Members of Campus Crusade for Christ will go on an overseas mission this summer to share their religion with students in Germany.
The group will go to Berlin from June 12 to July 17 for its national summer project. Thirty Cru. members from around the country will be attending, including seven Northwestern students.
The trip will be led by NU Cru. staff members, project director Daniel Davis and associate project director Barbara Franz.
Medill freshman Danny Russell, one of the seven NU students planning to attend, said Cru. members will spend weekdays working at universities around the city and sharing their beliefs with international students.
“(We’ll be) sharing our faith and engaging in conversations to learn what they believe and tell them what we believe,” Russell said.
Russell said Cru. has sponsored trips to Berlin in the past. He added that full-term missionaries from the organization are working there in one- and two-year shifts. A long-term ministry has also been set up.
Cru. has ministries and summer projects set up in the United States and other parts of the world, including Africa and Central America, according to its website
Cru. member and Weinberg freshman Annie Higgins, who will also head to Berlin, said students are raising money to cover the trip’s cost, which is $5,250, through writing letters to their churches, pastors, friends and community members.
Essentially, Higgins said, “there will be a support team to pay for you when you’re over there.”
Russell said many of the students Cru. will talk to during the trip have never been told about the Christian faith.
“To be that person who is telling that to them for the first time is really exciting to me,” he said.
Higgins said she feels the opportunity to share her faith with others is very important.
“The biggest thing of all is just sharing with other people. People there like to talk about it, and we’re giving them the opportunity to talk about it,” she said.
Besides educating fellow students about their faith, travelers will also embark on weekly sightseeing trips in Berlin, according to the project’s website. The mission will culminate in a trip to the Alps in Switzerland, Russell said. Here, Cru. members will reflect on what they have learned.
Higgins said though she previously has not been as open about sharing her faith with others, she is excited she has finally found the courage to do so.
“I haven’t really taken a whole lot of opportunities to share my faith with others because I’ve been scared to in the past, but I have more confidence to share it now,” she said. “I’m looking forward to having these conversations with other people. It’s (going to) be an awesome opportunity to grow and share.”
Russell said he is also excited to have these conversations about religion and faith, though he said, like Higgins, he finds doing so a bit frightening.
“My faith really excites me and to share that with other people is exciting, too, but also kind of scary because there’s that fear of rejection,” he said.
Still, Russell said he is eager to have the conversations, as they will help him learn information that will be useful in the future.
“I think the thing I’m most excited for is having spiritual conversations because I think that will really challenge me to look at what I believe and why I believe,” he said. “I think I may hear questions that I may not know the answer to. I think having a better understanding for what other people believe will help me because I hope to have spiritual conversations for the rest of my life.”
