Giving Initiative: International Partnerships
Pictured: members of the Cru Summer Mission to Nicaragua and local student leaders involved with Cru in their city.
In March, twelve American students and professors spent a week in Nicaragua for their spring break with Cru. Working with local volunteers, their primary goal was to find students in multiple cities who were ready to reach the students around them for Christ.
In Leon, they held a meeting for interested students to learn more. Two of the American students shared their testimonies, and the one Nicaraguan affiliate Cru staff talked about Cru.
Then “Maria,” a Nicaraguan student who’d come, asked if she could say something.
“Hearing you guys share,” she said, “It really makes me feel like this is something I need and my son needs.” She’d married at 19 and divorced at 21. Now she juggles college and parenting as a single mom. “I have an 8-year-old son, and I’m so afraid that I’ll die and he’ll be left here alone. I hear about how you are all so secure in God, and I want to share that with my son.”
After sharing, Maria sat down and Trudy, one of the American students, came and joined her. Pulling out a Spanish “Four Spiritual Laws” booklet, Trudy asked Maria if she’d like to hear how she could know God.
Maria eagerly agreed, and listened as Trudy walked her through the main points of the gospel. At the end, Maria prayed and received Christ. Then, one of the local volunteers gave Maria his Spanish Bible, and they read through John 3.
Three months later, in May, the first Cru Summer Mission to Nicaragua arrived with four students and two Cru staff. They came with the same goal as the spring break group, but this time, they had six weeks to find and train students eager to share Christ with their campus.
In Leon, they organized another meeting for students to come and learn about Cru, and a few Nicaraguan student leaders joined them to help lead the time and share their testimonies.
One of them was Maria.
She told her story of how three months ago, she’d seen God as someone to fear and that she’d worried about dying. Then the Americans’ stories had touched her, and she’d made a decision for Christ. Since then, she’d met regularly with other Nicaraguan students and the one affiliate Cru staff to study her Bible and learn more about God. Even as they were still learning the basics of their faith, they’d taken leadership roles in this new movement of the gospel with Leon college students.
Each of those Nicaraguan student leaders brought friends they’d been sharing the gospel with to this meeting, and two of them made decisions for Christ that evening.
Meanwhile, one of the Cru staff leading the Summer Mission, Elsa, made plans with Maria to meet up later to share their faith on campus, so Elsa could show Maria some evangelism tools she could use to start spiritual conversations.
Maria was nervous about talking to students she didn’t know about the gospel, but eager to learn. While they were out on campus, Maria would start the conversation, using a set of picture cards, which sometimes lead to the gospel.
Later, Elsa showed her how to explain the gospel using the “Four Spiritual Laws” booklet, and taught her some questions she could use to explore where someone is spiritually.
Maria wrote them down. “I’m going to go home tonight and memorize these questions,” she said.
Maria has also been in contact with Trudy over WhatsApp since they met in March, and in one message, she wrote that she sleeps with her Bible every night and reads it every day.
“I don’t always understand it, but I read it anyway.”
Recently, Trudy messaged her again, asking how she was doing.
“Thanks to God, I’m reading my Bible daily,” Maria replied.
