“I’ve been brought here for a reason… I can see exactly why God brought me here!” (winter ’15 update)

Some of the students that attended our Winter Conference on the west coast with John

… were the words of John* at one of our conferences in December. Jason, a Cru staffmember, had been working with John and his fellow wrestlers for over a year and trying for months to get his guys to sign up for the regional Cru winter conference on the west coast near John’s high school.

Since Jason had wrestled in college, he had been helping out with the team at the high school and going to their practices, with about 15-20 wrestlers going to a Bible study each week. It was the day before the conference started. Before that day’s practice, he had scheduled a meeting with a local pastor about partnering with his church in some way to reach students for Christ. During the meeting, the pastor said, “whatever you need, I want to help. If you guys need money…cars…resources…transportation–just tell me what you need and let’s work together.” This was really encouraging to Jason, and he went to the practice right after that, but he wasn’t informed that it was actually a wrestling match. So Jason had nothing to do during that time because the students weren’t available. He was pretty frustrated because he thought he wouldn’t have the one last chance to get some of them to sign up for the conference. So he started praying, “God, why am I here?… I have put so much effort into these guys, none of them are going to end up coming [to the conference].” He walked into the gym just then and saw all of them just sitting around waiting for their match to start. He also noticed the computer/printer room near there happened to be unlocked so he could print conference registration forms. So Jason just started calling over the guys, saying things like “someone gave a bunch of money so you could have a discount to go” and “fill out this release form!” They were excited to hear this news! (even though Jason hadn’t yet asked for the money!) and so four hours before they left for the conference, eight guys had signed up! Jason texted the pastor he had met earlier and asked if they could help send these guys to the conference, and he gave $1,000 toward that effort!  Praise God!

Students at the same Cru winter conference

At the conference during one of the boys’ sharing times, Jason told them the story of all circumstances that made it possible for these guys to come to the conference and how God wanted them to be there because he has a plan for their lives. By the last day of the conference, two of the wrestlers had prayed to receive Christ, including John*.  The conference speaker had asked all of them earlier that day to think about one of the darkest times in his life, and how Jesus was there even in that dark time. In front of all his wrestling buddies, John shared that his “darkest time” was the last time that he was raped as a gradeschooler. He said that he had been raped often at that time in his life. He shared that he remembered that time because he felt like Jesus was there when  his perpetrator was about to rape him again as usual but all of a sudden he just stopped! And it never happened again after that. He believes Jesus stopped the perpetrator from doing it. He said to Jason: “Hey Coach…  you’ve been saying this whole time that I’ve been brought here for a reason… I totally believe that now… I can see exactly why God brought me here!” Thank you for helping us create safe places for students to meet Jesus!
Because of His Grace Always,

P.S. you can download a pdf version of this update that is easily printable here.