Jon and Cheryl Peli

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History of Peli’s Ministry

The mission of Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ) has always been to help fulfill the Great Commission(Matt 28: 18-20).  Jon and Cheryl were both inspired by this vision as college students at UW-Eau Claire.  Both learned ministry skills such as how to lead a Bible Study, how to share your faith in Christ and how to start a faith community as students involved with Cru. Upon graduation(1993/1994), Jon began working with Cru full time at UW-LaCrosse while Cheryl spent a year in Thailand reaching college students for Christ.  

In 1997, Jon and Cheryl were married and moved to UW-Oshkosh to serve as Local Campus Directors.  They were privileged to see God build a campus ministry of over 200 students with some going on to be missionaries, pastors and pillars for Christ in their church and in the community.  

After serving for 11 years in Oshkosh , Jon and Cheryl had been encouraging students to go to East Asia on summer and one year mission trips.  The Lord led them to take a step of faith and move to East Asia with their boys who were 3, 5 and 7 at the time.  They spent 8 years in the western part of the country sharing the love of Christ with some of the most unreached people groups in the world.  

In 2016, Jon and Cheryl were asked to move to the capital and serve on the National Leadership Team to help the 800 missionaries around the country.  However, in 2020, due to COVID and questions from the authorities they had to leave East Asia.  

Jon and Cheryl returned to the States with a few suitcases leaving most of their possessions in East Asia. As National Team leaders they helped care for the displaced missionaries from Cru and eventually were part of a team that made the difficult decision to reassign all missionaries to other assignments.

Current Ministry Assignments:

Jon has transitioned to a new role within Cru.  He is serving on the Global Fund Capacity team which helps the over 150 National ministries around the world develop local partnerships.  Jon is inspired by the role as he engages with National leaders and sees them build self-sustaining ministries that develop  the local church by encouraging generosity through giving.  Jon’s team consists of people from nine different countries from five continents.  He is  able to work remotely as he communicates with people everywhere.

Cheryl is working with staff members who have been displaced from East Asia.  She has diligently served many staff by walking them through the process of finding a new role as missionaries around the world.  She is prayerfully considering her next steps in serving within Cru globally.  

We  have three boys, Noah(22) is a junior at Grace College studying Mechanical Engineering, Jack (20) is working at a Christian camp in Michigan while taking online classes and Ethan(17) who is a junior in high school.

How can I help?

As a non-profit organization, Cru requires  all staff members to raise their own financial support.  Each of the 11,000 staff members, including the President, must have partners who are willing to give to meet their needs.  This is a faith step for each staff member.  

However challenging, the process has provided faithful partners who not only give but pray for and care about each staff member. 

We are committed to work hard in helping fulfill the Great Commission in whatever role God has for them and to  regularly update our partners about our activities through newsletters.

Thank you for considering partnering with us.

Sincerely,

Jon and Cheryl Peli

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