Last week, I launched a new design for Destino, a contextualized ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ to Latino/Hispanic college students.

I came across this video today from the Destino group at Long Beach State. I enjoyed getting to see and hear from students involved in the ministry. One of the things that I enjoy about my work is getting to work with different groups that have a strong sense of mission and vision. It has been a privilege to serve Destino through my skills and talents.

UPDATE: 9/16 — Today I came across the story of Claudia, a Destino student at Texas A&M. I was encouraged to see how God has raised up this student leader. I wanted to pass it along for your encouragement.

One of the current projects that Jeff is working on is a redesign of destinomovement.com. Destino is the Campus Ministry’s contextualized ministry to Latino students. We were encouraged by this video testimonial about how God is working in the lives of Destino at Texas A&M and University of Texas.

Recently Katy designed her own Summer Project Brochure. Below, you see the cover to her brochure on the left, and the actual cover from the brochure used in the promotional video. You can see how closely Katy matched the details.

But what I like even more is the inside of the brochure. She has a really simple message that reflects the whole reason my team worked on the Summer Project Promotional Package. It is to answer the question, “What is Summer Project?” I love how her brochure points to the Web site that I spent the summer redesigning.

See bigger version of the inside of Katy’s brochure

Fall 1993 to Spring 1997, Fall 1998 to Spring 1999
Kansas State University

Our first assignment found us at Kansas State University. During our 5 years, we saw God work in many lives as we shared the gospel and mentored students.

For Anne, the most memorable part of ministry at K-State was the women she discipled. It was exciting to see these women lead others to Christ and lead small groups of their own. For Jeff, it was having the privilege of leading John to Christ and helping John become a life-long disciple. Jeff was honored to be in John’s wedding in 2001.

In the Summer of 1996, we took eight students with us to Hungary for SpeakOut English camp. We enjoyed getting to work alongside our K-State students as we built relationships with Hungarian students and shared the gospel. Our summer experience prepared us for the next big step in our ministry.

Fall 1997 to May 1998
Debrecen, Hungary

It was ten years ago that we had one of the biggest adventures of our staff career. We joined eight other Americans on a campus in eastern Hungary. We enjoyed working with the Hungarian students already involved in the campus movement. One of our students is now part of the campus team in Budapest.

Both of us agree that it was one of the most challenging years of ministry, but also one of the richest. We are still close to many of our teammates. Recently, we have reconnected with some of the students we met that year.

Fall 1999 to December 2004
Student LINC, Orlando, Florida

Anne worked with Student LINC our first year in Orlando. She helped Jess (left in the picture) to start a new ministry to Doane College in Nebraska. That ministry has been continued by successful generations of student leaders.

Working with Student LINC was a great opportunity for Jeff to use his years of ministry experience and combine that with his creative talent. Jeff was able to help fulfill the original vision of GodSquad.com and make it into an indispensable resource for students and staff. The site is utilized around the world as staff and students trust God to change the lives of young people.

December 2004 to Present
theLAB, Orlando, Florida

As Jeff continued to grow in his Web skills, he was asked to join theLAB,
the media and technology solutions team for the Campus Ministry.

Jeff enjoys being part of a creative team who are using their gifts to help reach students for Christ, build them in their faith, and challenge and equip them to reach other students, both on their campus and around the world.

Currently, theLAB is working on a promotional package for 2009 Campus Crusade Summer Projects. The package includes several videos, a print brochure, Web site, and a motion design project that will allow students to add their faces to a video. It is an exciting opportunity for our team to create an integrated product that communicates through 3 different design mediums.

Summer 2005, Spring 2006, Spring 2007
Short-term Missions to Hungary

In the summer of 2005, we returned to Hungary with Katy and Ryan. It was fun to see Katy thrive in the environment of our English camp outreach to Hungarian high school and college students. Both the Hungarian students and the American Christian students loved having her around. Katy would like for us to go back for another summer.

Jeff returned for his sixth visit with a group of 10 teenagers from Orlando in March 2006. They spent a week speaking in Hungarian high schools and helping with a Battle of the Bands outreach. Jeff led a smaller team in 2007.

Read more about our ministry in Hungary

At conferences and retreats:

• Students hear more clearly from the Lord when they get away from the noise of school and life. They accept Christ and make life-changing decisions to serve the Lord.
• Students have a chance to bond with other students. Relationships are formed that will be important throughout college and beyond.
• Momentum is created for the local campus movement. New students will learn about Campus Crusade for Christ. Involved students will become more aligned to the vision of reaching the campus for Christ.

In March, about 2200 staff and students participated in Big Break, our Spring Break outreach in Panama City, Florida. During the month, over 7000 people heard the gospel as students initiated conversations on the beach during Spring Break.

This month, students have returned to their campuses eager to talk with friends and classmates about the gospel. Twenty students at North Dakota State have agreed as a group to start 54 spiritual conversations each week until the end of school.

How do we help change lives through conferences?

Jeff is working on a Web design project to make our conference registration tool even better. He hopes to streamline registration so that students can more easily go to conferences where their lives may be changed forever.

Read more about this year’s Big Break outreach

In February, 20 Campus Crusade staff came to Arkansas to help expand our ministry to reach each of the 140,000 students who study in the state. Jeff had a chance to be part of the campus launch at UALR.

Read about Jeff’s experience in our March newsletter (pdf)

When the Campus Crusade staff showed up at Richmond Community College to offer some coaching, the pastor’s wife had put together an outreach with a live band, 600 slices of pizza and an iPod that had been donated by the church partnership. To enter to win the iPod, students were asked to fill out a “30 second survey” that was downloaded from GodSquad. The survey generated over 100 contacts of people interested in small group Bible studies or knowing God personally. Over 60 students heard the gospel during the concert. GodSquad played a central role in helping to equip this pastor’s wife to begin the Campus Crusade ministry at Richmond Community College.

It was fun to be around the students that are trusting God to launch a movement at Seminole County Community College. Blake is a 24 year old who had attended college for a year and then sold insurance for 3 years. He often wondered why he made that choice but now he believes it is because God has raised him up at this hour to be part reaching students for Christ. He re-enrolled in school this fall. He is full of enthusiasm for what God could do at SCC. He did a great job of meeting students and inviting them to a pizza party that evening.

Blake appreciated us being there. He could not have pulled it off without some help. I enjoyed being a part of it and I feel like I took so much more away that anything I put into it.

Katy was in her element. She jumped in and helped. The other staff and students enjoyed having her there with us. Katy passed out Survival Kits, helped with spiritual interest surveys and helped Blake pass out flyers advertising tonight’s meeting.

I was able to explain to Katy that a lot of my work in building Web sites is to help students like Blake reach their campus. I am glad she got to see that and experience a college campus. She would love to do it again.

Anne and I had visited this campus 8 years ago to explore and put up posters that might help raise up a student leader. We also spent time praying for the campus. I remember praying that God would raise up a movement there. It was exciting to be part of answering that prayer several years later.

I have posted pictures of our day.

• Flickr.com
• Facebook

Fifty students came back that evening for a pizza party. Here is an account from my collegue, Amanda Stephens:

“As we ordered the pizza after Club Rush, we decided to trust God for 50 students. So we ordered 12 large pizzas! Well, God was faithful and we had about 50 students come…..only one slice of pizza was left at the end of the night. Blake organized their first weekly meeting. We played games, had ice-breakers, and two girls led us in praise and worship.

One student even brought dessert for us. God showed up in so many ways. For example, we were supposed to only have half of the room we were in, but at the last minute the other group’s meeting was canceled so we were able to open the room up to accommodate our larger group. We feel like we have a lot of momentum and we’ll be pretty busy this semester keeping up with it.”

It is really amazing that 50 students showed up for the pizza party. Ministry on community college campuses is a real challenge because they are commuter schools and do not have the same sense of “community” that non-commuter schools have. I think it is quite a testimony that 50 students showed up for an event at night. Especially when you consider that many community college students also work a job. We are looking forward to seeing what God does in the coming months.

The following week, 30 students came to the second meeting. We look forward to seeing what God is going to do at Seminole Community College.

Something unique happens when we look at an image. Images connect deeply with our emotions and our experiences. They allow us to engage with people on a deeper level.

Soularium is a new image survey, providing 50 original photographic images and 6 simple exploring questions that allow the user to have one-on-one spiritual conversations with non-believers.

Questions explore people’s desires for their ideal life and spiritual journey. Soularium provides bridges to dialogue about Jesus. Staff and students who have field tested Soularium have found that they not only enjoyed using it, but non-believers found it intriguing as well.

Here is the story of how one Campus Crusade staff member used the survey:

“After hearing some good things about Soularium from some Campus Crusade Spring Break Conference attendees, I was excited to try it out. Last night I sat down with Travis (not his real name). He is a seemingly shallow, self-centered partier and has refused to attend any Campus Crusade or church events with his roommates.

“He picked out 3 pictures for each of the first two questions, which led to good discussion. Then he picked a picture that represented God, a picture of doors that are chained shut.

“With tears in his eyes, he described his less-than-positive church experience from junior high and how he’s been reluctant to attend any organized religious event since then. I could sense how deeply he had been hurt by his experience.

“We went on to discuss the difference between religion and knowing God. Without the Soularium cards, this conversation would never have happened. What an incredible tool for initiating gospel-centered conversations.”

Jeff designed and built a companion Web site, mysoularium.com. Responses to the Soularium image survey are entered on the site. Those who use the survey and the people they interview can discover what the trends are among other students around the nation or on a specific campus.

I am going to be interviewing students at the conference to help me guide me in future improvements to GodSquad.com. I am looking forward to seeing several of the staff that we served with in this region of the country when we were field staff at Kansas State.