Urban Immersion

Twelve college students spent Spring Break week enrolled in Urban Immersion, a cross-cultural outreach and evangelism training program. Cru Inner City has trained students for twenty years with this immersion opportunity.

This year, students came to Orlando to help with the national Point-in-Time homeless count. They distributed food at an extended-living motel as well. They ministered to low-income children from Bithlo, a neighborhood with no clean water. Most of these children drop out of school by the ninth grade due to, in part, their addicted parents.

A New Reality

Throughout their week, the students met various people, each with unique needs.

• Dominic, a young boy whose house was recently “shot up.”
• Chelsea, a 5-year-old girl, prays for food. Her mom is an addict, and her family of 14 lives in a tiny trailer.
• Derek, a veteran and homeless for three years, is seeking help.
• Bree, a med-school dropout and former athlete, uses heroin after breaking her shoulder in nine spots.

The heartbreaking stories of the kids exposed one student to a new reality. “God calls us to be set apart, to be different. There is nothing comfortable about being different,“ he said. “I can’t sit back. . . expecting other people to go out and help them. No one may ever do it.”

A New Direction

Thank you for making outreach like Urban Immersion possible for students. Through your prayers and support, students share the Good News and serve the poor through Cru’s Inner City ministry. Many students find a new direction in life after these programs. Students also get involved in Cru’s various City ministries after graduation.

We sense God is using our skills and interests more than ever before. Our daily ministry is with computer systems and on the Internet, but we also interact with Cru staff. What we do assists field staff in their discipleship of students and others. This July is Cru’s U.S. Staff Conference in downtown Milwaukee. Sus is helping put together a gathering of about 60 staff who are interested in writing opportunities. Judy Douglass will address the group and encourage them to share God’s story in their lives.

Every day, Cru shares the life-changing message of Christ to people everywhere. Thank you for encouraging college students to consider ministering beyond their college years in America’s cities.