five new campuses. We've been to Alva, Tulsa, Talequah, El Reno, and next Monday we'll be going to Chickasha. It's kept us really busy so far, but it's been great to get some experience going to all these different campuses and to dream and pray about what God might do on these campuses. We've met students on the basketball team, students from other countries, students who are already involved in ministry on their campus, faculty who want to lead a Bible study, and a church that is trying live in authentic, healing, and missional community near one of the campuses. Although we've seen a lot and met many people, we don't have many strong leads yet. Please pray that God would water and cause to grow the seeds that we were able to plant and that we would be faithful in cultivating them. Also, pray that God would help us to see where He is working the college in Chickasha and that He would use us there.

From Death to Life

The Tuesday following James' death I was back in Edmond after being with the students at SWOSU for a couple days. We decided as a team to go up to UCO to meet some students and hopefully talk about Jesus with them. After all that had happened, we all just felt like dropping other plans and going to talk to people about Jesus.

I had brought several different copies of the Knowing God Personally booklets that we use including one that I had in Japanese. As God would have it, I ran into a Japanese friend that I had not seen in a while. I had watched the Jesus film with him and two other students last semester, but we had not talked much since then. At the time he was interested, but not ready to make any decisions. I told him, Taiki, that I had something about the Bible in Japanese and I wanted to know what he thought about it. As we were reading through the booklet (he was reading really, since I don't know Japanese), I asked him if he had ever heard this before (I knew he had, but I thought I'd ask). To my surprise, Taiki said, "No, I've never heard this before." So, at the end, I asked if he wanted to trust in Jesus and invite Him into his life, and Taiki said, "yes, I do"! Well, it was clear that the Spirit had been at work and that having it in Japanese made a huge difference!

Over the past couple of weeks we have met to read through the first four chapters of the Gospel of John, and it has been encouraging to see Taiki become more and more interested in knowing Jesus and following Him. I hope to include him in a Bible study with other international students, including one other Japanese Christian guy, so that he can grow with them. Please pray that he would grow, that I would have wisdom in helping him, and that he would seek opportunities to share his growth in Christ with others.

Remember. Grieve. Celebrate.

A lot has happened in the past couple of months.

I'm sure you wish that some of them hadn't; and I bet that you cherish the memories of others. We've had a few of each of those as well. And, while I am grateful for each turn of events, at least one of them was not a welcome change in direction.

To begin there, about two weeks ago Kristin and I were in Weatherford visiting with our student leadership team at SWOSU. We were taking them through some training in planning for the semester, and not everyone was completely engaged in the process. We all seemed a bit worn out. During one of our breaks, around 5 p.m., one of the students received in a phone call the news that one of the students, James Hensley, had died in a traffic accident that afternoon. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. It was all shock for about the next hour.

James Hensley was a student who had just begun to get involved with Campus Crusade this year, although he had been involved in the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, a Christian camp, and his church back home for many years previously. Although he had a few mild handicaps, he was a guy whom everyone on campus knew by virtue of his introducing himself and asking how he could pray for you. And then he would run off to someone else. Everyone, it seems, who knew James felt that he had challenged and shaped their life by his tireless friendliness and concern. At the campus-wide memorial service, a video memorial was shown in which there were pictures of James serving with and befriending all sorts of people and a short clip of James sharing about his relationship with God and the things he cared about. Hundreds and hundreds of students came to the memorial service. It was standing room only. And every single one heard and saw the life of Jesus and the glory of God standing in the ballroom at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

The students are doing well now. They continue to remember, to grieve, and to celebrate. Of course, James wasn't perfect, and it's easy to forget that or feel bad about remembering it, but my prayer is that students would remember how the life of Jesus was remaking James into His image and would seek more passionately the same for themselves and others that don't yet know Jesus.