This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for what God has done this fall on college and high school campuses across the country. Students are responding in higher numbers than expected to the gospel and to opportunities to grow in their faith. God is at work!
- 15,000-16,000 college students participated in Cru Fall Retreats, which help ground students in their faith and give them a sense of belonging. At the University of Illinois, so many students showed up at their retreat that they had to set up a makeshift “TentTown” amidst the bunkhouses at the camp!
- In September in Orlando, four high school students shared the gospel at a meeting with 140 of their teammates on the football team, and 54 of them accepted Christ that day!
- More college students have signed up for spring break mission trips than ever before. Last spring break, Cru partnered with a humanitarian aid ministry to send 1,450 participants to 10 countries and 15 locations, and they saw 2,900 decisions for Christ. For spring break 2024, over 2,100 participants will go to 12 countries and 20 locations!
I’m also grateful for the way God is using our Innovation team:
- This fall we’ve done follow-up interviews with teams we trained in the spring. We’ve heard encouraging stories of ways the training helped them design and prototype new ideas for outreach and discipleship. One team director said, “I’m really grateful for you guys. This was a very fun training for our team. I think very timely, too.”
- Our team in Indy recently led a workshop for the human resources team at our office. They are preparing January webinars for the Cru staff in this part of the country, and we led them through brainstorming exercises to come up with topics. A team leader said, “Thank you so much for leading the session with our team! It was great and exceeded our expectations in what our team came up with.”
- We will be running workshops at multiple Cru Winter Conferences to help students generate their own ideas for ways to reach others with the gospel on their campuses.
And of course, I’m thankful for you! Your partnership makes it possible for me to take part in what God is doing through Cru! Thank you!
