Posts from the “Prayer Letters” Category

What are we trying to do in Cru?

Posted on February 12th, 2017

What are we trying to do in Cru? “Oh, not very much…we’re only trying to change a person’s whole reason for existing.” That’s what my friend Bob Francis used to say. In all the years Malisa and I have been working with Cru reaching college students, we’ve realized that there is a critical moment when a student or staff person gets to share the gospel and when we get to see students’ lives changed for all eternity across the table from us. Everything we’re trying to do in Cru here in Boston revolves around helping our staff and students have more conversations that can change their whole reason for existing. We call these “Gospel Conversations,” and we want to have lots more of them.…

Stories so good I wish I could bottle them up to enjoy them over and over again…

Posted on February 1st, 2016

There are a couple things I’d like to put in a bottle so that I can preserve them to enjoy forever. Like the laughter of my two daughters. They have distinctive delightful laughs that I can’t get enough of. I recorded a bit of it on my phone so I have it when they grow up. Eliza, Frosty the snowman, and Sydney a week ago I’d also like to bottle up the stories our students share during a dinner in January. We call it “the Insider dinner.” It’s a dinner where we challenge students to consider moving back into freshmen dorms. We want our students to be “insiders” and live in community close enough to non-Christians that their friends would notice the difference that…

Spiritually they are so open…

Posted on November 11th, 2015

The other day I took Jacqui, one of our younger student leaders, with me to meet two Middle Eastern girls. Jacqui is one of the girls in a Discipleship Group I lead at Boston University on Thursday afternoons. Jacqui is the 3rd from the left in the back row with red hair. “Amira” and “Adilah” are sisters and they were raised in a part of the world where they were part of an invisible population. Because their parents do not proclaim Mohamed as prophet, they are not allowed to work in most mainstream careers. In order for Amira and Adilah to get any education beyond high school they had to leave the country. In order to ever work in their field of study they…

A Wild Ride

Posted on October 7th, 2015

A Wild Ride In the video above, feel free to skip to the 1:30 mark for some intense whitewater 🙂 What a wild ride we had last weekend rafting on the Kennebec River with 25 students from Boston University, Northeastern University, and Wentworth Institute of Technology. “When you hit these rapids, you need to make sure you breathe air, not water. You’re not going to go over the waves. You’re going to go right through them.” As I popped out of our raft, I didn’t realize I would need advice on how and when to breathe. But 20 seconds later, I was coughing up water and struggling for breath. What a wild ride! Every fall, we take a group of men – usually…

#Instagramish

Posted on August 25th, 2015

Here’s an #Instagramish way to pray with Brian and Malisa this month Malisa (right) and some of our staff team pose during a prayer walk. Would you pray with us for the next few weeks? We’ve put a prayer guide online at www.brianandmalisa.com/prayer Sydney has had many great family sails on Nana Kay and Grampy Tom’s schooner. Please continue to pray for healing for Brian’s mom. Here’s her caringbridge site It was so fun to be able to visit many of our friends and supporters in Utah. We loved seeing you all. #blessed Malisa has discipled Stacy from Northeastern for the last few years. Now she has joined our team as an intern. There are 250,000 students returning to Boston in the next week.…

Prayer Walk

Posted on August 25th, 2015

If you’d like to download a printable PDF, here’s one for: Boston University Prayer Walk Northeastern and Colleges of the Fenway Prayer walk West Campus: Abundance of women excited about growing and journeying spiritually. Insider team Lizzy is going to try and weave in Social Justice to one lifegroup AIA (Athletes in Action): Favor for Sarah B and Bethany at BU AIA Lacrosse Guys Community as a whole with AIA CFA: Norah and Gwynnie CFA Life Group inside dorm this year. Creative inroads to gospel conversations. Bridges: Men to get involved in Bridges through Warren co-ed bridges group. Sarah, Ying, and ChenChen (pray she finishes her support raising soon) as they seek to build bridges into new cultures this year Target outreach. Whole Campus: Faculty,…

The Next Generation

Posted on July 16th, 2015

On a warm Colorado evening a few weeks ago, I set up our little fold-up table that had made the trek from Boston. I laid out my blue and white tablecloth and set out picnic plates and a few other things for dinner. Then I welcomed Patty, Sarah, Emily, Lara, and Lorenna. I was excited to begin a journey with these five incredible younger women for the summer. Above: Lorenna, Sarah, Lara, and Patty at our apartment the first night of their new MTL training This summer, I got to coach these women to become new Missional Team Leaders (MTL). Each of these women will now lead a team of staff, volunteers, and students to help reach campuses like Yale, Brown, Boston University, Northeastern,…

Making the Gospel Clear

Posted on April 1st, 2015

Jordan looked at me intently as I finished sharing the gospel with him a couple weeks ago. “As I hear you explain this, it just brings up more questions. The main one: ‘Why would I want to give up control of my life and trust it to someone else? I like being in control.’” Responses like this from guys as I share the gospel leave me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I’m sad that Jordan is not yet ready to start following Jesus. And I wish he were. On the other hand, I love that in just a few minutes, we’ve been able to make the basics of the gospel message really clear. I love that Jordan is not rejecting a caricature…

The Table

Posted on March 12th, 2015

“And as he reclined at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’” Mark 2: 15-17 It has been just a few days shy of 19 years since I was first invited to ‘The Table.’ I remember being scared and worried that I didn’t…

“Mohammed” is on a Journey

Posted on February 5th, 2015

“I have many fewer friends in America than I did when I lived in [my home country in South Asia]. But all of them are deeper, and all of them are involved with Cru.” “Though the students involved with Cru are not Muslim like me, we share so much, and they have encouraged me to think about my spiritual background. I think everyone is on a spiritual journey.” I totally agree, and can’t wait to see that journey continue toward Christ. These are two of the encouraging things that my new friend “Mohammed” told me as we drove north last weekend. We were heading with 18 other guys for a men’s ski weekend, but as you can imagine, the journey was as important as…