North Myrtle Beach Times Serving our Community and the Grand Strand for over 50 years
By Ruben Lowman
Under the guidance of God and sunlight and beautiful blue skies North Myrtle Beach has to offer, 45 students of faith from colleges and universities across the country gathered together for one month this summer, laying down their plans with one goal in mind – to advance the kingdom of God.
With the theme of the summer “Through His Eyes”, the students, under the guardianship of staff members from Cru Summer Mission 2021, set out to build community, forge friendships and, most of all, learn learn how and why the gospel is shared so strongly today. The 24 staff members, including the leadership of the President of Cru International Steve Sellers, who himself had first visited NMB as a Cru student in 1973, trained and encouraged the students during the entire month of June, and laid out their vision how how they hoped they would see themselves through God’s eyes by the end of the mission.
The Cru staff quickly set the pace for the mission, training their students in evangelism, meeting with them in Bible study groupsand encouraging them to venture out evangelize to others themselves on the beach.
All within a day of arriving here in North Myrtle Beach.
Staff members wanted to make it immediately clear that the time the Cru students spent here would be used for God first, for others second and, lastly, for themselves.
Steven Aquirre Hernandez, just like all of the other students on the mission, enthusiastically explained how he immediately spent his entire afternoons dedicated to evangelism on the beach, spreading the word of God.
“We were walking along the beach looking for people to have gospel conversations with, and I jokingly said, ‘What about those people way out in the water?’ But as soon as I said that the two guys got up out of the water and started walking towards usand we started up a conversation,” Aquirre Hernandez said. “One of the guys was already a Christian, but his friend wasn’t a believer. We talked for about forty minutes, and eventually, he prayed to receive Christ.”
During the first week of the mission, students were tasked with seeing themselves through God’s eyes, understand how they were loved, as well as seeing how their individual gifts and abilities could be used for others. As the days rolled on and the students entered their second week sharing their faith here on the beach, they began to focus on how they could see each other how God sees them, as people created in the image of God.
One of the students, Jaden Wahlund, shared an emotional story expressing just how much their evangelism meant to them and fellow beachgoers touched by their message. He and a few other students were walking along the beach when it started to downpour, so they looked for a beach umbrella to stay under. After the rain passed, they went out again and within thirty seconds they saw two young men, so they went up and introduced themselves.
“One of the guys showed us this inappropriate picture he had drawn in the sand, and said, ‘What do you guys think of this?’ After that, I thought ‘Yeah, this conversation probably isn’t going to go anywhere,’” Wahlund said. “But one we started talking about spiritual things, one of the guys broke down crying. We walked them through the ‘Knowing God Personally’ booklet and one of the guys prayed to receive Christ. We were all tearing up and I told him, ‘Welcome to the family!’”
Focusing their goals as the third week of their summer mission came, the students set out numbers of individual conversions they hoped to have with nonbelievers as they walked along the shore, as well as sharing with them in ways that took them out of their comfort zones. Student Ethan Koestler described an interaction that summed up the experience they were intending to have, as he and his fellow students were standing out in front of the student apartments at night and a group of other students came up to them asking where the parties were.
“Their names were Caleb, Desi and Hannah, and all three had had negative experiences with the church in the past. Kenna and I were able to speak some truth about the real gospel into their lives,” Koestler said. “They all three prayed to receive Christ, and at the end, Caleb told me, ‘I always used to be terrified to hear those trumpets, but now I’m going to be dancing in the street with you!”
With the mission coming to a conclusion after four weeks spent together, the students set their sights on finishing their mission strong with evangelism, looking ahead to a life on mission wherever God takes them, and just trying to enjoy their remaining time together worshipping and reflecting, and being thankful for the North Myrtle Beach community for accepting them with open arms.
“The first time I had the joy of experiencing two people pray to receive Christ was on a day I felt unqualified,” student Ashley Muehlbauer said. She and a fellow student, Tenzin, prayed before they went out that they would put their flesh away, and they met four other students on vacation, Payton, Harrison, Landen and Shelly, that expressed an interest in the Gospel but didn’t feel connected with God for various reasons.
“Payton was wrestling with questions of God’s goodness after family health issues, and Landen was dealing with feelings of unworthiness before coming to God. Tenzin and I were able to share our testimonies of how we dealt with those situations and found eternal hope through Christ,” Muehlbauer explained. “They started to tear up and felt a weight fall off their shoulders, expressing a new desire to be connected with God through the church and the Word. God met all of us where we were at that day, and Tenzin and I were able to be used to advance God’s kingdom because we stepped out in faith!”
