Hey, y’all! Happy 2006! I’m still messing up which year to write. We hope and pray you are growing in God’s loving care and seeing His plans unfolding in your lives. Since Karl and I have always served Campus Crusade for Christ in “support” roles, we do a lot of behind the scenes work that enables others to better share the gospel directly with people. We don’t always get to see exactly how our ministry touches people. This past month or so we’ve been given a couple of glimpses.
Below is an email that Karl passed to me a few weeks ago from a coworker of his. Karl helps to organize the devotional times for the department and they have been working through Campus Crusade’s “Transferable Concepts”, which contain some of the most foundational teaching/training we’ve had available to us over the years. Normally Karl gets someone else to do the teaching, but in the absence of another, he taught the lesson that day. Here’s the email he sent to me:
(Karl said,) “I taught How You Can Introduce Others to Christ yesterday…”
(Coworker emailed him this,) “Interesting lunch today. I am in a SharePoint seminar near the airport. When I told the instructor about what Campus Crusade does – helping people meet God, his response was ‘you know, I have been struggling with that for a while’ (in the midst of 4 other students). Remember your comment – people want to know. Guess who got the copy of the 4 Spiritual Laws you handed out yesterday. God is great!”
It was so encouraging for Karl to know that the devotions he planned had a real impact, not only on our staff, but on those who need to know Jesus!
Another really neat thing for me has been the great conversations God has given me through sharing about the ectopic pregnancy and more specifically through my grandfather’s last minute choice to ask Jesus into his life. I’ve been praying for God to make more natural openings in conversations, since, despite being well trained, I still don’t feel very good at it. God used all this to give me a chance to share with my hairdresser about how I learned to walk with God through the power of the Holy Spirit in college and how revolutionary that was for me! She and I had had many general conversations about God, but this was a first, to be able to give her a Holy Spirit booklet and show her the parts that changed my life as I relate to God.
Because of digging through my purse for that booklet, I discovered I had run out of Knowing God Personally booklets. So I went home and restocked. The very next day I was out shopping and praying that God would open my eyes to the opportunities to reach out around me. After coming out of the grocery store, I ran into a homeless woman whose husband had just been discharged from the hospital. She was hoping to wash my windows to earn money for a bus ticket home. God just plunked an opportunity to love someone down in front of me in a way that was hard to miss! Because of the day before, I was prepared to give her not only some money and pray for her, but something more lasting.
God is so good! I pray He’ll keep redeeming life’s trials and keep using them (and us) to open doors for us to share Him with others. We pray that you will see God working in and through your lives as well.
On a personal note, we would love your prayers for returned health (we all got sick J) and for me as I have another laparoscopy Feb 7th. It is to remove scar tissue that would make me at very high risk for another ectopic pregnancy. Needless to say, I’m not excited, but I’m thankful for the chance to get better.
Many thanks to all of you who helped cover the costs of our recent medical expenses, too! God, through you, provided exactly what we needed, when we were able to tally up the actual costs! I’ll say it again, God is so good, and He blesses us greatly through you! With love,

Liesl, Karl, and Anja

(here’s this letter as a pdf)