CSU 2011!

CSU 2011, the huge staff conference began this past Tuesday, bringing over 5,000 Cru staff to Ft. Collins. Our class sizes have more than doubled in number of children and I have had a blast this week with the jump from 8 to 19 kids. They are a ton of fun and really impressed me. Kid’s Camp has been raising money this week to buy a piece of land in Burkina Faso, Africa. Eventually a large medical clinic is going to be built on this piece of land to help the many adults and children who have no place to go for medical attention. The kids in my class were very moved by the discussion of Burkina Faso and what we could do for them. They decided to plan a bake sale, which I thought would be very difficult since almost all of their families are staying in hotels, but the parents were able to bring in some store bought goods that sold just as well! The kids ended up raising $80 toward buying the land and they were so excited! All together, Kid’s Camp has raised over $1,000 this week and we sent a few older girls to a conference session to take an offering and we have now raised over $45,000 dollars! The land costs about $52,000 so we have raised a very large portion and are hoping to bring in some more donations this week! It has been so cool to watch God work in the children’s lives and give them such an excitement for reaching other people at such a young age!

As a project, we have been able to participate in some of the evening sessions of the conference. I was able to attend a 10^th Avenue North Concert (one of my favorite bands!) on Wednesday and last night I was able to attend Cru’s 60^th anniversary celebration and listen to Steve Douglas (President of Cru) speak on using the circumstances we have been given to share the love of Christ. During the celebration, the emcee interviewed Vonette Bright, wife of founder Bill Bright and Nancy Moore, the first person to come to Christ through the ministry of Campus Crusade For Christ. It was such an honor to see how God has been moving in the ministry from the very beginning. They also touched on many other highlights of the ministry in the past 60 years. It was amazing to see how the ministry has evolved and how many people have been reached with the Gospel over the years. It has given me a much stronger appreciation for all aspects of Cru’s ministry and how much love all of the staff have for the Gospel. Following all of this, I went to a Tim Hawkins concert and he was hilarious! We have also been here for the big name change! Campus Crusade for Christ will now be known as Cru Global! The sole purpose of the name change is to be more effective in reaching people for Christ. It has been exciting to be around during this big change and has been awesome to see how the change is being handled by all of the Cru staff.

We now have one week left of project. I have experienced so much of God’s love being here amidst all of the Cru staff this past week and I am really looking forward to my last week in Colorado and what God may surprise us with!

Thank you for all of your support, I have been blessed beyond words!