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Harvey & Carol

The goal of the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ has always been the same since it first started preaching the Gospel on the UCLA campus in 1951: Win people to Christ, Build them up in their faith, and Send them out into the world to reach more people.  Thirty Five years ago we were called by God with a passion for enabling people in the remotest parts of the world to hear about Christ and the good news of his salvation.  This has stretched from the Zo (a Myanmar refugee group that lives in the US) to Albania and almost every other country in the world.  We personally have been involved in many projects in Guatemala, India, Thailand, Kenya, South Africa, France, Germany and other places around the world.  We have been blessed to be able to take our children on several of these trips.

Our current focus in ministry is two fold.  The first focus is connected to one of Campus Crusade's big goals, to create mature, fruitful and self-sustaining local ministries around the world.  A key factor in building ministries with those qualities is creating easy online ways for local donors in the countries to be able to give to their local staff and ministry.  This is more difficult than it may seem due to factors such as a lack of available technology, corruption in the banking and mail systems, the lack of a giving culture in most countries, dealing with multiple languages and currencies, government restrictions on ministries, the lack of capable people to implement systems, and many more obstacles.

Harvey works on a project called Make Giving Easy which seeks to overcome those obstacles to provide individual countries with an integrated online giving platform. You can see one of many versions of this site at our demonstration site here.  This platform helps ministries in several different ways.  First, it gives donors a much easier way to give than they normally do.  In many countries donors actually have to physically walk to their bank to make a donation.  In other countries staff have to take a week off of every month to travel back home to physically collect the donations in cash by hand, to provide for themselves for the next month.  Second, the integrated nature of the system allows for quick access to the donation information for the ministry staff, leadership and for the donors.  Third, and this is really important long term, the system helps build trust in the ministry with donors.  In many of these countries corruption is a normal part of life.  So donors aren't always sure that their donations get to where they intended their donations go.  The system allows them an online way to see that the donation was received by the staff or ministry that they gave to.  As individual donors gain trust in the local ministry it will be easier for more local donors to give.  As the number of local donors grow the local ministry will become more supported, more encouraged and more effective.

The second focus of our work is also connected to a big goal of Campus Crusade for Christ.  The Jesus Film, a ministry of Campus Crusade, seeks to provide a way for any person in the world to have access to some relevant Gospel media in that person's heart language on any phone, pad, computer or other screen at anytime that person wants.  The Internet is the perfect tool for this.  In fact, we believe God caused the Internet to be created just for that purpose.  We have an ability that no other generation in human history has had.  We have the ability to share the Gospel everyone in their heart language when they want, where they want and on what platform they want.

Carol works on a project called the Animated Story of Jesus that is part of that strategy.  The project is to create an biblically accurate animated movie of Jesus that will be translated into more than 2,250 languages and made available for free to anyone who wants to see it, anytime, anywhere, and on any screen.  Animation was chosen as the media because the average age of the world is about 30 and it is trending downward.  The world is getting younger.  And as most people who come to Christ do so before the age of 18, the desire is to reach as many young people as we can.  So we have sought to communicate in the media that is most effective to younger generations, animation.  The film itself is based on the Gospel of Luke like the original Jesus Film made back in 1979.

By faith, our heart is to help everyone around the world have an opportunity to trust Christ.  Would you prayerfully consider partnering in ministry with us to help take the Gospel around the world?