My anxiety increased as our Pan American prop plane prepared to land in Lima, Peru on April 1, 1954. I had realized enroute that no one would be meeting me at the airport. My only address proved to be a post office box number. International travel was still rare in the fifties and South America was not tourist-friendly. After bumbling through immigration and customs with my limited Spanish, I had about three minutes to pray frantically — when before my eyes stood the person I needed to contact! At 5:00 AM! He had come to see another passenger off at that exact hour!

So my years of service in Latin America began with this strong reassurance of God’s presence and care. He had not sent me to Peru — he had accompanied me there! By 8:00 AM I was at school!

I had come as a tentmaker, to earn my living in the binational school in Lima, as the apostle Paul had earned his living making tents. When my missionary preparation was nearly complete (I thought), I became very ill. After a long slow recovery, I knew no mission agency would send me abroad with only one functioning lung. So I took classes at Chico State and earned a degree in English and education. What a needy place! Friends and I began the first campus fellowship, learning much through IVCF training and leading several students to the Lord.

Then I went to teach near San Francisco and discovered two of the teachers who were also young IVCF alumni! As graduates, we helped in the area IVCF work, but we knew God held us responsible also for our school. We began a teachers’ Christian fellowship, which spread through the whole region and into the valley, with Bible study groups, evangelistic breakfasts and teas — even a weekend conference.

In the middle of all this, I was surprised by an invitation to teach abroad — in Peru, long my target country! God intervened to get me the contract with a binational school in Lima. He gave me a ministry with teachers, with elementary and high school students and their upper-class Peruvian families. He also led me to begin a campus fellowship in the local university. God had used illness only to delay me long enough to add two more pieces to my training — how to serve him in a secular school and how to begin a campus ministry! I would need them the next 21 years of my life abroad.

The university work became my main ministry. I spent three years in Peru and then took an administrative position in a bilingual school in Sao Paulo, and spent 11 years doing student work all over Brazil. Then at the request of IFES I began work in both Portugal and Spain, and did student and staff training in Austria, Poland and other countries. Then in IVCF-USA again, I recruited and trained students and graduates for missions, and then began a job-matching and missions counseling service, which has enabled us to help several hundred people to serve abroad as tentmakers.

In 1982, God allowed me a glimpse of the long-term fruit of those early beginnings. The Brazilians invited me to the 25th anniversary of the ABUB, to speak about the first eleven years. I met many old-timers, the student co-founders of the work which began in my apartment in Sao Paulo. I met the successive student generations that built it into a strong movement.

On my way home, the Peruvian AGEUP surprised me with a spontaneous 28th anniversary celebration, where I rejoiced with early graduates and later staff and students. One meeting was in my old apartment where the early Lima CBU had met!

In both countries I saw what godly adults the early graduates had become and the ministries God had given them in their secular professions or in formal Christian work, and to see their children active in the student groups. I believe God gave me this glimpse, so I could encourage others. Student evangelism, discipling and training sets off ripples that never stop.

Many students had far more potential than I. Maybe the most important thing I did for people like Samuel Escobar and Pedro Arana was draw them into IFES, to be influenced by today’s finest Christian leaders and scholars. Changing a student’s direction even slightly changes where he will come out twenty years later.

I   About Small Beginnings

II  Why Campus Ministry Is Important

III  Who Are Campus Christian Workers?

IV  Suggestions For Campus Workers

V   Beginning A Christian Student Group

VI   Expanding The Work

VII   Forming A National Movement

VIII  Seeking Membership In IFES

IX   Principles For Student Work

X   Preparation For Student Workers

I    About Small Beginnings

God allowed me to begin student work in four countries  — in scores of universities. Beginnings are often forgotten because they are the small, slow, arduous part of any movement. But without beginnings no movement appears. Church growth expert, Donald McGavran, said that just as there cannot be a man unless there is first a child and an adolescent, so it is with churches — and other ministries.

Starting from zero rakes persistence. I know people who desisted when they could not gain an initial foothold. The story of our IFES movements is a story of many false starts — little groups that did not survive and develop into organized student movements.

But those pioneers were not failures! What courage it took to try to begin work where evangelicals were a persecuted minority in fanatically Catholic countries! They made a great difference to the few students they found to serve.

Take Spain. In 1957 when Rodolfo Gonzalez and the Padillas started a student group, it could not produce a movement because there were no Spanish evangelical students! They were not allowed in the universities. Dr. Gonzales made it through but suffered persecution. The other students in that group were foreigners.

In 1960 Luis and EIida Perfetti from Argentina made an attempt in Barcelona, which could not survive. When I visited them, I found the little house churches as clandestine as those in Muslim countries today!

Spain had no civil law — only Catholic religious law, which left all non-Catholics with no legal recourse. They were non-people. Not until 1965 could house churches legally register — with severe restrictions. (Evangelicals could not be buried in the cemeteries!)

In 1968 1 began to work in Barcelona, with the first generation of evangelical students after the new law. But the meetings in my apartment were illegal. The meetings were evangelical and student. Police visits frightened us. Some of our students were kicked out of cafeterias and dorms. I was relieved when my landlord and landlady found God.

Most of Latin America and Iberia were then restricted countries with no more liberty for evangelicals than in many Arab countries today. How fanatically Catholic they were! We should not wonder that the student work only began to mushroom when the churches began to mushroom, after the Catholic Church lost its tenacious hold on these countries.

The student ministries began flourishing as their world radically changed from what it had been during the laborious pioneer years.

Missionary work in almost every country had been done among the poorest classes. Students found themselves alone, venturing into a hostile academic environment, with no pastor sufficiently educated to appreciate or help with student concerns. Some were illiterate. Many still frown on education as unspiritual.

Now many Christian professional people, including university lecturers — the fruit of our early ministry, give spiritual, practical and financial support to the student movements.

It is precisely the members of those early groups that helped produce the middle and upper class churches which now dot the Latin American landscape, that our movements, in turn, benefit from.

When we began there was no Christian literature! Samuel Escobar, Rene Padilla and others set up the much needed Certeza Publications and Certeza magazine in Spanish. But in Brazil in 1958 I surveyed evangelical books in Portuguese and found not even a dozen titles useful for students.

So Sao Paulo leaders and I worked with Dr. Russell Shedd to set up a joint publishing venture between his mission and IFES. We produced books like Stott’s Basic Christianity  —  even the big New Bible Commentary and an annotated Bible. Now many Christian books exist, the best published by our movements.

These countries were extremely poor and politically unstable. I could write a chapter only on states of emergency and the military coups that interfered with our work. Even in normal times transportation was difficult and phone communication virtually impossible. Most of these countries now have political stability, thriving economies and modern infrastructures.

The students were very poor. I remember a delicious meal prepared by a student’s mother on one little alcohol burner, in a hovel with no running water and only a mud floor. Today’s students come from the large new middle class, nonexistent two decades ago.

The IFES is now in over 100 countries, which leaves only the more difficult countries still to pioneer, where non-Christian religions are dominant and conditions today are similar to those we pioneers faced in Latin America and Iberia and elsewhere several decades ago.

Many are Muslim countries where workers can expect many of the same problems we faced, because of the similarity between Latin and Arab cultures — after seven centuries of Muslim domination of Spain and Portugal.

So I hope this paper will be helpful. I will share some of what I learned about the importance of student ministry, lessons for campus workers, and suggestions and principles for campus work.

II  Why Campus Ministry Is Important

Students are strategic and have unique needs. If I wanted to choose the fastest way to influence church and society in any country, I would choose student work. Consider these points:

1. Non-believing students are easier to win than the general population — millions of them! They are open to new ideas, and willing to drop traditional beliefs, especially if they live away from their families.

2. Christian students face unique problems. In pioneer areas there may be no pastor with a tertiary education, able to help. If students do not receive answers to intellectual questions they believe there are none. Several pastors told me that every one who entered university stopped coming to services. Students need a campus fellowship for mutual encouragement and protection from the temptations of student life.

3. Students are at the crucial age of life’s important decisions. To win and train them influences their careers, marriages, homes and families.

4. Students are present leaders in their churches, especially if they are few, and after they have received our training in Bible study and evangelism. In Spain, Samuel Fabra (now a medical doctor) was already an elder in his church. Students taught adult classes, were deacons and youth directors. Some preached.

Some did church planting. Two students in a mining college in fanatically Catholic Ouro Preto, started a Sunday school for children, involved parents, and then brought in an itinerant pastor once a month.

In the agriculture college in Vicosa, Daison da Silva and two other students, started a house church. When they sought to buy land, the priests organized against them. Then the student body organized in favor of the Christians, for reasons of democracy, not religion. The publicity enabled them to proceed with impunity. Even though they were pelted with stones, they conducted street meetings and radio programs, and quickly filled the new building with new converts. Daison was hired by the university, and headed similar projects for nearby towns.

5. Students can bring a spirit of cooperation into competitive, separatist churches. In Brazil, pastors feared they would lose members if they cooperated with each other or with us. I explained the students’ need for a group for mutual help and for evangelism, and that cooperating churches were more likely to gain new members that might result. Even some students in the early meetings were suspicious of each other. But they grew to love and trust each other, and brought a new spirit of love and trust to the churches where they were in leadership.

6. Students are future leaders in their churches. Carlos Garcia, became a Christian as a fourth year law student in our first little group in Lima, then studied theology and became pastor of Lima’s largest Baptist Church, and later, headed the Peruvian Evangelical Fellowship … Pedro Arana, who began to attend when he was still in secondary school, became group president, lFES director for Latin America, then a Presbyterian educator, pastor and writer. Several others pastored, or headed para-church ministries.

7. Students are present leaders in society, exerting great influence. If they are few, they have much more power than huge student bodies in our industrialized countries. I have seen them mobilize the uneducated citizenry, and force the hand of government. This was common in our bipolar world before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. By the time Peruvian Manolo came to us, he had already killed a man. Christian students were politically involved by their presence on campus, and needed help to think biblically about tough decisions most adults will never face in a lifetime.

8. Students are future leaders in society. Carlos Garcia was elected Vice President of Peru, and Pedro Arana was elected to congress to help rewrite Peru’s constitution. Many alumni of our IFES movements around the world have held public office.

9. Students become effective lay witnesses at home and tentmakers abroad. God made sure I would provide a model of self-supporting, lay ministry, which is also important for perpetuating the student work.

When Wangles Breternitz, first president of our first Brazilian group, and Julieta (the first to become a believer) graduated in education, they had to teach in Brazil’s outback, to pay off government loans. They started a congregation and put up a church building in one unevangelized town. They did the same thing again when transferred to another location. Then he headed a prestigious high school in Sao Paulo and she has been turning the Bible into programmed learning courses.

Another former ABU president, Carlos Alberto, rose to the top in a large corporation, with a high salary, but retired at 40, and with his wife Ida, founded, and pastors an upper class church in a gated community.

10. Students are important for the future of cross-cultural missionary work. In worldwide missionary conventions, a disproportionate percentage of the leaders are IFES graduates. Our increasingly educated world requires more of them. David Howard’s book, Student Power in World Evangelism, shows the unique role of students and graduates in missions history.

Samuel Escobar, the dynamic leader who became head of our Lima group, then the national movement, then lFES director for Latin America, then a university lecturer and writer, is often a main speaker at international missions events … Neuza Itioka, who headed the Brazilian movement for several years, then earned a doctorate in Missiology, is also an outstanding missions speaker, leader and trainer. Rene Padilla, Gottfried Oseih-Mensa, Isahelo Magalit and many others are influential voices in global missions.

III   Who Are Campus Christian Workers?

Often local students or local lecturers begin Christian groups on their campuses, or other local graduates do it in their free time. Often missionaries mobilize students in their churches, and a few are seconded by their mission agencies to teach in universities in order to do student work. Tentmakers often do student work, especially if they are university lecturers or language instructors. Students and young graduates, as study abroad tentmakers, do campus ministry.

Tentmakers are the only people who can serve in most of the countries that still have no student work. Formal religious workers are not allowed, but Christians with needed expertise can get salaried employment or study opportunities. They integrate work and witness, doing other ministries in free time.

Tentmakers are ideal for countries where student movements are already established. Many of them need help, but strong nationalism and politicized campuses make it awkward to invite foreign staff. Even if the national leadership wants a foreigner, their constituency often does not. It is risky to invite staff they have not met and be stuck with someone who does not work out.

But tentmakers do not seek staff positions. They need not even voice their hope to do student work — just their willingness to help. So they are under no pressure from the local movement, nor from donors, nor a mission agency, to send reports of great student ministry. They settle into their homes, and jobs, and begin evangelizing in their workplace.

They meet and befriend non-believing students. If God enables them to win their own student contacts, and bring them to the group, the leaders will be glad to have their help. If they cannot reach students, they look to God for another ministry. No expectations have been disappointed.

As part of the student work, they are no threat to leaders. They require no financial support. They work under the authority of the leadership. They can minister to leaders personally. If leaders sense that God speaks to them through the foreigner (spiritual authority), they will have confidence to invite him to help. If his language is less than perfect he can work with international students.

Tentmakers are also free of denominational or mission agency demands that they link up the work with them. In working with non-believers, they are not religiously suspect.

Their model of self-support can solve the movement’s need for staff. Have one or two fully supported national campus workers and several self-supporting, part-time staff. The Mexican movement has had mainly tentmaker and local self-supporting staff. Local professional people have helped the French movement for long periods when there was no staff worker.

Tentmakers can start fellowships in cities where there are none. They can help with camps and conferences, literature production, evangelistic Bible studies, discipling, teaching and training. Some can be evangelistic speakers. Their jobs provide pleasant homes to put at the disposal of students. They may be able to give generous financial help.

Faculty people understand the academic environment, the mentality and jargon of their colleagues. They belong in academic circles. A professor lends a certain status and confidence to a student fellowship, especially if no other evangelical holds such a position. A language instructor (usually English) also belongs to the university, and may have even more liberty. Faculty positions are part-time, allowing hours for ministry, apart from integrated work and evangelism on the job.

Many non-campus positions, like my elementary and secondary school work, leave the tentmaker free during the same hours the students are free. I audited classes to improve my Spanish and to meet students.

Tentmakers provide Christian models. For young people about to enter the job market, they demonstrate that a full-time job is no excuse for not being involved in ministry, on the job and in free time. They demonstrate how to live out the Gospel at work, and how to integrate work and low-key evangelism. For people who will soon be earning their living, they show that a Christian’s money is not his own. They give generously, but wisely, to the work. They show that their homes belong to the Lord, that hospitality is not optional for Christians. For young people soon to marry and establish a family, a tentmaker couple can model a genuinely Christian marriage, home and family. I always invited couples with children to our camps. Single tentmakers model the Christian life of the single male or female.

Our student converts from non-evangelical backgrounds were impressed by the Christian marriages and parent-child interactions. They were also impressed that Dr. Ross Douglas, a physics professor, would wash dishes!

In some countries, it is not acceptable for faculty people to fraternize with students. They will expect “most favored status grades” for diminished effort. They may lose respect. Most faculty find acceptable ways to get around this. They can socialize with students not in their classes, and are always free to evangelize their professional colleagues. They can always live out the Gospel and discreetly engage students and faculty in religious conversations.

Tentmakers whose work is not campus-related do not have this problem, but neither do they have the sustained, natural contact with students.

International students can be excellent campus workers, especially if they were leaders in their campus fellowships at home. These study abroad tentmakers, demonstrate Christian life and witness as students. In restrictive countries they often have more liberty for ministry than older adults. They are less suspect.

Although I earned my own living, I was younger than many of the students, so I worked with them, not as a staff person, but as a peer, as a fellow student. By auditing, I made contacts and felt the Peruvian university environment. Working as a peer has limitations and advantages. Because previous attempts to start student work in Lima had failed, I don’t think another older outsider could have succeeded.

I identified with the students, and shared what Christian students were doing on my California campus and in other countries. I was too shy to say, “Now I would like to give a series of talks on doctrine or apologetics.’ But it is amazing how much I could teach through Bible study discussions, especially since I prepared the discussion guides. I did much Bible study and evangelism training.

IV    Suggestions For Campus Workers

1. God uses imperfect instruments. He sends no finished products, because he has none. Our ministry is by grace, just like our salvation. God’s blessing is not dependent on what we deserve, but on what it pleases him to do. So we get no great credit — nor great blame. We seek to be faithful.

2. You need a strong conviction of God’s guidance. I had just arrived in Spain when I got cold feet. I knew no one. Spain was a restricted country. I was no longer a student. Even if I found evangelical students, why should they accept me, a middle-aged American woman? No one paved the way for me. Space does not permit me to describe how God warmly reassured me.

That Sunday I met two medical students in a church, who told me that just two weeks before they had met for the first time — a half dozen medical students — to discover ways to help the newly opened evangelical hospital. God had brought me there exactly at the right moment to challenge this group to reach their fellow-students — an idea they had not considered. They became excited about the possibilities, and rounded up a dozen students — about all there were.

3. Expect God to give you favor with students as he gave Joseph favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, and gave Daniel favor in the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar.

4. Expect God to lead you to key people. A couple of hours after my arrival in Brazil, I met Wangles Breternitz, who would become our first student leader in Sao Paulo. Of the fifteen students who attended our first camp, all but two became active in our work.

5. Ask God to give you spiritual authority. In a pioneer situation, you have not been elected, appointed, or authorized in any way — not even invited by the students. But Christians will respond if they sense God is working in their lives through your words.

6. Remember your mandate is from God, not the students. The marxist atmosphere of Latin American universities was very anti-American, but the hostility was not personal. Radical students were friendly. They hated all the Americans they had not met. In Brazil, I shared a room with a young faculty woman who was a key spokesperson for the just deposed Marxist government. She was in hiding from the new government. I was doing evangelistic Bible studies with her! I knew God had arranged our meeting.

Marxism has decreased since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the massive turn to free market economics. Americans are used to anti-Americanism, but other nationalities also experience hostility, like the Chinese in Southeast Asia. There are tensions between the Japanese and the Koreans, between Europeans and North Africans, between Arabs and non-Arabs, and in Africa among adjacent tribes. But we need not rule out regions where we are not loved. The Great Commission has no popularity clause. God chose Jews as his first envoys — hardly popular in Rome!

7. Do not let Christians discourage you. Several missionaries in Peru assured me it was no use. They had tried and failed. A serious attempt just the year before had failed. But my approach was different. The missionaries became very supportive! I had no mission agency — then suddenly I had four! I found no initial encouragement in Brazil or Spain, but a missionary couple in Portugal was helpful, since they had been trying to get work going.

8. Pray regularly and keep a prayer notebook. By recording our prayer requests they become more specific and definite. It’s easy to say, “Oh, that worked out well,” because we forgot we prayed. By recording requests, we have a place for answers. It is a good way to remain aware of God’s constant intervention on our behalf, even in minute matters. I place a T for “Thank you” when a request is answered — often with details. But I place only small t’s for partial answers, and a row of them encourages me to keep praying.

9. Make personal Bible study a priority. You need it for survival and for ministry. In Peru after only a few meetings I panicked. I had already taught all that I knew! I realized I could not regularly give out unless I regularly took in. So personal Bible study became a major part of my life. I was refreshed and I could turn my studies into discussion guides for students.

10. Make group Bible study a priority. Even if you work as a peer, Bible study discussions let you teach doctrine, Christian living, apologetics, evangelism, discipling, etc., because it will probably be up to you to acquire the study guides, or to make your own. No matter who leads, you can assure the right emphases.

11. Organize what you know about student work. We know more than we think, but it is not organized for easy transmission. I wrote my own rough manual for student work, with an outline, and everything I knew about each point.

12. Organize what you know about apologetics. I made a shoebox file, with the questions non-believers ask on file dividers. I jotted notes on cards with my best answers, Bible verses, illustrations, etc. I then added clippings from magazines and notes from sermons, until I had enough for a good series of talks.

13. Memorize key Bible verses and their references. What good is it to have a Bible full of information, if you cannot find passages you need? A soldier’s sword has little value if left at home. You need it at the moment temptation appears, or when a non-believer asks a question. You need the Scriptures, not only in your handbag or pocket, but also in your head and heart and mouth. Memorized Scripture gives you enormous confidence in evangelism, teaching or preaching — especially if you do it in a foreign language. The Psalms can help you pray publicly in a language you can still hardly speak. Memorize a prayer verse.

14. Read good Christian books. There is a chance you will never hear a sermon that helps you at your stage of maturity and ministry. Let books be your sermons — truth from sources other than you.

15. Read secular books and magazines. A Christian trying to impress the great English preacher, Spurgeon, said he would never bother to read anything but the Bible. Spurgeon answered, “Then you have little understanding of the Bible.” It must be related to human thought and life. I forced myself to read through Time magazine (the only weekly available), to broaden my interests and common ground with seekers.

16. Interruptions may be your best opportunities. I made myself a strict schedule so I would not waste any time, but visitors came at inconvenient times. Then I realized that the interruptions were my ministry! My other activities would have to wrap around them.

17. Live on the level of a secondary school teacher in your host country. This level usually enables you to reach to the upper classes and to the poor.

18. Keep a friendly open home. Hospitality is not optional for Christians. Many students live away from home, or have poor homes. Regularly hosting large groups of guests puts wear and tear on furnishings. I decided never to own anything that would cause me heartache if it were damaged. Color scheme is important to me. But soon students were imitating my bookcases made of boxes and boards. (Couples must protect private family time.)

19. Keep your hospitality simple. I had more freedom than a married couple. In Latin America, an invitation to a meal was a formal occasion, with a special meal. I extended that kind of invitation. But several evenings a week students were free to bring friends, without notice. They could expect a substantial soup, hot bread from the bakery downstairs and fruit or a baked dessert. Because it was informal and simple, they felt free to come.

20. Single people must find culturally acceptable housing. Young single women in Peru did not live alone in apartments. They lived with their parents until they married, and when the parents died, they lived with other family members. Local people would make some allowance for me as a foreigner.

More problematic — a single woman could not invite male students, without being morally suspect. There were more men than women students. Instead of being critical of me, the missionaries were wonderfully helpful. They arranged a pleasant apartment for me in a building occupied by Christian families. The entrance was placed so no one could know to which apartment guests were going. They found Juana to live in with me and do light housekeeping. In addition, an elderly nurse from Ireland came to all our meetings. She brought women students, and sat quietly in the back. I finally realized she was our chaperone! Legitimizing our mixed gatherings! It meant much to me that she frequently dropped in to pray.

Single men need to be even more careful in their living arrangement, or they will be morally suspect. If they have a maid, she should be an older woman.

21. Be careful in men-women relationships. In each culture, immorality is understood differently. You can always find students who break the rules, so you must follow the norms of respectable families in your host country. Even the non-believing students will expect you to have higher standards than theirs. You must not arouse suspicion. Many missionary men will not even give a ride to a single woman unless their children or someone else is along. Bolivian missionaries were upset when Robert Young (staff worker in Argentina) and I had rooms in the same hotel. Separate rooms. But they quickly moved us into homes, so we would not disgrace the evangelical community.

22. Guard against emotional entanglements. You can lose perspective. You learn to love the students. If you are young, it could be God’s will for you to marry one. But cross-cultural marriages are complicated, and require caution. Also, many cultures have no casual dating. From the first date it is assumed the man intends marriage. To break the relationship can ruin the young woman’s life and destroy the man’s ministry. Engagements are as binding as ancient betrothals.

23. Know that things will go wrong when you travel with students. When we travel we have less control of our circumstances. God allows the problems when someone is there to say, “Let’s pray.” The answers provide first hand experience of God’s love and power.

Take Carlos, the fourth year law student in Peru. A few days after his conversion he and I, Guillermo and Aida, flew to an Argentine student conference. The fellowship with spiritually mature young Argentines was helpful, but the trip home was unforgettable.

Buenos Aires authorities had Okayed our documents, but we were put off the plane at the border city, Mendoza, because the three Peruvians needed visas to re-enter their own country! We prayed. Offices were closed for the weekend. So the airline sent us on to Chile to get the visas on arrival in Santiago. Chile wired back to detain us in Mendoza. But it was too late. We were high up over the Andes. On arrival, we would have to buy four Mendoza-Santiago-Mendoza airfares with money we didn’t have! We prayed.

Then our little unpressurized prop plane, circling interminably in a fearsome lightning and hailstorm, could not make it over the Andean peaks. So we were returned to Mendoza. Our round trip and a weekend in Mendoza’s best hotel were compliments of the airline!

But the Peruvian Consul’s office was closed until late Monday — we would lose our free flight. We prayed, and then discovered — he lived in our hotel! Except on weekends. It was Saturday night. We prayed in the lobby — just until 11 PM, we said. At five to eleven, the Consul walked in! He opened his office Sunday morning, and stamped the visas, and didn’t need a bribe! Unheard of!

We sat down in the park across the street for a praise meeting! God again intervened when a worse problem arose in Chile. But we all arrived home with a strong sense of God’s personal care. For Carlos, it was a powerful introduction to his new life in Christ.

24. Know that many things will go wrong in student activities. For the same reason. We were running camps all over huge Brazil, about one a month. I arrived a few days before our first one in Salvador, Bahia. Two speakers had arrived and students were already coming from all over the country — some of them on five-day land journeys. Then our campsite arrangements fell through!

Imagine how the local committee and I prayed! We told everyone to meet at a central church early Monday morning. But it wasn’t until Sunday night at 11 PM that we received keys to two private houses, 100 yards apart, on an exclusive beach we could never have hoped for! By early morning the boys hauled a truckload of army mattresses to the houses none of us had seen, while the cook and I bought food for 60 people for 5 days. Two trucks then took the food and all the people to the beach, where we had one house for young women and one for young men. At night we had wall-to-wall mattresses, even in the kitchen. During the day, rolled up, they were sofas. God blessed, because of all the extra prayer. We knew God had made our new arrangements! Students learned to trust the Lord.

25. Be prepared to live by improvisation. It depends on the culture. I admire the British who seem to plan everything six months in advance, and the Swiss who seem to have the same precision as their watches. But a highly organized person will face great frustration in many cultures. Understand the reasons.

I would fly into a city with only a few hours to spend with students. But usually the meeting was not even called until after I arrived! Because flights don’t arrive on time, plans change, you can’t phone. Government and university administrations lived on the basis of improvisation, and so did everyone else. Brazilians joked about this approach to problems, “Let’s leave everything like it is, so we can see how it turns out.

Students couldn’t register for camp because they didn’t know until the night before whether the university would grant a holiday or continue classes. I learned to proceed by faith. We usually bought groceries for a hundred people for a couple of days. If 200 came, more food could be bought in the morning. If only thirty came, we had a dull menu for six days. Usually, we had more rather than fewer people.

26. Be careful about the varied standards of conduct in local churches. An American young woman destroyed her missionary credibility when she encouraged the young people to break the church rules she considered too strict.

Our early camps in Brazil were a problem because Christian norms were so diverse in different denominations and regions. Students from the south opposed makeup and movies but approved wine and church dances. Students from the north approved makeup and movies but not wine and dancing. It depended on whether the early missionaries were from the U.S. or Europe. We translated Stacey Woods’ little NP booklet, Taboo, to help sort out right and wrong.

27. Be aware that some of your causes may not be appropriate for your host culture. It would have been wrong to argue for women in leadership, in Latin America, where it was customary for women to go to church, and the men to refrain. It was essential to encourage male leadership, but also train the women. I provided a model for women leaders.

In Brazil, I discussed what was needed with the men students, and had them provide platform leadership. They ran the camps. In the early days they didn’t seem to mind that I was always behind them, reminding and suggesting. It would have been easier for me to run the camps. Rut they developed excellent leadership skills because I encouraged them to lead. Then when Samuel Escobar arrived, he provided a model of dynamic, genuinely Latin American, male leadership.

28. Do not wait for ideal situations. God often works best in a crisis. Just before our Easter conference, a military coup overthrew Brazil’s Marxist government. Martial music was on the radio, and the military were everywhere. We went ahead with the camp. Many students came because normal activities had halted. Two leaders arrived a day late because they were arrested enroute and jailed. All students were suspect. Only the chaos kept authorities from investigating our unauthorized gathering of ninety-eight students in Araras.

29. Avoid paternalism — make sure the students own the ministry. Don’t let them become over-dependent on your generosity or leadership. Local people often say, “Let the missionaries do the work — they have time and they get paid.” But I had a full-time job, and students offered to do things I would have done. That I earned my living was healthy for students. The work was theirs. The test: What happens when you leave?

30. Do not lend money. I was in Peru a short time when Amilcar came to say he had finally finished his studies, but could not graduate for lack of $75. My quiet time reading that morning included the verse, “Do not withhold good from another when it is in your power to give it.” I think God intended that $75 for him. But it was wrong of me to lend it. I never saw him again. I had no idea how difficult it would be even for a university graduate in those days to repay $75. I had destroyed a relationship. If I could do it again, I would say, “It’s a loan from God. Repay him, as you can, a little at a time.”

31. Get cross-cultural training, if you are working in a foreign culture. I had none when I went to Peru, and I don’t think the other missionaries did either. It was not yet a major missions concern. I often marvel at the love and patience the students showed me when I was breaking all the rules. Latin Americans, like southern Europeans, eat a light breakfast, an early lunch, a light afternoon “tea” and a late dinner — as late as 11 PM! But for several years I kept American mealtimes, except when I had guests. It was what I saw missionaries do. (I have since researched and prepared materials on how to learn a foreign culture.)

32. Count on God’s protection. I traveled much in Latin America, especially, in Brazil. One engine of our two-engine plane conked out, we lost altitude in a storm, and finally made an emergency landing in a jungle clearing. From takeoff to rescue in the jungle to arrival at my destination, took eleven hours, instead of the anticipated three.

I was in the middle of a street in Belo Horizonte waving my arms for any vehicle to stop, because the friends who were driving me had a tire blow-out, and I was going to miss the only two buses for Brasilia, where I had meetings. I missed both. That night a big new bridge on the Rio Sao Francisco collapsed. The first bus plunged into the river and all drowned. The second stopped with its front wheels over the edge. The driver told us about it when I went a few days later and crossed that river on a pontoon bridge.

33. Practical skills make life easier — auto and household repairs, etc. I was weak in this area, so when my old refrigerator conked out, in tropical Brazil, all I could do was pray over it and wiggle the parts. For 24 hours that didn’t work. Then it let out a cheerful hum, and outlasted my years in Brazil.

It’s a great boon to enjoy cooking. Sometimes I had a live-in maid or a weekly cleaning woman. But I was thankful for experience with quantity cooking that I gained in camps and conferences in IVCF-USA. For unexpected guests in my apartment I would mix shortbread with my fingers in the baking pan, and have it baked by the time water was hot for mate tea.

34. Your biggest problems will not be with students but with your compatriot colleagues, if you have any. Contributing factors are cultural stress, strong convictions about the work and Enemy attacks. Often it is a distant administration’s failure to provide job descriptions, and a propensity to miscast personnel.

35. Expect great enjoyment. It is stimulating and spiritually rewarding to work with students! It takes everything out of you. As Paul said, “We gave you not only the Gospel, but our very own selves” (1 Thes.1:7-9). I often regret that my whole life has been so people-intensive that it has been impossible to keep in touch with many of the former students. But I remember them often with affection, and pray for them. I will have them all safe to enjoy in heaven.

36. Plan recreation away from students. It was hard to distinguish between work and play. In Brazil it was fun to scale a perpendicular limestone cliff on thick vines to see wild orchids and iguanas on top — hut I was also counseling all day. . . Keep one day a week free. Our international staff were surprised to learn we all felt discouraged after successful camps. Hans Burki said psychological letdown was normal after great effort, and to plan a day off. He also suggested we think of each day as morning, afternoon and evening, and consider any two periods a normal work day — a helpful standard even when unworkable.

37. Learn basic cyber-technology — FAX, phones, computers, E-mail. How did we live without them? A personal computer (add a Bible program) facilitates Bible study, preparation of materials, correspondence, desk-top publishing. E-mail gives instant access to people and information — to whole Christian libraries!

V   Beginning A Christian Student Group

1. Do not compete with existing student work, if its goals are reasonably the same. In Peru and Spain there was nothing. In Portugal, the missionaries who had tried to start a group, invited me to come.

But in Brazil, the ACA of the ecumenical WCSF had been active for 40 years! Mainline denominations still backed this once evangelical organization. I knew it had long since given up its biblical doctrine and was highly politicized. But I invited its national leaders to my house for tea, and shared my plans. When I talked about Bible studies and evangelism, they laughed — and assured me our work would have no overlap. A few years later, when Soviet funding was found in their headquarters, they were dissolved by the government.

The only other groups were Youth for Christ and Word of Life, both at that time limited to secondary schools. So we did not start secondary school groups. They would refer their graduates to us, and we would encourage our graduate teachers to help with high school groups. Word of Life gave us generous use of their beautiful campsite. Navigators came in much later, and focused on men, not students. They were then only in Curitiba and we helped each other.

But we saw our IFES work destroyed in two countries when an unscrupulous student organization came, and left after a couple of years, leaving no campus ministry in its wake. They nearly destroyed us also in Spain. The well being of the whole church must always take precedence over our organization or denomination.

2. Decide on the most strategic city for the work.

A tentmaker begins where his job is. My positions were in Lima and Sao Paulo, both strategic cities. Where can you mobilize the most evangelical students? Where is the largest evangelical community?

The student work does not develop in isolation, but in relationship with churches. It gains credibility in churches as they benefit from its fruit. Students need the help, advice and prayers of pastors and Christian professional people. It is good to be thinking ahead to the day when they will want financial support for staff.

Two major cities often compete — like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In Spain, Castilian Madrid looked down on Catalan Barcelona, which was academically dominant. In Barcelona I had to contend with a third language — Catalan. But it had the strongest evangelical community and a dozen Spanish Christian students. In Madrid, there were only two or three Spanish students, doing non-campus work with 0.M. ‘s international team. None attended our GBU camps, so it took several years before a Spanish campus group was formed.

3. Find a home suitable for meetings and accessible to students. It was frustrating to spend days finding the right apartment that I could also afford. (Mt. 7:13-14 shows prayer does not make seeking, knocking and opening unnecessary, but guarantees their eventual success.) I finally found a new building in Rio de Janeiro that seemed right. The doorkeeper had already said there were no apartments for rent. On my third visit, I asked, “Is there one empty?” She said, yes, but the owner wanted it for his family. In fact, he was there doing interior finishing. I went upstairs.

He confirmed that he wanted to move in, but then started thinking out loud, that if he rented it, he would have it paid for sooner. Then he asked me the dreaded question — who would be my co-signer. I knew no Rio property owner. I asked if my friend in nearby Petropolis would do? He shook his head negatively, but asked, “Who is it?” I said, “Dirk Van Eyken, an engineer who works at Canadian Light Co.”

He put down his tools and stood up. He said, ‘Anyone who is a friend of Dirk’s needs no guarantor and no contract!” Dirk worked in the office next to my new landlord! In a city which then had three million people, God had led me to the only one who owned an empty apartment, who also knew Dirk!

When I went to start a group in Curitiba, I found a strangely placed building between the Catholic and federal medical schools, and near other faculties. The doorkeeper was annoyed when I came for the second time, not to ask if an apartment was for rent, but if one was empty. (Closed doors may not be locked!)

She reluctantly gave me the name of the owner, a widower. He said, “No. Since my wife died six years ago I have not allowed anyone to touch it.” But almost in the same breath he added, “It’s foolish, isn’t it? How much can you pay?” Before I could answer, he cited an amount lower than I expected, and he had the place ready for me in a few days. In both cases, God’s provision gave me strong expectations of what he would do in those apartments.

But in Barcelona I felt God had let me down. The most important decisions have to be made when we have little information and no one to ask. After much searching, I finally rented a little place much too far from the university, but close to bus and tram lines. Then, I discovered that my map was wrong — the new campus would not be occupied for some time. I would discover that the medical school where most of the evangelical students were, was exactly one block away! All the other university colleges were within walking distance! How beautifully God had led me!

4. Look for evangelical students to mobilize. If there are none, a student worker must be resident, and begin at zero with non-believers. This is one reason why we established only a few groups in Spain. I kept a little map in my prayer notebook showing the 72 Spanish cities with at least one university faculty. But only seven had evangelical students. When lovely Beatriz entered the medical school of the University of Pamplona, she was the only Christian. Most of those cities had no evangelical church. Even Madrid and Barcelona had only a few. Spain is still less than one percent evangelical!

To look for evangelical students in the university would be looking for a needle in a haystack. You must look in the churches. The pastor may not know if there are students, but the young people will know. But it gives you a chance to seek the pastor’s approval — important where there is competition. I learned I must talk to a certain denomination first, or they would not cooperate. In another town it might be another denomination.

Rarely would one church have two students. Take time to establish a friendly relationship. Get the students together, and share your vision, motivate, give initial orientation and materials. Where evangelicals are a tiny, persecuted minority, they develop a mental block to evangelism. Campuses are threatening environments. New converts from a non-evangelical background will be more courageous.

The most committed students will be overburdened with church responsibilities. Some say they can evangelize on campus without a group. But they don’t evangelize. I say that if they can do it alone, they have a responsibility before God to help the other students who cannot do it alone. The student can multiply his efforts by several times, if he motivates and helps the others. The privilege of university study obligates Christians to be missionaries to the campus. No matter what other ministry they do, they are accountable for students around them — fellow Christians and seekers.

When there is only one student in a church, he often does everything, robbing less experienced young people of a chance to develop their gifts. When I was a student, I sat down with the pastor to decide which jobs I should keep, and which we could train someone else to do. The student must be seen as the church’s missionary to the campus.

5. Start your own evangelistic Bible study. This two-pronged approach is important. What are you inviting the initial students to? Nothing at first. That is a problem. You are telling them about something that doesn’t exist and that they cannot visualize. In Lima, I discovered about a dozen Christian students, but I couldn't get them to come for meetings (I could barely communicate in Spanish.)

Then I audited classes at San Marcos University, to improve my Spanish and to find non-believing students. Maria started coming to tutor me in Spanish. The lessons turned into Bible studies, and Maria turned into a believer. Her friend, Estela, found the Lord, and a few others came.

Now when the Christians came, they saw a tiny ministry already producing fruit. A few caught the excitement and came. Enrique Giraldo became our first leader — and later went to begin work in Chile. Then one denomination started its own student organization, with a beautifully decorated student center. It set us back. But it quickly folded. The second year Samuel Escobar joined our group — an exceptionally gifted, dynamic student leader, and the work took off.

6. Decide when and where to meet. I have always begun meetings in my apartment. So I look for one near a traffic hub, and easily accessible to students. Usually, we have continued the large group meetings there, and some small groups. But small groups can meet anywhere, except in a church. You want to draw the non-believers who would never come to a church. Students were welcome to bring their seeker friends, for games or music with light refreshments. It gave me a chance to meet them, after which they often came without their Christian friend.

In Curitiba, up to sixty non-believing medical students from two nearby schools, floated in and out of the apartment I shared with Maria Celia, a medical student.

7. Do not compete with the churches. There was such fear that our work would draw students away, that we took pains not to schedule our main meetings to conflict with any Sunday activity, prayer meeting or choir practice. How difficult this was! But once we had a regular, weekly time churches respected it.

8. Form initial contacts into a group with a common vision and goals. Create a family feeling through fellowship, Bible study and prayer. Members need to know each other through fun and work projects, too, so have an outing or a retreat as soon as possible.

9. Concentrate on a single pilot group until it is strong. You learn how to do things with students in this culture. You need them to help expand the work to other cities, so they will feel ownership of the work.

10. Meet student needs at various levels of commitment. I like to think of concentric circles: a) Responsible leaders, who are faithful in their duties, and committed to the work. b) Active and growing members, who are less committed, but can be asked to help. c) Occasional participants. Social activities may keep the latter coming until their spiritual interest grows. Move each person toward the center. Get peripheral people to come regularly. d) Those who attend evangelistic Bible studies, but do not attend large group activities.

11. Keep a balance and right priorities in group activities. An inverted triangle cannot stand. Build a solid base of personal and group prayer, personal and group Bible study, evangelism and evangelistic Bible study. Student ministries often concentrate on large group activities. These should be supplementary, including retreats and conferences. All depend on a solid infrastructure.

A good schedule could be a weekly large group meeting for prayer, teaching and training. Once a month it could be for group outreach. Every student should be in a discipleship Bible study/prayer group and co-lead an evangelistic Bible study. Retreats could be once a quarter. Students who eat together could use one noon a week for missions.

12. Use conversational prayer. Instead of having each person pray, with much repetition of requests, have the group make one long prayer, with each person adding a sentence or two. Pray around subjects. When various aspects of one subject are covered, begin a new subject. It is more effective praying and each prayer stimulates others. It is not boring, like some prayer meetings. Even new Christians can add a sentence.

13. Keep a balance between contemporary and traditional music. Group meetings should not be replicas of a church worship service. It is not always appropriate to have music at all if you meet on campus. But however music is used, remember that the traditional hymns are the church’s collective treasure. Many of us are grateful that our student movement developed in us a taste for this music, which is saturated with Scripture. Repetitious contemporary music seems empty by comparison.

14. Cultivate genuineness through fellowship cells of two. Dr. Hans Burki, of Switzerland, brought a new dimension into our Brazilian groups by helping us form sharing partnerships. Each person was to keep a diary with an honest evaluation of his conduct each day — good and bad. Everyone would regularly share this data with a partner. Because both were sharing, they could trust each other. The goal was for trust to grow so partners could exchange notebooks. When we brought a dozen partnerships together, the whole group enjoyed a depth of fellowship we had not known before.

15. Make inductive Bible study groups your main activity. In a pioneer situation, you may not have one person able to speak to a student group. The Bible study is where your most effective teaching will occur. Students think Bible study is dull until they learn the inductive approach. But a prepared study guide is not inductive just because it has questions. Many questions merely test if you can read. The questions in inductive study enable participants to discover truth for themselves, by examining what the text says, what the text meant to the writer and early readers, and what it means to us today. Discovery makes an impact and fixes data in the memory.

IVP has a great many excellent guides — the Lifeguide Series — some in other languages. The Neighborhood Bible Studies, published by former IVCF staff, are in 30 languages. Every campus worker should gain skill in preparing study guides, and leading the discussions, and training students to do both. (See GO Papers: Inductive Bible Study Preparation and Investigative Bible Study Discussions.)

16. Times and locations of Bible study groups. Ideally, they should be somewhere on campus, during a free period, when students can attend with the least expenditure of time, effort or expense. Some can meet in your home, if you live nearby, or in some other Christian’s nearby home — anyplace except a church. A student’s room is ideal if it is a residential campus, but most campuses are commuter type. Meet in an empty classroom, the cafeteria (some bring sack lunches), in a Christian lecturer’s office, or a nearby coffee shop. In Sao Jose dos Campos, engineering students, Eliezer and Ary led prayers before breakfast on the engineering school rooftop.

Off-campus, students who live near each other might meet in each other’s homes. The students will often say there is no place, but that usually reflects their fears. When sufficiently motivated, God provides. In Curitiba, chemistry students were bussed to their new building out of town just in time for the first class, and bussed back to the city after the last class. There was no other transportation.

On Saturday we prayed God would provide a time and place for Walter and Tietje to have a Bible study on that campus. That week the administration arranged a two-hour free time slot! They might not have known why they had to do it, but we knew! The problem of both time and place are more complicated in a country where Christian activity is restricted.

If students say that with work and study they do not have time to meet, remind them that life divides into more than two pieces. Help them determine priorities.

17. Large group meetings can have varied content. It may be basic doctrine, Christian living, evangelism or discipling, social issues, marriage and family, serving God through one’s profession, etc. Do not assume the students know the basics. We work with a perpetual kindergarten, where every year the trained students leave and novices enter. When I was a student, I was weary of hearing what Christians should do, and I found it refreshing that IVCF staff and books told us how we could do what we should. How deal with problems in praying? With the evangelism? With relationships?

Teach the basics, but vary the formats. Once I had students learn the outline of Stott’s Basic Christianity, and then the Bible passages in each chapter. I taught doctrine by having each group compose their own basis of faith, using passages I provided. Then we compared them with formal statements of Christian organizations to discuss omissions, inclusions and wording.

Formats can be speakers (if available), panels, round tables, forums, interviews, dramas, music programs, audiovisuals, book discussions, videos, films, etc.

Evangelistic meetings can be on apologetics (How do we know the Bible is true? Is there a God? Why does God allow suffering?) or Christian testimony. (How did you find God? How can you be sure? How has he changed your life? How does he speak to you?) But only the core truths of the Gospel can save (Who is Jesus? Why did he die? Did he rise to life?).

One of our best-attended meetings in Brazil was a book discussion of Bertrand Russell’s Why l am not a Christian, at a time when it topped all sales in the campus bookstore. (Know what students are reading.) We discussed several books by European existentialists. But when I arrived in Spain, these were passe. Some were reading political writers, like Herbert Marcuse. But Herman Hesse was popular, so we discussed his book Siddharta, and considered how this missionary’s son had lost his way in India.

18. Evangelism must be the group’s main purpose. The teaching and discipleship is to help students to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ. The one purpose of the church is to declare the glory of God — as we know him through Jesus Christ. Many groups spend the first semester getting ready and second semester evangelizing. It doesn’t work. No one is ever ready. You learn evangelism by doing it, by integrating it with your training. Nothing matures students so quickly as evangelizing and discipling new believers. Both the evangelism and the training will be improved.

If you teach fishing evangelism, students will lose their fear. Teach them how to interact with non-believing students in an attractive, wholesome, non-judgmental way, inducing them to ask the crucial questions. Teach them how to answer the questions, not as authorities, but as learners, not as paragons of perfection, but as God’s children, struggling to please him, and often needing his forgiveness.

You fish out seekers from among the indifferent or hostile people around you. When seekers ask, they want to hear. You are not intruding on their privacy, nor interrupting them at an inconvenient moment. They pace the initial conversations as they are ready. Their questions show you exactly where they are spiritually, what they already understand, truths they lack, their felt needs, hangups, obstacles to faith. These are the people with whom you do friendship evangelism.

Fishing helps Christians relax, and their joy and confidence attracts more seekers. Get them into your evangelistic Bible studies. See GO Paper, Fishing Evangelism.

19. Group members must lead evangelistic Bible studies. These are quite different from discipleship Bibles studies that form the basis of the group. The majority must be seekers, with only two believers to co-­lead. You focus on Gospel passages, to watch Jesus in action, and help participants to interact vicariously with Jesus through the characters in the narratives. If you want to prove the existence of God, begin with Jesus, the shortcut in all evangelism. He is the way to the Father — the only way. John 14:6; Acts 4:12. See GO Paper, Investigative Bible Study Discussions.

20. Include missions in the group program. The third purpose of IFES is to help each student to find his place in the worldwide mission of the church. Have some meetings on what God is doing in the world. In each large group meeting, have students present a “missionary minute,” using data from Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World, available in several languages. Use mission posters. Invite a missionary speaker. Befriend an international student. The university is missions training — a microcosm of our spiritually hostile, multicultural world.

21. Encourage students to read good Christian books. Have a two- or three-shelf library in your regular meeting place. If you do not have one, take a little suitcase portable library to each meeting. We all lent books to our first library.

22. Plan local retreats and outings. We had some for recreation, to learn to know each other on a different level, and create a sense of family. Other retreats were for teaching or training. Evangelistic retreats could be attended only by Christians who brought along a seeker — to keep a fifty-fifty ratio.

23. Organize only as much as necessary for effective functioning. One reason Peruvian Christian students had been resistant to student work was because a missionary had tried to start a group by having the Christians write a constitution. They were bored and tired of haggling over a document for a non-existent ministry they couldn’t visualize.

When the Lima group had reached a certain level of stability, I suggested choosing a president, vice president and secretary. But they wanted a co-equal three person troika arrangement, which has served them well for decades — probably to avoid the caudillo one-man show type leadership dominant in Latin cultures. Keep the constitution and bylaws simple, because it can always be changed or enlarged when necessary.

I discovered that elected committees did not function well. It was better to elect one person and have him choose his assistants. Personal friendship is important. For the central executive, it is better not to allow nominations from the floor, but for the leaders to present a prayerfully chosen slate of nominees.

But executive leaders should choose assistants to train as possible replacements for the next year. Leaders should keep a record of events — what was done at regular and special meetings, with brief evaluations of what was good and what should be avoided in the future. No executive committee should have to begin at zero to learn all the lessons over again.

Every student group is always just one year from possible extinction, because its leaders graduate. It will continue only if new leadership is prepared.

24. Training is the lifeline of the work if it is to survive. Leaders and members need training in all the doctrinal and practical living and ministry subjects. Teach a few to teach others (2 Tim. 2:2), even before they seem ready. In Spain, both Pablo Martinez and Marisa Gimenez surprised me with the superb way they did their first Bible study training of others. It brings rapid maturity. Try an evening series, or a full day in your home, or a weekend or a week at camp. Most movements eventually run annual month-long training courses, and send students to regional IFES courses.

25. Keep activities within the financial capabilities of the students. During my 21 years of working with students abroad, we never asked for funds from the IFES for anything, except a loan for our publishing venture in Brazil, and eventually, salary help for our first staff. All activities were planned so students could pay for them. (Even non-believers are often more comfortable if there is a small charge for refreshments.) We gave scholarship loans which recipients were to repay by funding others when they could. We kept no records.

Students were resourceful. The Peruvian students sacrificed much to bring Ecuadorians and Bolivians to our first conference. (They went home and started the first groups in their countries.) Enrique quit his job to receive his termination pay, to contribute toward their arduous land journeys! … Two young women from Belo Horizonte requested and received from their governor two free seats in a military plane, so they could help me with a camp in northeastern Brazil! ... In Spain, where we finally found a run-down apartment to rent for a student center, our attempt to earn through a Christmas card project, led to a businessman’ s generous gift toward its renovation.

VI   Expanding The Work

1. There are no recipes because God wants us dependent upon him, not on methods. The evening I arrived in Sao Paulo, I met Wangles Breternitz, and a few weeks later we began meetings with his friends, before I had furniture in my living room. … Euzi, who found the Lord while studying at Oregon State, called students together to meet with me in Vitoria … Dirk van Eyken, who found God in IVCF at McGill, helped in Niteroi, where a group eventually developed…

I found students in Belo Horizonte and Goiania on a survey trip, and scheduled meetings with them. Instead of returning, I suggested our Sao Paulo group send Lucas and Peter to get the Goiania group started. Members contributed toward the air fares … Ten students accompanied me to Belo Horizonte to get them started with a weekend training program...

One afternoon about 4 PM, Lucas called me at my school. He had announced at the National Baptist Convention that people interested in campus ministry were invited for tea at my house at 5 PM! Sixty people had signed up! I kept my cab waiting at the little corner grocery while I swept off the shelves anything I could serve. By the time Julieta and I had mate tea and platters ready to serve, Lucas and Wangles were already explaining our ABU work to the crowd! As a result, students and young grads went home to cities all over Brazil and began little groups with our materials.

It warmed my heart that Lucas had so much confidence in me. He knew that he and I would do anything for this ministry. Then I made long journeys to help these new little groups, and conducted training camps and conferences in each region (ten or twelve a year). At almost every camp were students from yet other cities, who went home to begin small ABU’s.

2. Aim for orderly expansion, but be sensitive to God’s leading. We expanded too quickly, in a country larger than the contiguous U.S., and in a quite disorderly way. It would have been wiser to develop one region until we had produced staff, and then to begin work in the other regions. But that is not what happened.

When I made a 3000+  mile trip north to visit a group, I broke the long distances with stops at state capitals. In these cities, I had the choice of doing nothing, or of looking up students. A city might have six churches, but only five students. Some were in the same classes but didn’t know the others were believers! Just getting them together helped. I would give minimal training in Bible study and evangelism and leave our materials. The chance for long-term survival of these little groups was slim, without more staff help.

But should I ignore needy students because we were not organizationally ready to serve them? I cared about those few students, preferring to give enough help, so they could help each other in their spiritually hostile environment. Some came to camps for further training and their groups did quite well. At one point, before we had staff, I had students meeting in 45 cities! Eventually, we were able to divide into five regions.

Often we had the first little meeting in a home. But sometimes we met on the beach, or in a coffee shop. On a visit to Vitoria, I asked for and received the free use of a hotel ballroom, which was still decorated from the Saturday night dance! The novelty of it brought out about twenty students on a Sunday afternoon! We had light refreshments, fun and a good orientation session.

Expanding wildly in Iberia was not a possibility, since most cities with universities had no evangelical students, and no evangelical churches. Whole provinces had no church! (I was finally visiting small groups of students in seven cities of Spain and three in Portugal.)

In Barcelona, most of this first generation of students were in medicine or nursing. Most students had to aim for self-employment because evangelicals were denied decent jobs. But during the Civil War, evangelicals saved their hospital from confiscation by Franco, by turning it over to the joint administration of the British, U.S. and Swiss embassies. After the 1965 law, it was now being returned to its rightful owners in a five-year transition plan. The students prepared to work there!

A few medical students had met two weeks before my arrival, to discuss financial help for the hospital. God sent me just in time to enlarge their vision from the hospital to campus evangelism. They became excited about the possibilities and rounded up other students — about a dozen in all — the first generation of students since the 1965 laws.

I was given the name of a student in Valencia, and took the train to persuade him and others to come to our Barcelona camp. There were no “others.” I assumed he was a Christian. He was not. He said later that he wasn’t interested in the Bible, but it made him feel important that someone had traveled 200 miles to meet him! He came, found the Lord, became the leader in Valencia, and later, the national director in Spain.

In Portugal, a missionary couple invited me to meet students at a small church youth camp. Only three were university students. In a larger meeting of about twenty (they called the group MEEP), I concluded not more than three probably knew the Lord. Several told me they were atheists, but the church was their social circle. (Religious persecution in Spain had produced spiritual churches, but in Portugal, political persecution had produced weak ones. Even in the evangelical churches, extended families did not trust each other.)

But there were two gems from Coimbra — Edite, who eventually married staff worker, Tom Wilson, from Scotland, and Celeste Jorge, who became staff. Everyone said you couldn’t evangelize in Portugal, except for Celeste, who kept asking me what to say next to all the seekers she was evangelizing!

So MEEP evaporated, and the handful of Christians chose the name GBU — as in Spain. We saw quite a few conversions. Then we brought in Brazilian Alex Araujo and Katy, who did a good job. Unfortunately, it was decided to move them out of Portugal, prematurely, just at the chaotic time of the Revolution.

3. Have the students choose a coordinator. They often do not know each other very well, and the most dynamic and enthusiastic person present may never appear again! Sometimes I suggest to a second person that he take over if the coordinator drops the ball. It is too soon for an executive committee. Plan when and where to meet. Provide orientation and materials, especially, Bible study guides.

4. Seek local counselors. It may be a Christian professional couple, willing to open their home to students. It may be a regular missionary or a tentmaker. It is ideal if they were active in a fellowship when they were students. The David Sommervilles, the Carl Lachlers, the Ross Douglases, the Dennis Papes, Carolyn Charles and others gave help and stability to new groups. They came to training courses, and served as campus staff until we could afford others.

5. Start a division for high school students, as Marisa Gimenez did in Spain, after she found God in the Barcelona group.

6. Start a movement for graduates as soon as there are any. They encourage each other in their work and witness, and they assist the student work. They can also produce papers relating the Bible to their academic fields, and become the movement’s experts on Bible and science, medicine, and other fields.

VII   Forming A National Movement

1. Groups are greatly strengthened if they are linked together into a national movement. Leaders share ideas and encourage each other. If one group falters, others come to its aid. Together they can do what none could do alone, and without duplicating effort. They can plan joint camps and training courses, produce a simple newsletter, prepare study materials, publish booklets, etc. They can acquire a staff worker. They can work together to form new groups in their respective regions. A national organization is often necessary to get university or legal recognition. Most churches give more readily to an organized ministry.

2. Promote informal collaboration as soon as a second group begins. Get the leaders together to help plan the next camp, to share ideas for extending the work to new cities, to put out a little newsletter. As they work together, and a third group forms, they will see the need for a simply structured national movement. If you wait long, groups will develop so differently it may be impossible to get them together.

3. Consider these parts of a national organization. At first, no structure is needed — just fellowship, prayer and planning sessions for the leaders. Then, make the simplest kind of constitution and bylaws. It can always be amplified or rewritten, as the need arises. The national executive committee can be the leader of each group, with staff as ex-officio members. Make sure that the kind of organization chosen suits the culture.

A three to five person non-student board of directors can include Christian professional people or pastors who have been helpful — preferably from one city so they can meet easily and without cost. Keep denominational balance. Be sure to define term lengths, so you will have no problem in replacing members who show little interest in the work. (Eventually, all board members should be alumni of the student movement.)

A larger advisory council of well-known evangelical leaders and lay people lend their names in approval of the ministry. Because they never meet, they can be from all over the country. They receive reports, pray, advise, speak at camps. Their names can go on the organization’s letterhead.

The students may have little experience in democratic procedures. Let them learn in their local groups. Do not impose Roberts Rules of Order, although these are widely used in many cultures. God wants everything to be done decently and in order — l Cor.14: 33, 40. Someone must direct the discussion, clarify proposals, count votes, record decisions, etc. Without minutes, everyone has a different idea of what was decided.

4. Donor-partners should he sought in the churches. Local groups should pay for their own activities, and no committee members are paid. But the movement will want to hire a staff worker — maybe a part-time one at first. The organization may have to be legally registered to receive and receipt donor gifts. Donor development is difficult at first because few pastors appreciate the university work.

Once there are enough graduates of the movement, it is easier to find donors. The IFES often provides half a salary for a full-time staff person, and diminishes it gradually each year. This point brings up the need to link the national movement to an international one.

VIII   Seeking Membership In IFES

As local groups strengthen each other by joining forces, so national movements are strengthened by mutual help within an international movement. I would not mention this possibility until a national movement is formed. Many people resist the idea of international connections.

The logical next step of joining the IFES will come naturally, as you make wide use of IFES literature and training materials and by bringing in IFES speakers to conferences. Send potential staff to lFES continental and international training courses.

The IFES appeals to students and board members because it is not a centrally controlled, worldwide organization. It is a family of co-equal national movements, which are autonomous and therefore culturally appropriate to their regions. Each chooses its own name and structure. (Many countries forbid foreign legal or financial ties.)

Each member movement sends delegates to a General Committee meeting every four years, in a different location, to elect replacements for part of the General Committee. This committee cannot interfere in any national movement, although it can exclude a movement if it strays doctrinally or ceases to serve students, and refuses to reform.

The committee coordinates worldwide training, produces literature, and pioneers work in countries where none yet exists. It coordinates the transfer of funds and staff from strong movements to pioneer areas, or to new movements that request help. The headquarters, which was in Lausanne, was moved to London when Chua Wee Hian from Singapore became General Director.

IX   Principles For Student Work

1. Be sure to emphasize student initiative. Most student organizations are missions to students, where staff do most of the ministry, and students help. A large number of staff are needed, and when they leave, the work tends to collapse.

But the lFES is a student movement. Staff workers motivate and train students, but leave them to trust God to help them make decisions, and to learn from their mistakes. It produces leaders. Staff are mainly coaches. They should model evangelism (even among their own peers), or they cannot teach others to do it. But they should give enough up-front leadership to provide a leadership model — or they risk producing only coaches. There should be enough staff workers, but not so many that they hover over student leaders.

It is slower and more difficult to develop a student movement than other student organizations, but it is the best way to produce leaders. IFES ex-staff have strong leadership roles in national and international gatherings.

2. Seek staff from among the graduates. In a sense, you don’t train people to be staff workers. You single out those who are already doing the best evangelism, training, teaching, counseling and caring for members.

Neusa Itioka, our first full-time staff worker in Brazil, refused my invitation twice. She already had a full-time ministry in her denomination and its school. But prayer convinced me we needed her. She agreed to ask her pastor and denominational leaders. They felt the student work was strategic, and freed her. She gave exceptional leadership to the ABUB for years.

3. Never pay students to do staff work. Not even part time. As soon as you do, the other students stop working. They say, “Let Manolo do it — he has more free time and he gets paid for it.”

4. The student work must be genuinely evangelical. A carefully defined basis of faith and statement of purpose can help, but never guarantee that the organization will remain faithful. Every national leader and the board and advisory council members should have to sign the doctrinal statement. (In Brazil, Southern Baptists wanted us to add a point on the importance of the local church, which we did.)

I strongly recommend that local groups have a two-level membership roll. All who attend can be members, but only those can be voting members who give evidence of new birth and Christian living, and who can sign the statements of doctrine and purpose. Only they can vote or be elected to office.

5.The student work must be interdenominational. In pioneer situations no one church has enough students. It is a good testimony on the campuses, since Catholics make a big issue of Protestant fragmentation.

More important, God puts together the teams that are to work and witness together in each university college. It is no accident who they are. Help students and pastors understand what J.I. Packer calls, The Sovereignty of God in Evangelism (IVP), and that the student’s campus missionary activity is an obligation, not an option.

When one denomination in Brazil wanted their own student movement we persuaded them to work with us to avoid division on the campuses. They could review our training and add their denominational distinctives at their own supplementary conferences. We put a couple of their pastors on our advisory board — as we did from other denominations.

Try to keep a denominational neutrality — the confidence of all groups. Their confidence will increase when they benefit from the fruit of the work.

A competing student movement came into Spain and nearly ruined our still wobbly work. But the pastor of the largest church in Spain, said in the pastors’ meeting that he backed us because he had seen the fruit of our work in his church and in his family. His exceptionally brilliant son, in his last year of high school was losing spiritual interest. We took him to our international training conference, where he committed his life to the Lord. Dr. Pablo Martinez (psychiatrist) is a leader in GBU, IFES and the Spanish churches.

6. The student work must be genuinely student. Its focus must be tertiary students (even if high school and grad groups may be added later). This is difficult where evangelicals are few. There may be only one or two university students in a church, so they bring their best friends, who are in secondary school or working. These in turn bring other friends. Meeting content is reduced to the lowest common denominator — the level churches already give. Meetings do not deal with students’ problems and do not attract campus seekers. The group’s unique purpose is lost from the start.

Even worse, by duplicating the church youth groups you weaken them by competition. Anyone who wants to do general youth work should strengthen the church groups from within. Early in the work in Sao Paulo I had fifty enthusiastic people coming every Saturday, but we accomplished nothing on the campuses.

It is sometimes charged that student work discriminates among church young people on educational grounds.

No such division in the church is justifiable. I do not approve of university student Sunday school classes versus classes for working young people.

The division we make is in the university — setting apart evangelicals from the non-believing students. In the church, relationships remain the same. But on the campus, the Christians, regardless of their churches, must witness where none of the others can.

Working young people have the same responsibility in the workplace, and secondary students in their schools. (We provided training in Bible studies and evangelism in some church youth groups.) Eventually, we began secondary school work.

The more your student activities take place on the campuses, the easier it is to keep them university level. Some countries have an intermediate level, which corresponds to the last year of secondary school and the first two years of university in other countries — like junior colleges and vocational schools. You may include these because they are post-secondary. But they may later want separate groups.

7. The main goal of the movement must be campus evangelism. This involves discipling and training them so they can disciple and train their converts.

The group will meet the students’ need for social life — a valuable byproduct — but do not let it become a mere club. I rejoiced that men and women students, who had always been in sexually segregated schools, with little chance to speak to each other, could associate freely in our wholesome student activities. I rejoiced over the ones who became engaged in my apartment.

There is much spiritual need, but students must not do things the churches can do, and neglect the campus which churches cannot reach. As members of their churches they join in on church ministries, but as a campus fellowship they focus on the campus. With few exceptions … They may engage in short projects. I had major responsibility in the Billy Graham Crusade in Sao Paulo, and the students worked with me ... Students in residential schools in towns where there was no church started new little congregations.

Do not let the student group become sidetracked by social work. There was great pressure on Latin American students to do social work — for credibility.

We did one-day projects. In Sao Paulo, medical, dental and other students would go through a slum area and take ill people to free clinics … Students at Sao Jose do Rio Preto located the school age children in a slum, and took them to school to register … In Curitiba, because my cleaning woman’s baby had meningitis, the students discovered other blind and diseased children among her neighbors, and persuaded the city to close down a contaminated well and move the people to other housing … At Sao Jose dos Campos, engineering students started a literacy program for the janitors and their children, and then involved the churches in extending it to others.

But Brazilian graduates, who were now much better prepared, ran urban slum and rural development projects, and students helped in the summers. Several young medical graduates started a mission hospital in an interior town, and students gave vacations to help. Peruvian graduates undertook a substantial project of rebuilding a community high up in the Andes that had been destroyed in an earthquake and snow avalanche.

But students do not have much extra time beyond work and studies, and should focus on campus activities.

8. The student work must be organized. There was a strong anti-organization bias among students from one denomination. They insisted that the principles of their unstructured worship services must govern our first international Christian training camp. In the morning when we expected a speaker and a Bible study, one group played volleyball and others went horseback riding. We examined Biblical passages, and pointed out that students from other countries had made costly journeys to participate in an organized program. They finally accepted the co-leadership of two male staff.

Student groups need organization, because they do not have the stability of churches, made up of family units, which are more or less permanent in the community. A student group is a revolving door — a temporary fellowship of mainly single people. The best leaders always graduate and novices come in.

New leaders of the movement and of each group should be elected in the spring, so they can make plans through the summer, and be ready to begin work immediately in the fall. On a year’s calendar, they should mark exam periods and holidays, and see how few weeks are left for the group’s activities. They cannot afford to lose a quarter just getting ready to go. During the summer, they can locate and prepare entering first-year students. (Spanish students conducted youth meetings in churches to encourage young people to pursue higher education.)

9. Do not have a student center. It fosters a fortress mentality. We ‘go into the world’ on our campuses.

10. A student movement should not start churches. A student group is church — a true manifestation of the church, but an incomplete and temporary one. Students often enjoy their campus fellowship more than any church because they are an affinity group. But they should not replace church attendance with their own services. Pastors trust us not to compete. Also, when students graduate, they will have difficulty re-entering the regular church environment.

But they can function as a church if there is none to attend. In a Portuguese city five students decided to help the tiny local church, and meet Sunday evenings for their own worship. But the almost illiterate pastor was so threatened, he asked them to quit.

X   Preparation For Student Workers

It is ideal if campus workers have been active student members of a Christian fellowship on a secular campus. If not, they should try to gain experience with an established movement, participate in its training courses and work alongside experienced staff. If they will work in a foreign country, they can gain experience working with international students, ideally, from their target country, and begin to learn their culture and language.

All who hope to work abroad, need a brief missions course, like Perspectives, now available in many countries, and cross-cultural orientation. Global Opportunities may be able to help with job acquisition for tentmakers and orientation materials.

— Ruth E. Siemens