Steph Fisher woke up before 7 a.m. one Saturday and high-tailed it downstairs. The sophomore engineering student wanted to go with her engineering peers at the University of Maine on a whitewater rafting adventure sponsored by Lifelines, Campus Crusade for Christ's outdoor ministry at her school.

"I wasn't going to go at first," says Steph. But all her friends registered. Steph asked, "Do you have room for one more?"

They had one more slot.

She is one of 2,000 students who have gone on a trip. Lifelines owns all the gear, so everyone goes free.

"It's been a dream come true," says Joe Cousins, a Campus Crusade staff member who started Lifelines. Not only does he get to do what he loves, but he also introduces students to Christ in the process. "It's a lot more than taking people out and then tacking on the gospel," he says. "They experience some part of the gospel, such as trust, and then I might ask, 'What would God have to do to make you trust in Him?'"

That kind of question got Steph thinking. She and student leader Anna Jordan talked during the two-hour ride back. Anna invited her to a Lifelines meeting.

She liked it. The next time Steph attended, she accepted Christ. Now a senior, Steph leads rafting trips into the wilderness and leads others to Christ.
—Jennifer Abegg

Dolores and Al Hardin: happy after 34 years of marriage.

Al Hardin wanted a divorce, but worried it might hurt his reputation. "I just couldn't go out and get a divorce in 1980," says the CEO of a nationwide company. "It still had a major stigma. I could have a divorce as long as it wasn't my fault." He and his wife, Dolores, separated, though.

She tried to win her husband back by flirting with other men, but it didn't work. "He didn't care," Dolores says. "If he lost me, he had more to gain down the road.

"Cosmopolitan, New Woman and Gloria Steinem didn't have any answers for me. Every time I did what they said, my head was just pushed down into the mud, and I was suffocating."

She tuned into a Christian radio station, to which a former housekeeper listened. One day she heard how to surrender control of her life to Christ. "I prayed that the Lord would be my Savior and heal my marriage," says Dolores.

But Al was ready to divorce.

Dolores made an irresistible offer: If they stayed together, she would do anything he wanted as long as it wasn't illegal or immoral. She would finally allow him to be the leader in the home. He accepted her back with two conditions. First, she had to keep her bags packed. Second, she had to leave if she ever failed to follow his leadership.

In the following weeks, Al tried to drive Dolores away. "One of the rules was she couldn't call me at the office," Al says. Then he left on business trips without telling her. Yet when he returned, she'd lovingly greet him with, "I missed you this week."

Delores also had to ask for permission to use the phone, go grocery shopping or leave the house. "I just wanted to make her miserable," Al says. She found strength by attending a weekly Bible study, which Al allowed. "Every week, I could just have a love affair with the Lord Jesus," Dolores says.

By the end of that year, Al had noticed a change in her: "I was attracted to her again, and I was seeing things that I didn't know could exist."

He decided to attend Dolores' Bible study. He sat in the back corner. The third time he invited Christ into his life: "I first fell in love with Jesus Christ, and then I fell in love again with my wife."

That revolutionized their marriage. But a year and a half later, they realized they needed to learn what a godly relationship between a husband and a wife ought to be.

Dolores heard on the radio about a marriage conference conducted by FamilyLife, Campus Crusade for Christ's ministry focused on building godly marriages.

"It was a door-opener for things I didn't even dare to crack," Dolores says. She and Al were able to verbalize feelings like never before. The one-to-one time during the weekend was particularly important as they discussed and cried their way through different hardships in their relationship.

"That conference changed our marriage," Al says.

"FamilyLife was an asset on the journey to the tremendous marriage that we have today," says Dolores.

The Hardins have now been married for over 34 years. They continue to build into their marriage and those of others. They have even hosted a FamilyLife marriage seminar for employees at Al's company, and sent their son and his wife to a conference. Al says the conferences "built into our lives, so we can take what we learn and build into others' lives the same way."
—Sabrina Beasley

Adapted from The Family Room e-magazine, FamilyLife, March 2003. For more information on FamilyLife conferences, visit www.familylife.com.

Jean-Claude Malanda directs Campus Crusade in the Congo.

Jean-Claude Malanda was stuck in the jungle. The canopy of trees was so thick he rarely saw the sun and he lived on only plants and insects. At the same time, a pack of hostile rebels hid in the same jungle.

War had broken out in Republic of the Congo. Jean-Claude, from Laari—the same ethnic group as the rebels—was forced to flee Brazzaville, the capital city. If he tried to return to the city he could be mistaken for a rebel and shot. However, the jungle wasn't safe either. "In a sense, I was running from both sides," he says.

Similar uprisings have occurred in the Congo the past few years, including one that displaced 40,000 people from Brazzaville.

Now the director of Campus Crusade for Christ in his home country, Jean-Claude spent a total of nine months in the jungle. It was a time of faith-testing that prepared him to be a leader.

Jean-Claude, age 42, became a Christian in 1996, after performing the voice of Jesus while recording the JESUS film into a Congolese language. "After repeatedly watching the scene when Jesus suffered, I realized my own misery and sinfulness," he says. He began telling others about Christ and joined Campus Crusade in 2000.

When the rebellion started, Jean-Claude was immediately in danger. After making sure his wife and children were safe, he fled, along with his two brothers and brother-in-law. Another Campus Crusade staff couple didn't evacuate in time. They were captured, shot and killed.

Because of their swift departure, Jean-Claude and his brothers had no provisions. For shelter, they covered themselves with large leaves to shield the rain and used smaller leaves and grass for bedding. Plant leaves, grubs and the occasional wild fruit were all they could scrounge to eat. Jean-Claude dropped 25 pounds off his already thin and lanky frame.

During the day, he would go by himself to pray. He was deeply concerned about his family and whether he'd ever get out of the jungle. His concern often turned to discouragement. Job 5:7 helped sum up his plight: "Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward" (New International Version).

Often, Jean-Claude would encounter the rebels. Many of them were young—teenagers even. At first they thought he and his brothers were spies. When they found out he was a man of faith, they mocked him. After he prayed for some of the sick rebels, they respected him. One shoeless rebel, probably in his 30s ("He was so dirty it was hard to tell," says Jean-Claude), later prayed with him and received Christ.

Eventually the fighting stopped, and Jean-Claude and his brothers returned to their families. The peace continues today. "But it is a fragile peace," he says.

Jean-Claude says the jungle experience taught him crucial lessons: "I learned about prayer, listening to the Holy Spirit and being content in any circumstance."

Plus, God gave him a vision to reach the Laari people. "Nothing happens by accident," he says. "No matter what happens, the most difficult times are God's plan to prepare you for something to help change the world for Christ."

Not long after he returned, the national Campus Crusade director left his position, and Jean-Claude took the helm. He had only been a Campus Crusade staff member a few years, but he was prepared. He'd been through the jungle and was ready to lead. —Chris Lawrence

A church that is 120 years old has seen a lot. But never this. A man levitated above the stage, in front of the massive organ pipes.

Patricia Delgado and her neighbors walked down Bell Hill in Worcester, Mass., to Belmont Street Baptist Church. Over 250 people entered the massive stone sanctuary that the congregation had hand-built decades ago.

Having an illusionist in their church made some members leery. But Patricia, who wasn't a member, sat transfixed during the presentation by André Kole, an illusionist with Campus Crusade for Christ. Though he didn't reveal how he appeared to levitate, he did explain how the audience could know God personally.

According to associate pastor Norberto Soto, one-third of the attendees were from the neighborhood, making it the biggest evangelistic outreach in the church's history. "[We wanted to] reconnect our church to the immediate community," Norberto said. Best of all, Patricia and 67 others indicated decisions to invite Jesus into their lives.

Since then, Patricia and her children, Tyrone and Giovani, have attended church every week. —Chris Sneller


Nigeria
Athletes In Action

The Nigerian basketball courts weren't quite what the American college girls were used to.

Grass was growing from many cracks in the concrete slab. One of the backboards needed a rim, and the court needed to be cleared of goat dung before they could play.

But the girls didn't come to Nigeria just to play basketball—they came to tell others about Christ.

In Port Harcourt, "the education system is corrupt and flooded with cultic influence," says Debbie Fesler, a Campus Crusade staff member with Athletes in Action. People were losing hope, and there had been several suicides on school campuses. But the AIA team knew they could use sports to reach the Nigerians.

"We were a bunch of white girls playing a bunch of black boys most of the time, so naturally we gathered a crowd," says Debbie. During halftime, one player would tell her faith story to the crowd, and another person would explain how to become a Christian.

In just 10 days, 191 people indicated decisions to accept Christ, and 4,200 evangelistic brochures were passed out by the team. —Becky Hill


India
Community Ministry

For 24 years, Prema Jagammatham refused to speak to her sister.

Prema's family was Hindu and belonged to the high-caste Brahmans. When her younger sister Raji committed her life to Christ, Prema and the rest of her family rejected Raji and forced her to move out.

"It was a very painful experience for me," Raji remembers. "I couldn't even attend some of the family functions because I had become a Christian." But she continued to trust that God had a plan for her family.

Years later, Prema became seriously ill, and Raji visited her in the hospital. "Because of my illness, I was so tired and weak," Prema said. "But I can now see God's hand in it. I needed to be in that state to be open to talk with [my sister]."

Raji comforted Prema, and soon Prema began to recover from her illness. Prema began to visit Raji's house and read from her Bible. And Prema slowly saw the hope that Raji had found in Christ.

Then one day, nearly 30 years after her sister had become a Christian, Prema tearfully knelt with Raji and prayed, accepting Christ into her life. —Becky Hill


North Carolina
The JESUS Video Project®

"I am highly offended that you would have the gall to try to push your religion on me," said an angry voice from North Carolina. The caller had received a JESUS video, based on the Gospel of Luke, in a mass mailing to all the residents of his state. He was incensed: The South is the Bible Belt; people there don't need Christ. He said he grew up in the church and even identified himself as a Christian.

Linda Reyna (left) patiently listened over the JESUS video customer-assistance line. She explained who Jesus is and why the film was sent out: because God loved him. Then Linda delineated the difference between religion and a personal relationship with God. The man's voice softened as he learned what it really meant to be a Christian. By the end of the call, he was praying with Linda and making Christ the Lord of his life.

Such calls are no novelty in Linda's office. Each month two or three callers will pray and receive Christ with her. Linda says, "A lot of times callers are seeking without even knowing that's what they are doing." —Chris Sneller