The partnership between the Globalscope Puebla campus ministry (El Pozo) and Mosaico, the new CMF church plant in Cholula, is already showing  tangible fruits of success, reports El Pozo team leader Kami Burns.

CMF missionaries Todd and Tonja Hancock, who previously worked with two churches in Mexico City,  moved to Cholula in August 2011 to work with a group of El Pozo alumni to plant a new church. The new group is currently meeting in the campus ministry pole barn. This past weekend El Pozo and Mosaico celebrated the baptisms of two young people who have ties to both ministries.

Carlos is a paramedic on the campus of the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla who became connected with Mosaico through the El Pozo campus ministry.  Tania is a student who came to El Pozo with friends, got involved in the activities, started reading the Bible with Courtney Wilson, a team member, and decided to give her life to Jesus this past weekend.

Tania’s baptism was especially meaningful to the El Pozo group. She asked her friend Beto to assist Courtney during the baptism because of the role he’s played in her walk with Jesus. Beto was baptized and became a Christian at El Pozo just last year, yet he’s already a key player in the student leadership group.

Seeing a church grow out of their campus ministry is just beyond rewarding, Kami says.

“We believe in the power of the local church to change our world,” she said, “and seeing Mosaico grow from idea to conception to birth to a baby church has been a learning experience for me, and I’m just sitting in the audience! To see Mosaico reaching people that El Pozo ordinarily wouldn’t, like Carlos, is such a blessing.”

When Beth Jarvis Silliman and the Globalscope Germany team began their ministry to college students in Tübingen three years ago they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms by the Christian community there. They were using different model to reach the unreached than that used by other Christian ministries there, and many just didn’t understand their approach, said Beth.

“I remember I tried to meet with a minister to share what we were doing in our early days in Tübingen, only to be rejected,” said Beth. “I got a stern, dismissive email instead of the meeting I’d asked for.”

Over time, though, this has changed, as other Christians, churches and ministries have come to see that Unterwegs is making a difference in students’ lives. Last month, Beth and her teammates were further affirmed and encouraged when they had their very first opportunity to make a presentation to area preachers and campus ministry leaders about Unterwegs.

“We shared our vision of being a Christian community for non-Christians and about how we serve as a community of and for students, regardless of where they are in their relationships with God,” said Beth. Afterwards, one pastor commended them: “You are accomplishing what we can’t; you are reaching non-Christians. Thank God you are here.”

The leader of another student ministry mentioned how he struggles to get the Christians in his group to bring non-Christians to their events, but that he himself was actually invited to Unterwegs by a non-Christian friend! “I visited Unterwegs,” said another ministry leader, “and you really do feel an intense sense of love right when you walk in. They are making a unique difference.”

Unterwegs is the only campus ministry at Eberhard-Karls University in Tübingen specifically geared toward non-Christian students. It provides a place where students can find a community, watch a soccer match, get coffee, meet friends and, most importantly, explore a relationship with God through teaching and worship. It is making a visible difference in the lives of the students who attend.

The ministry is based in a house strategically located just off the main campus, between the main student area and the gym and sports fields. The team is currently paying rent of $900 a month for this great facility, but needs help making future payments so they can continue their fruitful ministry. You can find out more about how to support this ministry project here.

The CMF Member Care and Globalscope divisions recently pooled their resources to hold their annual retreats together at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis in late July. Informative classes, shared stories, relaxing activities and focused prayer times were all features that contributed to an uplifting and encouraging week.

Attendees included 15 furloughing missionaries and their 14 children plus 53 Globalscopers. That total included members of the GS Steering Committee and 16 GS recruits, who were a new addition this year.

Roy Lawson, CMF’s International Consultant, was the main speaker on the topic, “On the Way to Personal Holiness.” Executive Director Doug Priest shared “The State of CMF,” Debbie Palich & Kent Fillinger, Projects + Partnerships division, talked about “What’s Up with Partner Churches,” and the Communications division shared “Tools to Help You Communicate with Your Partners.” Roy Lawson and Robyn Priest also presented separate sessions for men and women only.

Twelve of the Globalscope campus ministers were saying good-bye and moving on to other ministries, so this year’s Celebration was more focused on training the next generation than it has been in the past. “It was an encouraging and inspiring week,” said GS Director Phil Tatum. “We got to hear about the years’ biggest successes and also some of our biggest struggles.”

Kami Burns, the GS team leader in Puebla, Mexico, enjoys the yearly Celebration because it’s a gathering of so many people with similar passions, gifts and jobs, all together to share and collaborate. “It’s the one week out of the year when I feel normal!” she added.

The missionaries especially appreciated the programs provided for their children while they were in classes. “The experience that our kids had was probably my favorite aspect of the retreat,” wrote one. “Their teachers were great and I love the interaction they had with other kids.”

“All in all, it was a fabulous week for all of us,” said Phil Tatum, “and we’ll definitely consider combining the events in the future.”

All six of CMF’s Globalscope campus ministry teams are currently featured in “Around the World,” a series of posts by campus ministers working in other countries on a blog called “The Heart of Campus Ministry.”

The blog was started by the Association of Collegiate Ministries (ACM), and is managed by Justin Wallace, Campus Minister and Teaching Pastor with Impact Charlotte. It was designed as a resource for those who work with college students in the U.S. and abroad.

Each writer was asked to answer these questions about his ministry: 1) Where are you and how did your ministry begin?  2) What are the challenges to your ministry?  3) What do you see God doing? Globalscope staffers who wrote the blog entries were Kami Burns, Puebla, Mexico; Beth Jarvis Silliman, Tubingen, Germany; Lukas Fortunato, Santiago, Chile; Jesse Bentley, Salamanca, Spain; Robert Braden, Birmingham, England; and Michal Ruth Penwell, Bangkok, Thailand.

In his introduction to the posts Justin Wallace writes, “I can’t think of a greater risk and reward than starting campus ministry work around the world.” These writers definitely agree! You can read their inspiring stories at heartofcampusministry.com.

Nearly all 40 of the CMF Globalscope international campus ministers attended the recent “Celebration” retreat in late July, held this year in Brown County, Indiana. Nathan McDade, the team leader for Globalscope Mexico (El Pozo), shares his thoughts about what makes “Celebration” such a great event and the “crazy people” who attend.

By Nathan McDade

Globalscope Mexico

Every summer, members of the Globalscope Steering Committee, special guests, and every long-term Globalscope staff member of El Pozo (Mexico), The Grapevine (Thailand), En Vivo (Spain), Canvas (England), El Oasis (Chile), and Unterwegs (Germany) leave whatever important projects they are working on and get together for a very special conference. And every year it is a blessed time that proves worth the effort.

This event is known as the Globalscope Celebration, and the “crazy people” who attend are campus ministers/missionaries/folks who’ve followed God’s call to various college towns around the world. Their mission is to create Christ-centered communities for the young people in those places and become a part of God’s work to change lives, families, campuses, businesses, societies, and nations around the world. (more…)

Members of the Globalscope Mexico team in Puebla are holding a “Week of Poverty” this week for the staff and students of the El Pozo campus ministry to raise awareness of and help them indentify with the poor. They hope to teach the students how they might be a part of the solution to poverty.

You may not think that poverty is a lesson that needs to be taught in Mexico, but as Globalscoper Kami Burns points out, “Mexico is actually a country with great wealth, and much of that wealth lives here in Puebla. We minister to students at a school where you will see bodyguards waiting for ‘their students’ to leave class. The roads may flood nearly every day and be full of potholes, but brand new Hummers, Audis and BMWs have no problem navigating their way through the streets, past women selling tamales from a cart or men selling tacos from a basket for just a few cents each.

“We live on the outskirts of a large, cosmopolitan city, in a state filled with some of the country’s worst poverty. A quick car ride can have you in a place where people don’t have electricity or clean water, places where people have never been educated, places where people not only do not have the luxuries we’re accustomed to but also have no hope.

“So we think a natural step would be for our students, whose lives are being changed by Christ’s love, to change the world around them,” writes Kami. “We will be learning about poverty by experiencing life as impoverished people do.”

Monday, Sept. 6, was “A Day Without Electricity.” The students and staff didn’t use anything that required a power cord or battery for a whole day. No iPods, laptops, TVs, cell phones, microwaves or lights allowed. Tuesday was “A Day Without Money.” Since half the people in the world live on $2 a day or less, each member of the group could spend only $2 the entire day.

Wednesday, Sept. 8, was “A Day Without Wheels.” Students and staff had to walk everywhere all day, just as most people in the world must do. Cars, buses, taxis, bikes, skateboards, roller blades and unicycles were off-limits. On Thursday, students were encouraged to donate their extra shoes to a local organization as a reminder of the millions of people who go barefoot every day.

To conclude the week, El Pozo will hold “A Taste of C.H.E.” seminar on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10-11, to introduce students and local church leaders to the concepts of Community Health Evangelism. CHE is a biblical strategy for helping the poor in a way that promotes dignity and hope instead of only temporary relief.