Driving Back the Brokenness

Growing up in the Southside Chicago neighborhood of Roseland, teenager Wade Norman moved from one house to another 20 times. Everything around him was broken: the school system, the community and family relationships. Because he’d never experienced anything else, he and his friends could hardly imagine healthy versions of those things. Surrounded by brokenness, Wade never dreamed that he would one day become the kind of healthy father, husband, mentor and role model he’d always wondered about.

Wade had prayed and asked God, “Put someone in my life to show me what the Christian walk looks like. I don’t want to judge You because of the things I’ve experienced.” Meanwhile, Cru® Inner City staff member Brad Harry had begun volunteering with the band program at Wade’s high school. Watch and see how God answered Wade’s prayer.

Through mentors like Brad and Milton Massie — Cru Inner City’s national director, who also grew up in the area — God transformed Wade’s life. Now in his 30s and with two children, Wade and his wife, Bethany, work full time with Cru Inner City in Chicago, leading the after-school program at the Agape Community Center. Because of the way God has used Brad, Milton and other Cru staff members in his life, Wade is the kind of mentor and role model he never had as a kid — passing on to the next several generations of Roseland children the blessings and the hope he found in Christ.

There are thousands of young women and men, just like Wade, longing for a Christian mentor who can help change the course of their lives for Christ and equip them to do likewise for others. How might God want to use you to reach them?