Life was supposed to be at its zenith when Kimiko Koba arrived to study in the United States in 1998. Instead, the 19-year-old Japanese waged an internal battle, despairing over her recent abortion.

Kimiko settled in with a Seattle family who began to tell her about God's love. "I thought I knew love," she says. "In fact, I was desperately seeking true love. But there was no God in my life. In Japan, I had never heard of Jesus."

Christians surrounded Kimiko, and her hard heart began to soften. "I was injured emotionally, had an inferiority complex and had strong guilt because of the abortion," Kimiko remembers.

Then she visited a home-based coffeehouse hosted by John and Barbara Whitehouse, a couple who left Japan after three years to serve with Bridges, Campus Crusade for Christ's ministry to reach international students. Just before returning to Japan, Kimiko prayed with John and received Christ.

Back in Japan, Kimiko's job at a travel company that was closed on Sundays freed her to attend a church recommended by the Whitehouses. But her church attendance waned when she started dating a non-Christian. His proposal brought a faith crisis. "When I started talking about Jesus, he called me names," Kimiko said. "I went back to Jesus and the church."

Kimiko became worship director and for several years discipled new Japanese believers sent to her by the Whitehouses. "Following up new believers is a joy," Kimiko says. "We all have the same problems and worries—finding a job, a Christian spouse and telling our families that we've become Christians."

Two years ago, Kimiko married Tsuneki, a man on the worship team. She quit her job and followed him to an island in southern Japan to help launch a Christian school. As well as nurturing a classroom of active primary-school children, the couple (above) is well on the way to raising a second generation of Japanese Christians. They are expecting a baby later this year. "I am filled with joy every day," Kimiko says.
—Bill Hunt

Looking across the table at the young, ambitious women, Allison Hines saw herself in them.

A few years earlier, she, too, was an intern on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. During those three months, her zeal for her country and desire to make changes grew and grew. Most importantly, she realized she needed to be grounded in her relationship with God—not easy amidst a flood of ideologies and influences.

Eventually, Allison (left) took a full-time job serving an Indiana congressman. A month later, she met Sue Vernalis, a staff member with Christian Embassy, the arm of Campus Crusade for Christ that reaches out to men and women in government. "Allison has a real eager heart for the Lord," says Sue. "It's difficult to be a Christian in Washington, D.C., and she stands out."

Sue began to mentor her, and challenged Allison to reach out to the incoming interns. Though she had never before led a Bible study, Allison started a weekly group. And that's how she found herself in a Starbucks, sitting with eight female interns.

"No matter where they go or what they do," says Allison, now 23, "their relationship with Christ needs to be central."

It's a foundation Allison is helping these women find amidst the bustle of Capitol Hill.
—Chris Lawrence

Teaching the fundamentals of basketball was the easy part. But Jeremiah Boswell struggled with what came next.

A crowd of nearly 50 high-school students gathered around the 6-foot-4-inch shooting guard in the makeshift gymnasium in Port Louis, Mauritius, a small island nation off the east coast of Africa.

Jeremiah (left, at right) was on a basketball tour with Athletes in Action, the sports ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, which sends teams across the United States and abroad each summer. "It's a ministry to the athletes and through the athletes," says Adam Kjorvestad, director of AIA's international basketball teams.

For two weeks, Jeremiah, 25, and his teammates competed against Mauritian teams and also hosted evangelistic clinics.

And now it was Jeremiah's turn to communicate his faith to the group. Butterflies built up in his stomach, like before a big game. "I had always viewed my faith as a very personal thing," says Jeremiah, who played for Columbia University in New York.

He told the Mauritians about his parents' divorce and how he later became a Christian in eighth grade. He also stressed the importance of living for God's glory—including through basketball.

"I could tell by the look in their eyes that they were listening," says Jeremiah. It was a high point for him, and throughout the trip his team saw several Mauritians place their faith in Christ.
—Chris Lawrence


Hungary

The gospel didn't really make sense to Ksenia Lubyantseva until the very last day of Crescendo Summer Institute of the Arts in Hungary. The 19-year-old classical pianist from St. Petersburg, Russia, had spent 14 days contemplating Handel's Messiah and improving her keyboard skills with 50 world-renowned European music professors, all Christians.

After discussing faith with a German pianist at the event, coordinated by Campus Crusade for Christ's Swiss ministry, Ksenia (left) invited Christ into her life. "I feel that God gave me a new existence, a new body, a new being," says Ksenia.
—Bill Hunt