Cru Ecuador

Soularium, Perspectives, Key Volunteer (KV) Challenge, and the Four Laws became our life in Ecuador.  These were tools used to open doors to talk to students on college campuses about God, their spiritual journeys, how on fire they were for God and if they would be a good student leader, and a way to share the gospel. 

Our CRU contacts were Sean, Bri, and Derek.  They spoke English and Spanish (and are from the states) so they were our translators, along with some of the other student leaders that have been raised up on the campuses we visited.

Days typically started in the afternoon (after a half hour to hour and a half bus/trolley ride) with either meeting up with a Cru contact or group or a group of Cru campus leaders.  Sometimes it was at a café, other times on the campus itself.  We usually began with a prayer then split up into groups and did Soularium, Perspectives, or KV Challenge.  After doing that for a few hours, we would come back together and talk about how our time went. 

Soularium- This tool is a deck of cards with 50 pictures.  We would go up to students and ask them if we could do an activity with them.  We would lay out the cards then ask them to pick 1-3 cards that describes what their life looks like right now.  After they picked out the cards, we would ask them to tell us why they chose those specific cards.  Then they would put them back and we would ask, “What do you want your life to look like in the future?” Again, they would pick 1-3 cards, describe them, and put them back.  Next, we would ask them to pick 1-3 cards that describes what their spiritual journey has looked like in the past, and describe the cards.  Our last question with the cards was “What do you hope your spiritual journey will look like in the future?  From there, depending on their answers, we would talk to them about their relationship with God or present the four laws if they had never heard of God or wanted to know more. 

Perspectives- This tool also involved cards, but was a little more challenging in that sometimes you really had to defend your faith and know why you believe what you believe.  We would go up to students and again ask them if they could help us out with a survey or activity.  We would ask them 5 questions.  Each question had specific cards to go with that question.  They would pick one card for each question and describe why they chose that card.  The questions were:

• What is the nature of God?
• What is the meaning of life?
• What is human nature?
• Jesus is what….?
• What is the source of spiritual truth?

After listening to their views, we would ask them if we could share our perspectives.  A lot of the students that we talked to were Catholic and had mixed views on God or stopped having a relationship with God because of how they were raised.  (Fun fact—Ecuador’s main religious affiliation is Catholic!). 

If it was appropriate, we would again share the gospel through the Four Laws.

KV Challenge- This was us solely trying to find people on campus passionate for Christ and who would be good student leaders who would be committed, wanted growth, and who could help evangelize.  This is how our conversation would go: “Hola!  Coma estas?  Tu hablas ingles?” (And hopefully their response was yes!)  If not, then the translator came in ;-).  Then we would ask them if they were passionate about Jesus?  If yes, we would question a little bit further and then ask them to do an activity (I’ll explain it in just a second!)  If they said no, then we asked if they knew of anyone else on campus passionate about Jesus?  If yes, then we tried to get contact information.  If no, then we asked if they would like to know more about Jesus.  If they responded that they were passionate about Jesus we did an activity with them to see if they would be a good contact/leader for the campus.  We would take a piece of paper and fold it into three sections. 

Section One: “What is your vision for Christ on this campus?”  Draw it or write it out.  Then we would ask them to explain it.  After they were done explaining, we would thank them and ask them if we could share Cru’s vision. 

Section Two: Read Matthew 28: 18-20 (in your own language) and write the scripture verse on the piece of paper.  Then we would ask them, “What are three commands in this passage?” 

Go (into the world), Make (disciples), All (nations need reached)  Then we would share how Cru’s vision is to Win (people for Christ), Build (up a community of believers), Send (them out all over to share the Good News and find more people who believe so we can multiply)

Go — Win

Make — Build

All — Send

Then we would have them read 2 Timothy 2:2 in their own language, write down the scripture verse, and then ask, “According to this passage, what type of people should we be looking for?”  (Passionate people for Christ).  Can one person tell everyone about Christ? No.  So if you tell two people, and they tell two people each and so on, you only need to invest in a small amount of people and it takes the pressure off you.  This is a process called spiritual multiplication.  And how does Jesus say he will help us?  “Surely I will be with you, even to the end of the age”. 

Third Section:

• So, who are 5 people that you can share the gospel with this week?
• Who are 5 people on campus that you can share the vision of Cru with, about going out and multiplying?
• What do you need from me to help you accomplish this? 

Then, we would get their contact info so we could check up on them in a week to see if they talked to people. 

The Four Laws- This would be shared after using the other tools.

Law 1 (Heart): God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

Law 2 (Division Sign): Man is sinful and separated from God, therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.

Law 3 (Cross): Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.  Through him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.

Law 4 (Choice): We must individually receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.