Women World Changers conference gathered women from over 30 churches in the Southern California area to encourage and equip them on how to become influencers in the world around them.  I had the honor to speak alongside three other speakers who have a heart for missions and impacting lives with the gospel.

          Nancy Kaser founded the compassion ministry, “Promise Child” with her husband Brent. Trish Ramos works with “Living Waters” ministry and has her own radio show on evangelism in Texas called, “Fish with Trish”.  Debbie Douglass serves with her husband as the founder of “Saving Grace World Missions”, a sending organization for Calvary Chapel.

         Each of us spoke on various topics encouraging the women to grow in their heart for compassion ministry, evangelism and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. (Guess which topic I had?) Yes, walking in the power of the Spirit.  This opportunity confirmed that the Lord has put a message on my heart to share with the women in the body of Christ.  We are not meant to live ordinary lives, but EXTRAORDINARY one’s.  That can only happen when we learn how to hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance and walk moment by moment with Him.

         I was incredibly encouraged by the response of the women attending.  Most expressed that they were excited to step out in faith.  They wanted to see God make an impact in the lives around them no matter their age, life stage or vocation.

           You can listen to our teachings at http://sgwm.com/womenworldchangers/messages/

            BE TRANSFORMED was a women’s conference at my church. Having only attended for a little over a year, I was surprised when they asked me to be the speaker.  I felt led to have our theme, “Be Transformed”, taken out of Isaiah 61:4. “ They shall rebuild the ancient ruins; they shall restore the former devastations; they shall renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”  We all have places long devastated in our lives that need transformation.

              The first session focused on rebuilding our lives on the right foundation. That foundation is based on what the Word of God says about God and how God see’s us.  The second session emphasized that being restored to what should be does not happen over night. It is a process. We talked through how to take life’s temptations and use them as stepping stones to building our character rather than stumbling blocks in becoming more like Christ.  The final session clarified how we can have internal renewal by learning how to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

               Multiple women approached me during our breaks to confide that they had lost hope in God rebuilding, restoring and renewing them on this side of heaven. It was a privilege to get to know these women from my church and enter into their lives in a more intimate way.   I am continually humbled how the Lord chooses to use me for His purposes as I walk with Him and live in community with others.

              Thank you for partnering with me so that I can minister to women both inside and outside the organization.

    Last week I got to visit the team at San Lusio Obispo. It is amazing to see what God is doing with our largest ministry in our region.  Between 800-1000 college students are a part of the Cru ministry there.  Just this past month they put on an outreach where a magician came in and talked about how truth is not relative.  80 students put their faith in Christ at that outreach!

    One of my personal highlights was having lunch with the mom’s and hearing about their engagement in the ministry there.  Mom’s are a vital part of our ministry in Cru. The age of their children might determine what they are involved in, but most mom’s desire to keep their hearts and hands involved in the ministry.      At San Luis Obispo, there are four mom’s engaging with the mission.

     Gretchen, is a mom of two teens, but still finds time to disciple young staff, as well as lead a weekly training time with 70 students who lead freshman Bible studies around campus. She also oversees the bi-weekly staff women’s time for personal development.

     Misty, a mom of three kids, trains two of our new staff in their ministry development as well as distant coaches two of our teams serving in East Asia. She is also a gifted speaker and has taught at the weekly meetings powerfully from the word.

      Molly is a mom who not only home schools her two children, but coaches the students leading the prayer ministry.

      Dena is a mom of four children. Her and her husband lived overseas in central Asia for many years, and now, being stationed out of SLO, together travel back and forth to continue training leaders in that part of the world.  When she is here, she trains two of our interns on staff at SLO as well as disciples students at the community college next door. She too is a gifted speaker and has spoken to the larger ministry of Cru students.

      Thank God for these families who have stayed engaged with the mission and are trusting God to use them to influence people’s lives no matter what stage of life they are in!  Thank you for your prayers and support as I travel and meet with our teams throughout the region!

 -   Holly Ashman

200 Missionaries Gather in Thailand for Spiritual Rest and Renewal

Mangos. Sticky rice. Curry. Elephants. Monkey’s.  Idols. Buddhist Temples. Incense. Human Trafficking. Poverty. Tsunami victims. Thailand.

This is my fourth trip to Thailand, and it never ceases to amaze me how almost everyone worships idols. Spirit houses are erected in the front of their homes, hoping to appease the spirits so they don’t enter their homes.  Monkey’s run rampant due to their sacredness to the Buddhist religion. People burn incense and worship a different idol depending on the day of the week. It is a country in spiritual bondage.

But to our missionaries who serve in the “closed countries” in East Asia and the Middle East, it was a place of freedom.  They gathered for a week to worship.  Something they haven’t done out loud for months! They were encouraged by deep times in the Word. And each person spent time with coaches, like myself, to help them process their time so far overseas.  I had the privilege of coaching the team that went to the country I pioneered in the Middle East this summer. Please pray for them. As they were trying to return to the Middle East, three of the team members were denied re-entry into the country.  Please pray as we consider their new placement and for the team that is still serving in the Middle East without three of their teammates.

40 Staff and Interns Gather for Ministry Training

One third of our laborers in the Pacific Southwest are interns, serving with us for one or two years after college. This year, all but two of them are applying to join us full time.  This will greatly increase our laborers a we try to reach the 3.5 MILLION college students in California, Arizona and Hawaii. Praise the Lord!

Just as we gather our missionaries overseas together to process their year, we do this with our staff and interns who are new with us.  Often the first year of ministry is the hardest.  They are learning who they are right after college, how to work full time, how to walk through challenging team dynamics and how to gain the ministry skills they need to share the gospel in this generation.  I had the opportunity to teach them on the topic that means the most to me: how to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Truly, if there is only one requirement for us, it’s to listen and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit. Then, each day, we will know that we did what the Lord wanted us to do.  Please pray for them as they continue to grow in how to do ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit and not in their own strength.      Thank you so much for your prayers and support!    -Holly

      The theme of this year’s Winter Conference was “Boundless”. As over 1,000 students and staff from all over our region gathered together, we were challenged to consider how our life and campuses would look different if we realized that God has no boundaries.  He can do anything. He can reach anyone. And because of that, He wants us to cross boundaries. We studied John 4 and talked about how Jesus crossed the boundary as a Jew to talk to a Samaritan woman (both boundaries not usually crossed in that culture).

      The highlight for me was our Day of Faith. Instead of initiating with people around San Diego, we gathered everyone into  four ballrooms with internet access and challenged them to use their social networking skills to each initiate with ten friends on Facebook.  Gathered around tables in groups of eight, they prayed together, then started messaging or chatting with their friends online. It was a creative way to immerse them in learning how to better begin spiritual conversations with friends they already know in a way they usual communicate, online!  This day was a huge success.

• 7945 conversations were initiated.
• 1087 had spiritual conversations.
• 46 shared the entire gospel.
• 3 indicated decisions to receive Christ in just the three hours of them being online!

      We believe that God will bring many more of these “friends” from facebook to Christ as the students continue to dialogue with their friends.

      One evening was focused on giving students a greater vision for the world.  I had the privilege of sharing onstage about my trip to the Middle East this summer and getting to share the gospel with my professor.     I also hosted a lunch for those interested in considering going to “Lighthouse”.  Over 50 students showed up wanting to pray about possibly doing ministry there for a summer or a year long stint!

       The final evening was a night for students to surrender to the Lord and commit to taking steps of faith in being a part of the Great Commission. Hundreds of students put up commitment cards on strings hung around the ballroom as we worshiped into the New Year.  We also know of some non-believers who attended the conference and took the step of faith to decide to follow Jesus.  It is for weeks like these that I am so thankful I get to serve in ministry!

Thank you so very much for supporting me with your prayers and special gifts so that I can continue to train staff and students how to reach this generation with the gospel.

Planning and Training Events to Pray for:

• My Leadership Team Planning retreat Jan 11-12
• Thailand Conference Jan 12-21 to coach missionaries that are serving overseas.
• First year field training for new staff and interns Jan 24-27
• My Field Ministry Team Planning retreat Jan 29-31
• Next half-marathon Feb 5
• Campus Team Leaders Training Feb 6-9

  Every year around 1,000 college students and staff from Arizona, California and Hawaii come together for a week of great speakers that increase their vision to live a life in light of the Great Commission.  This year, we are livestreaming our evening sessions so that YOU can join us as well. Watch Live: http://facebook.com/sdwinterconf

Or http://http://sdwinterconference.com

Dec 28th 7-9 pm PST.  Speaker:  Matt Mikilatos

Dec 29th 7-9pm PST  Speaker: Matt Mikilatos.  I will also be sharing on stage about my time in the Middle East! Please pray as I share with the students. May they be encouraged to possibly go to the World as well! (We are unsure if we will be able to livestream me for security reasons.)

Dec 30th 7-9pm PST Speaker: James White 

Dec 31th  7-9pm PST  Speaker: Holly Sheldon

If you are unable to join us, please pray for us as we trust the Lord to work powerful in and through us this week! Thanks!

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for me over the past 13 years of ministry.  From Berkley, to East Asia, to the Regional team and 23 countries in between, I can truly say none of it would be possible without the prayers, encouragement and generous giving of the saints! May the Lord remind you this season that believing in His Son and sharing His Son with others is the most precious gift we’ve been given, and the most precious gift we can give!

May this video encourage you for your contribution in the Great Commission!     Thank you video!

One of the highlights of my role is visiting our college campuses in our region.  This month was a flurry of visits that encouraged m heart and increased my vision for why I do what I do.  GOD is moving! Ministries are growing! And students are coming to know Jesus!

Campus Visit #1: University of Arizona

(My alma mater)

The U of A staff team has spent a good two years building trust with the Residence Hall staff to be invited in to facilitate programs with the freshmen in the dorms.  They are now being initiated with by the Hall Directors to come in more frequently to interact with freshmen! This is helping our staff have more face to face time with freshmen to build trusting relationships with them, so that they can then have more meaningful conversations about spiritual things. One staff member is even teaching a weekly exploratory study with seekers who want to learn more about God.

Campus Visit #2:  Chico State University

Chico is another home of the “Wildcats”.  A huge party school, Chico is known for having fun, not studying.  The ministry at Chico State has grown immensely in the past few years as students hunger to find deeper community.  Meetings are growing to be over 200 students, and many are finding that they have more fun hanging out with Christians than getting drunk on the week nights. What’s unbelievable is how many students are committing to serving with Cru as part time staff while still students! They are raising their own support and working up to 20 hours a week doing vocational ministry while also finishing their degrees. Chico is raising up laborers to serve on their campus as missionaries even before they graduate!

Campus Visit #3: Sac State

A staff team has only been serving here for one year and already there are over 100 students involved with 11 returning from summer missions trips this past summer.  The team consists of two married couples and one intern.  Caellin, the woman on the left just returned to campus after having her son, Keller, three weeks ago.  This was his first day on campus! We are so amazed how God can use just a few faithful laborers and see so much fruit produced after just one year of ministry.

 Campus Visit #4: UC Davis

  UC Davis is know for its Aggies…but it’s starting to be known for its fruit.  Just since the beginning of the semester the staff have seen 13 people decide to follow Jesus. As I sat with the staff and heard their stories of sharing the gospel, I had tears streaming down my face.  This is why we do what we do. So that God can change lives around us.  I led a devotional from Psalm 107 where there are four different types of “lost” people. Each had their own devastating journey, but when they each “cried out to the Lord” he healed  and delivered them.  And this truth is being realized on this campus! Let us pray that students continue to cry out to the Lord!

Campus Visit # 5 and #6:  UC San Diego and San Diego State

Meet Lauren, (pictured with me).  Lauren is a first year intern serving at UCSD.  She came to Christ three years ago as a sophomore when some staff met her on campus and shared the gospel with her. She quickly got involved in the community and grew spiritually.  Her goal in life has always been to be a school counselor, but she decided before she furthered her education in grad school to serve with Cru for at least one year after she graduated.  Meeting her for the first time, it was wonderful to hear her story and how she felt passionate about sharing Jesus with others because someone else had done that with her. We talked about her future and what “God’s will” is for her life.  My answer to her was this, “God’s will, according to 1 Thes 4, is your sanctification. For you to become more like Jesus. So what is the next thing the Lord wants you to be a part of to grow you in your sanctification?”  She looked at me and said, “I think I might need to intern another year.  And that might mean surrendering my career ambitions, but I’m willing to seek the Lord and what He would have me to do with my future!”

Praise the Lord for these changed lives around us. God is on the move. God is growing our movements. God is changing lives! Let us praise Him!

This past Monday, our office staff joined the UC Irvine’s staff team and students to welcome the Freshmen to campus.  As Freshmen stormed the grassy field on the center of campus, they were bombarded by every club in the attempts to promote their group, their cause, and their community.  We were of course, “on a mission” to meet as many freshmen as possible and ask them to fill out a spiritual interest questionnaire.  In one day, we had around 1400 survey’s filled out and compiled.

Here are the results:

• 166 students marked the box stating, “I’ve got some questions about Christianity & I’d like to discuss them with someone.”
• 521 students marked that “maybe” they would talk with someone.
• 394 students marked “yes” to being  interested in joining a small group Bible Study.
• 458 students marked “maybe” they’d be interested in joining a small group Bible Study.

I had the privilege of surveying alongside of Sherilyn(pictured on the right), a student at UCI who is trying to start “Oasis”, our branch of ministry focusing on reaching out to Muslims. Would you please pray for these staff and students as they begin to spend their time calling and meeting up with these spiritually interested students?

Four days later, I attended their first large group meeting where about 200 students attended.  Jon Roper, one of the staff at UCI, gave a dynamic, engaging message on the gospel and how our organization is about training students over their four years how to make an impact on the people around them now and after they graduate. It was a powerful message, some maybe hearing the gospel clearly for the first time. Please pray for those who filled out response cards saying that they want to talk to someone more about the gospel.

This is just ONE campus of the twenty two teams we have in Arizona, California and Hawaii that are trying to initiate with every freshman on their campus and give them an opportunity to hear the gospel. Think about it. If we get to meet every freshman, every year, then every person will get to hear the gospel before they graduate! That is our desire and goal. The rest is in the Lord’s hands!

When a young woman with long, scraggly hair, wearing black lipstick and a Marilyn Manson t-shirt approached me one evening of my junior summer of college on the board walk of Ocean City, NJ and told me that she was a vampire, I never expected that I would be inspired to share with her the bloodiest rendition of the gospel and see  her life completely transformed overnight.   This transformation in her life transformed my life as well.   That summer my focus of life changed to be a learner of how I can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit , believing that when I do, I will see God change  lives around me with the power of the gospel.

After 12 years of serving in full time ministry, one of my greatest passions is talking to the Body of Christ about how they too can be intentional with the people, and when they are filled with the Spirit, they can be part of seeing how God wants to change lives around them!

In light of this passion He’s placed on my heart to  live this out in my life and more recently, speak and teach on these things, I have felt encouraged to write a book on this topic.  Writing a book has never been one of my goals in life, and my aim is not about becoming an author. I truly want the Lord to take what I’ve learned, what I’ve experienced, and impart it to others so that more and more people can know how to truly impact the world around them.

John 3:34 says, “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure.” We are all “sent one’s” by God.  And God wants to give His Holy Spirit to us without measure! What an amazing mission and promise we are given!

When I think about our mission to reach every student with the gospel, and to disciple and train students to be missional when they graduate, I am motivated to teach on this topic.  I know that I cannot write this in my own strength.  With my role and responsibilities in ministry, I will need the Lord to guide me on when and what to write.

I do not want to do this without a group of people who are willing to pray for me through this process.  I am trusting the Lord to help me complete the first draft of the book by the end of December.  I am also currently praying for someone to help read my drafts and edit them as I won’t have time to continually go over each story and edit them myself.  I am at the stage of writing my query letter to send to various publishers.  Would you please pray that I can complete my proposal and start sending it to publishers this month? If you are interested in being a part of this project with me in praying for God’s widsom, helping me with editing or providing finances for this project, would you please write me a reply so that I can keep you personally informed?

Below are some of my chapter titles that you can pray through as I start to write.

• The Vampire who Changed my Life
• Being a Freshman Stinks!
• From one Poem to Another
• S(34)INGLE
• Top Secret!
• Meeting Picasso
• Boy Bands and Glow Sticks
• The Death of my Best Friend
• The Perfect Storm
• Buried Treasure, an Auction and My Neighborhood
• Sand Traps, Sand Dunes and a Dune Buggy
• Life’s a Beach!
• Sparkly Headbands, T-shirts and Leadership
• The Prison of the Veiled Beauty
• Professors, Billionaires and a Blue Dress
• The Godmother
• More than Crosswords, Scrabble and Catch Phrase

Thank you for being a part of this ministry with me in reaching every person with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! May HE be glorified!

Holly

Many of you may have heard by now but Campus Crusade for Christ is changing its name to “Cru”.

Our national leaders have been involved in a 2-year process of changing the name of our organization. The reason for needing a name change is two-fold.  First, the word “crusade” has become increasingly problematic because of its association with violent conquest.  Second, the word “campus” has become limiting because our organization now includes several ministries that have nothing to do with a campus (The Jesus Film, Here’s Life Inner-city, Military Ministry, Family Life, etc.).

The new name, “Cru” currently has no meaning; however, just as Starbucks and Kinkos have become synonymous with coffee and copies, our vision is to fill Cru with meaning as it embodies all that we are as we go to the world with the Gospel.

It may have been brought to your attention that some media outlets have wondered if our name change was a decision to drop “Christ” from our organization. This is not true. Helping to fulfill the Great Commission by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ continues to be our focus and we hope that people will see that just because the name is changing, the mission we are on has not.

The following links provide more information about the name change and will answer many of the questions you may have:

FAQs: http://www.ccci.org/about-us/donor-relations/our-new-name/qanda.htm

Responses from Christian leaders: http://www.ccci.org/about-us/donor-relations/our-new-name/endorsement-letters.htm

I personally have loved serving in this organization for the past 12 years, and consider it an honor to have you continue to partner with me in reaching EVERY person with the life changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  If you have further questions about this change, please feel free to reply to this entry or email me personally!