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.

Anne helped Katy to put her thoughts together. Katy spent several days practicing. Katy did an incredible job and I am amazed at how composed she was.

Watch Katy give her testimony (requires free Flash plug-in)

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.

In an effort to improve the effective of our staff, our Global Technology Office developed a “Mobile Office.” This tool allows staff to use internet cafes, without the worry of not having programs they need.

They just need to plug in their Mobile Office drive, and work from it as if the computer they are renting is a terminal. All of the programs they need are stored on the password protected USB drive. The Mobile Office kit also contains a headset with microphone that allows our staff to use services like Skype to communicate with other staff around the world.

This summer, Jeff had the privilege of building 500 of these Mobile Offices for our staff in Latin America. It was a great way for Jeff to use his technical skills to help empower staff who are reaching millions of people in the Southern Hemisphere.

[Photo courtesy of Rob Williams ]

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.

Monday - I had the chance to share a little bit of my testimony in a classroom with a small group. After school, I went with 2 teammates to do some random evangelism. We had an opportunity to talk with a group of 7 students that we had met earlier in the day while speaking in their English class.

Tuesday - My teammate Jillian got to share the gospel with a girl, Nori, that I had met on Monday in a Hungarian school. Jillian spent 4 years living in Budapest with her family. They are with Campus Crusade. Jillian shared the gospel in Hungarian and then I had an opportunity to share my testimony as we were answering some questions that Nori had.

At the student leadership meeting, I had the joy of seeing George. He was a student in Debrecen and was involved in the ministry while Anne and I lived there in 1998. I had not seen George in almost 10 years. He and his wife are on staff with the Campus ministry in Budapest. It is exciting to see enduring fruit from the ministry that we were involved with in Debrecen. He also caught me up on several others who had been student leaders in our ministry there.

Wednesday - I got to go back to a Catholic boy’s school that I had been in a year ago (pictured above). I saw Balint, a boy that I had talked with last year but did not get into spiritual things. I found out that he is a Christian and has been involved in the high school ministry here in Budapest. He has gone out with several of the staff when they have shared their faith. It was exciting to hear what God is doing in Balint’s life. (There is a picture of Balint on our February newsletter.)

Thursday - We tried to pass out flyers for the Battle of the Bands outreach. This day was a national holiday. We did not find a lot of students but did get to witness a couple of political rallies in the city. Hungarians are unhappy with their present government and there were threats of large demonstrations and even some violence. There was a small element of right wingers who caused some minor problems. We were never in any danger because the problems happened at night and we stayed away from the areas we knew would be a target.

Friday - Hundreds of students attended the Battle of the Bands outreach. I do not yet know the numbers or how many showed spiritual interest.

Earlier in the day, I witnessed some university students playing softball in a park. This was an unusual thing in Hungary. I approached them to ask about it and next thing I know, I got to play with them for a couple of hours. It was a very fun memory of my time here.

One of the highlights of the trip for me came last Monday. After school, I was out with Jillian and Caleb, 2 students from Orlando. We had the opportunity to talk with a group of 7-8 students. About 3 of them were very interested in spiritual things and we had the chance to share about our lives and give them 4 Spiritual Laws booklets. It was fun to hang out with them. One of the guys offered to buy me a beer which was a very gracious gesture. (I very gracefully refused but did my best to show my appreciation for his gesture.) It shows how much they trusted us and enjoyed engaging in conversation.

Later today, Laci and I are going to a university to try to talk with some students and share our faith. I look forward to a chance to do ministry with my good friend and do ministry in a university which I have not done in Hungary since we lived here almost 10 years ago.

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.