Mattie’s Story

In high school Mattie was involved with drinking and drugs. Raised in an agnostic Muslim home, she hated herself for her rebellious lifestyle, especially when her mother died of cancer in Mattie’s senior year.

Mattie started attending church with some friends and gave her life to Christ that same year, but she still struggled. Mattie explains:

“My relationship with my boyfriend eventually ended…. My entire sense of worth came from him… so at that point my only option was to turn back to God.  I had to figure out God’s love for me as well as how to love him back.  But I didn’t know where to start.”

Mattie joined a Bible study with Cru at Boston University in her freshman year.  This past spring break she attended our Big Break Conference in Panama City, Florida. While there Mattie heard a speaker describe God’s love: “He spoke of Jesus [washing] his followers’ feet. That picture made so much sense to me…They didn’t deserve this or earn it.  Rather, this was how much he loved them.”

“We woke up the next morning, and went to talk with people on the beach. … I saw a girl [who] was hopelessly drunk and … had cuts on her hands, sand all over her face, and vomit streaked throughout her hair. Her name was Sydney.  My heart broke for her. My friends and I helped her back to her room. She kept asking me why I was helping her… The only answer I had for her was… ‘Because God loves you, I do too… And you were made for more than this!’

“I was Sydney at one point in my life. And all these years I’ve felt guilt for it. I have never felt good enough for anyone or anything… As I looked at Sydney, I realized that in the same way Jesus washed his followers’ feet he also washes us…  He got down on his knees and washed all our feet even though we didn’t deserve it… He made me worthy in his eyes.”

Your Part in the Story

We count it a privilege that God allows us, together with you, to help reach out on thousands of campuses daily, and globally, through the work we do at Campus Crusade for Christ headquarters. We sense God using our skills more than ever before.  The Connect and Care project, which Mike and scores of others had been working on for several years, is installed and ready for more applications. Sus’ online training ministry is expanding rapidly.

Unfortunately, Sus will need to cut back on her ministry in order to spend devoted time looking for additional donors. We rely on families, individuals, and churches to invest monthly so we have the funds for our ministry. The past two years, about two dozen ministry partners were unable to continue their financial investment in our ministry due to various situations. We need $3000 in new monthly pledges from current and potential donors. In addition to new monthly donors, we need $13,585 to make up for the shortfall in donations.

Would you pray about this need?  If God calls you to partner with us in this way, you can give online at https://give.cru.org/0124650.

Both of our ministries support our field staff who are reaching out to students and others all over the world. Your regular donations will allow both of us to continue our work in an undistracted manner and would be a great encouragement to us.

Thank you for praying with us that God will take care of our financial needs quickly in 2013.  Because we know we are a team with you, we know that together we’ll see your prayers, and your financial investment in our work at Cru, bringing many people into God’s eternal kingdom.