Craig Johring

We've finished two weeks of the 11-week Summer Project. God is moving in and through the lives of the 54 students and staff. I'm seeing amazing growth and life-change far sooner than I've seen on any other projects I've lead. To view pictures that are constantly being posted from the Juneau Summer Project, click on this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/27100793@N04/  

I'm in Juneau, Alaska leading the 2008 Juneau Summer Project. I'm surrounded by 54 college students on this 11-week Summer Project, and am loving every second of pouring my life into these students. Our mission is to equip students to be missional Christ-centered laborers.  

Celebrating Our Staff

Last night our remaining staff gathered at Kamp Eduardo (my apartment) to celebrate and give Christ-Centered Leader cirtificates to Andrea Byl, Kevin Dahl, Caitlin Hutchins, and Matthew Wiley. These guys are not leaving yet. They will spend the summer in Mexico City leading the Mexico Journey Summer Project. But I'm leaving on tomorrow morning, and Emily Bastine left this morning.

Each of these staff have been amazing on our team. They have worked hard, walked in great faith, and stepped into countless lives. When you look at the number of campuses we are on and movements we've seen launched, it's a result of amazing staff who are willing to believe God, and empower college students to lead. These guys are headed home to take the next steps in their lives. We will miss them like crazy in Mexico City, but we're full of joy of the amazing year they've had here.

Way to Go Emily Bastine

Emily Bastine is the newest all-star leader on our Enfoque Mexico team. Emily always has amazing stories of incredible things that happen. One of her recent stories was picked up and this week landed on the front page of the Campus Crusade for Christ, Intl. website. Check it out.

A Day at the African Safari in Puebla, Mexico

On Friday I'm headed to Kamp Ed and Alaska for the summer, and will not return until shortly before our Rick Warren event on August 8th.

One of the families I'm very close to on my street and I have been planning on going to the Safari in Puebla all year. On Sunday morning the kids and their mom loaded into my Tracker and drove two hours to Puebla.

This was a big trip. The kids had never been outside the city before, and the mother had only been outside the city once when she was a child.

We made a full day of it by visiting the Choula Pyramid, the downtown Zocolo of Puebla, and the Safari near Puebla The Safari is one of the most unique experiences you'll find in Mexico. We have drive through zoos in the USA, but none with elephants, lions, bears, and tigers right outside your door. You could lose your life if you rolled down your window at the wrong moment. We had an absolute blast.

Tricia and Adam in Mexico City

This week Tricia and Adam Horn, and their son Cameron have been in Mexico City. What a highlight it has been to have these great friends of mine here. Tricia and I have been friends since college. Adam is on the Ruby Tuesday's racing team, and worked with the NASCAR races this past weekend. These guys are amazing. They are raising three kids while Tricia is a teaches at a university in Missouri, and Adam travels on weekends with the Ruby Tuesday's team. And Tricia edits my newsletter each month, or whenever it gets written.

Over the weekend we visited the Pyramid's north of the city. Today we delivered the giant bag of clothes and sports equipment they brought down to Casa de San Francisco, the orphanage we work with in Mexico City.

Christian Network to Broadcast Enfoque Mexico Events

We've received word that the largest Christian broadcasting company in Latin America would like to broadcast our Rick Warren event for 3500 pastors and leaders on August 8th, and wants to broadcast our student training event for 3000 college students on September 20th. In addition, they have expressed a desire to cover every Enfoque Mexico event we hold in the future.

The Enlace Christian network is watched by millions in Mexico, and broadcast throughout Latin America.

Over the coming weeks we will be working to cement our partnership with Enlace that we believe will result in believers all over Latin America catching the vision for believing God for starting missional Christ-centered movements.

The Mexico City Nascar Event

We've been blessed with some amazing friendships here in Mexico City with leaders in the city as we believe God for launching movements on 400 university campuses, and believe God for city-wide transformation. This weekend one our influencial friends in Mexico City blessed Joe Cross and myself with tickets for the NASCAR races on Saturday and Sunday.

Cool. I've never been to a NASCAR race. But these were not general admission tickets. The tickets were VIP passes. Over the weekend we had full access to every part of the race and took full advantage of meeting drives and crews before the race, and our passes gave us access to entering the pit area during the race. We had a blast connecting and building new friendships. And we gorged on unlimited wings and burgers catered by the Hard Rock Cafe in the VIP section.

Worldwide Challenge Article on Mexico City

It's been a blast having Ted Wilcox and Chris Lawrence here this week. They have worked 14 hour days every day interviewing students, staff, and taking thousands of pictures for the article. I'm excited for the story Chris will write, and the amazing pictures Ted took to illustrate the story. I believe this article will impact the world, and result in staff and leaders around the globe gaining a greater vision for empowering student leaders to lead, and reach other students.

Michelle and Becky Leave Mexico City

This week we said good-bye to Michelle Wiest and Becky Choate. Both of these women came to Mexico City in January to serve on our Enfoque Mexico staff team for the semester. This week they finished the semester and headed home to transition to the next part of their lives.

Becky has been a joy to have on our team. She consistently walked by faith this semester, and has been a joy to have on our team. Michelle has been a non-stop servant this semester, and constantly reached out to students. I'm so proud of these guys for the job they have done, and the way they have walked with God and served.

On Monday we celebrated our last time for our team to all be together by spending the day together on a boat at the Xochimilco canals in southern Mexico City.

Worldwide Challenge in Mexico City

This is a big week. On Sunday Ted Wilcox and Chris Lawrence arrived from Orlando to put together a Worldwide Challenge article on our ministry in Mexico City. Both of these guys came to came to Wayne State College several years ago to work on the Student's Rule article that landed Chris Hruska on the cover. Ted has been with me in Alaska for the past summers and is my good friend. It's a blast having him here.

We kicked off the week on Sunday night by gathering our staff who all returned after after having a week of vacation, and the students who Ted and Chris will be working with this week. My neighbors cooked many of my favorite foods. We feasted, and made a plan for the week.

Exploring the Yucatan

The Yucatan. What an amazing part of Mexico. In a span of five days Joe Cross and I visited five amazing Mayan ruins sites, explored two caves, and three cenotes (caves where the roof has collapsed). We decoded Cancun and Playa del Carmen, drove down the Mayan Rivera (the road south of Cancun), spent a day on Isla Mujeres, and a day snorkeling around the the island of Cozumel. We found a beachside hotel in Cancun for an amazing price. What a perfect vacation, that was non-stop fun and adventure. We flew back to Mexico City on a 7:00 a.m. flight on Friday, and jumped back into the mission by meeting with leaders in the afternoon.

Launching Movements in Merida in the Yucatan

Yesterday my co-director Joe Cross and I flew to Merida, Mexico to start a 6 days of vacation. We picked up a sweet rental car for 15 bucks a day that we will drop off next Friday in Cancun after exploring most of the pyramids, caves, beaches, and islands in this part of the country.

But first we met with the staff and leaders here after arriving in Merida. We had a small group of students from Merida come to our Big Break Acapulco conference several weeks ago. They rode a bus over 22 hours to Acapulco from here.

In Acapulco the students caught the vision for launching multiple movements in Merida. This past Thursday the student women in the picture launched a group on their campus to reach other students. Israel, one of the guys in the picture below is a lawyer who has a vision for launching movements in every department of each of the 10 university campuses in this city. I have asked Israel to join our staff work full time in coaching leaders here in Merida.

Paubo and Chela in the other picture below have been on staff here in Merida for many years, and are doing an amazing job. They have started a church with many of the leaders they are wroking with, and are doing an incredible job raising and emower leaders in this city.

Enfoque Mexico Staff

Never in my life have I seen staff so dedicated to the misson, and so hard working as the staff on our team.

In February we hosted the music group Keynote here in Mexico City for 13 days. After they returned hom the first week of Spring Break arrived.

For the past five weeks our staff have hosted Spring Break groups from the USA while building into student leaders and launching movements on campuses. Tonight the last of the 5th straight week of Spring Break groups ended, and head home tomorrow.

The results are we've seen duirn the past month are amazing. We now have groups/movements of 45 university campuses in Mexico City. I am iintensely proud of our staff and their hard work during the past 5 weeks.

Tomorrow all of our staff are taking a week of vacation and arae headed to all points of Latin America to rest and relax. Some have family members who are coming to visit, and some are headed home to visit girlfriends and family. I am flying to Merica tomorrow to spend a week exploring that part of the country, and will return next Friday from Cancun.

Missing from the team photo we took tonight is Kevin and Matt.

Orlando Campus Crusade for Christ Staff

This week we've had 6 Campus Crusade for Christ staff here from our headquarters in Orlando.

Karie Brown from Orlando coordinated the HQ staff and during week #5 of our seaosn of Spring Break they had a fantastic week. The staff from HQ saw leaders on 3 campuses in Mexico City raised up, and movements were launched as a result.

It's so amazing having staff here from Orlando this week and we are excited by the results of their amazing faith we are seeing.

Faculty Commons in Mexico City

Faculty Commons is the Faculty Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. This week David Wiley, the leader of Faculty Commons brought 2 professors from the USA to Mexcio City to speak in classrooms and to faculty in Mexico City.

The professors from the USA spoke this week in classroom and to gathering of leaders in some of the top university campuses in Mexico City. Professor Carter and Professor Dub impacted the lives of students in the classrooms of Mexico City by teaching from the area of their experiese, while sharing the hope and trust they have in Jesus with students and faculty in Mexico City.

Kevin and Cat on our Enfoque Mexico team did an outstanding job taking the faculty to campuses and coordinting their speaking schedule.

On Thursday night Professor Dub form New Orleans spoke to a gathering of Christain faculty.

Emily Bastine

Emily Bastine arrived on our staff team this past August, and quickly emerged as a leader of leaders. Below Emily shares how she and her Spring Break team launched a campus duinr week #2 of our season of Spring Break..


"Week 2 out of 5 in Mexico City. It was our biggest week of staff and students. I was once again exploring the city and searching for a university in a neighborhood that I haven’t visited before but this time I was accompanied by 6 staff and students from Montana State, Appalachian State and Denver Metro. I kept thinking ‘how am I going to get 7 people on a small private university?’.

The girls and I “distracted” the security guard so the 4 guys could access campus. As we were in an office with the security guard, out of the corner of my eye I see the guys walk onto campus and as we built trust with a secretary, we were allowed to stay for awhile as well. Before I know it Jenny (student at Colorado School of Mines), Katie (staff at Montana State) and I are sitting down with the first girl we meet named Gaby. I begin to get to know Gaby and her major and I ask her if she knows of anyone on campus that loves God and wants to make an impact on their campus. She stares at me blankly and then says she knows a guy who talks about Jesus a lot and gives me his name and phone number. A few hours later I decide to call Pablo—not even sure if it’s a real number. He answers in class and says that he is a Christian and wants to meet us the next morning.

All 7 of us arrive the next morning to meet with Pablo. As I begin to explain what we are doing in the city (believing God to raise up a movement of students on every university) he is engaged and excited. Pablo texts his friend Yanneth to come out of class to meet us as well. As he explains to her what we are doing, she says “How do we start our own group?”. So I begin to describe what ministry looks like and we planned to be in touch the next couple of weeks. I met with Pablo and his other Christian friend Juan on Monday with Lake Hart staff that are visiting. We talked more about what their passions are for reaching their campus and they will be starting a prayer movement this next week on campus. As we were wrapping up the meeting Pablo told me that Jesus had given him a heart for reaching his peers just weeks before meeting me and he had begun to talk to his pastor about how he could be a missionary to young people. His pastor told him to start at his university and the very next day I called him. He said that he knew that the Lord wanted us to work together because God had specifically answered his prayers. He didn’t know how to reach his campus.

Pablo is a dentist and wants to use his degree for Jesus and together he and I exploring mission opportunities. The best part of the story is that none of these students know of a Gaby on campus! Pray for Pablo, Yanneth and Juan as they begin to seek the Lord for direction for their campus."

Momumental Win in Mexico City

We had a monumental, God-moving and answering win this week. On Friday we booked the Metropolitan Theatre on September 20th for our training event for 3100 students.

We've been working for months on securing a venue for our event this fall, but found that virtually every venue in this city has already been booked every Saturday throughout the fall semester. The Metropolitan Theatre had the 20th of September open, but there were two groups ahead of us who wanted to rent the venue on this date, but had yet to sign a contract.

On Friday both of the groups who were on hold for September 20th decided to move to another date. We moved quickly in committing to rent the Metropolitan on this date.

The Metropolitan is a classic old-style theatre that seats 3100 people. Typically the venue is rented for 3-4 hours for a concert, but they are letting us have it for 8 hours. We've lined up Ticketmaster to handle ticket sales, and the price will be a little over 5 bucks per student.

So here’s the line up for the fall semester:

August 8: Rick Warren will speak to 3500 pastors at the World Trade Center (and we share during this time the vision of Citywide transformation, movements on every campus, and give pastors ownership of inviting their top students to the Sept 20th training).

September 20: Train 3100 students at the Metropolitan Theatre to reach students on their campus lauching and leading a movement on their campus. If God continues to move, I believe we will have groups on most of the 400 university campuses in this city by next year at this time.

Spring Break Week #4

Today the 17 students and staff from Brown University, and Denver Metro campuses head home after an amazing week of Spring Break outreach in Mexico City. Our staff are exhausted from the past four weeks of non-stop Spring Break groups, but they are full of joy from what we've seen God do this month. We have one more week of Spring Break. Tomorrow our last Spring Break group arrives, then everyone on our team is taking a week of vacation.

On Friday night we gathered for a party for the Spring Break students and the friends they made this week. I was touched by the story a Sophamore named Kari from Brown University shared with me. This week Kari was on a campus where we do not have a movement. She was reaching out to students when she met a student who follows Christ and wants to reach her campus. Kari speaks very little English, so she brought Andrea from our team to communicate our vision of having seeing God raise up thousands of movements on the 400 university campuses in this city to put the gospel within arms-reach of every student. They made plans to meet the next day.

The next day this girl returned and brought along six of her friends. None of these girls had ever heard how they can have a personal relationship with Chirst, so before helping them start a Life Transformation Group, they had a conversation on knowing God personally. All six of these women made decisons for Christ, and are now a part of the group on this campus that was formed this week.

Below is a picture of Andrea and Kari.

Death Swallowed Up in Victory

Three years in the days following Hurricane Katrina, 35 students involved with Campus Crusade for Christ at Wayne State College headed south to help with the initial stages of clean up after the storm. As their bus passed near Kamp Ed, I jumped on board and went with them.

I was impressed with these students who would take time away from their classes to serve in Louisana. One student in particular who stood out was Rachel Dixon. She was a student-athlete at Wayne State, and had the heart of a servant leader.

Just over a week ago, shortly before she was to graduate, Rachel died in a car accident.

Karen Sharp, our Nebraska Catalytic staff leader who worked with Rachel wrote the following words after Rachel's memorial service:

"Wayne State (a small four-year college of about 3,500) has had its share of sorrow this year. Last semester some of the students had connections to the Omaha mall shooting, then over Christmas break a popular track athlete committed suicide. Tragedy struck again last Monday when Rachel Dixon, a 22-year-old senior died in a car accident. Rachel was well-known in Campus Crusade as a singer in the worship band and part of our leadership team this year. She was known for her love of Truth and God’s Word, and the earnest way that she prayed.

Amidst all of the heartbreak, God has been mightily at work. Last week at least 3 students came to know the Lord for the first time. One of these students is a girl on the basketball team that Rachel was part of for one year. At the funeral Jenn Yee, a sophomore and fellow basketball player, read the card her teammate had sent her telling of her decision to surrender all of her life to the Lord. Rachel’s funeral was a time of celebration of the Gospel!

Lynn Miller, our student director and Rachel’s best friend, stood with her hands lifted in praise during the music. She later got up and shared the Gospel with a crowded high-school gym in Rachel’s hometown of Wahoo, NE. She spoke with power and conviction the message that Rachel would have most wanted shared. Lynn shared her personal story of Rachel asking her the question, "If you were to die tonight, on a scale of 1-10, how sure are you you'd go to heaven?" Lynn’s answer of “7… I think I’m a pretty good person” wasn’t good enough for Rachel. Lynn is a testament to Rachel’s life and made sure that everyone heard the same thing she had needed to hear that day: it is by grace alone that you are saved. There was power pervading the gym during the funeral — the same Power that conquered the grave. I saw students step up in ways you should never have to expect as they parted with a dear friend. The whole community and family got to see a group of college students as pastors as they coordinated the funeral with the family, lead the worship, and preached the Good News. Student after student shared the message of Jesus and the peace knowing their friend is with Him. How can you get more student-led than that? Jenn, Lynn, and many others are truly heartbroken at the loss of their sister and co-laborer in Christ and are still working things out for themselves, but they are continuing to follow up on spiritual conversations that have been sparked, and their perspective is right on."

Welcome Kathryn to Mexico City

Kathryn Taylor directs our ministry in New Orleans and is one our top leaders on the field in the USA. Kathryn came to Mexico City to direct our Acapulco conference. She did a fantastic job, but that's not the big news.

Kathryn has made the decision to come to Mexico City to join our Mexico Focus (Enfoque Mexico) leadership team. Kathryn will serve as our Program Director, and has a big job ahead of her. We have two major events taking place this fall. On August 8th we will bring together the majority of the pastors in this city to talk about city-wide transformation with Rick Warren. That evening 300 of the top leaders in this country will gather for a formal dinner to hear from Rick. In late September we will bring together over 3000 university students in this city for event that we hope will result in thousands of leaders raised up and empower to reach other students on their campuses.

Kathryn shared her decision with the world on her blog.

Kamp Eduardo - My New Apartment

I'm loving life in my new apartment. I've had this apartment for almost a month, but until today have not had the margins to fully move in and unpack.

My neighbors and I drove to the mountains to pick up a table and 6 chairs that I had custom built by a furniture maker in a small town for $240. The apartment was completely unfurnished so I've made several trips to the mountains to buy furniture.

From my apartment I can see the sunset every evening, and from the patio on my roof I can see the city. I love it!

One of the greatest aspects is having a parking in the first floor garage, and an automatic garage door opener.