Cru Central Volunteers

Volunteers are an essential part of Cru Omaha! We are grateful and blessed to have nearly thirty volunteers helping with Cru movements on campuses in our Omaha area. These amazing adults give of their time amidst their own work or college schedules, as they love and serve the high school students in our Cru High groups.

The photos above are of the group of young adult volunteers who run the Cru Central High meetings and events. We all go to the same church, Citylight, and meet as one of Citylight's City Groups, with the focus of reaching students at Central High for Jesus. Several times a month we meet for encouragement, inspiration, and fun. And food, of course! 

These volunteers, together with a Central High staff person, and a few gifted student leaders make up a great team. And it takes a team to reach out to a campus. We are so grateful for these who are following God's direction and giving their time and energies to be part of what God is doing in the lives of high school students. 

Tomorrow will be a big event for Cru Central High in Omaha - our first on-campus meeting will be held! Our student leaders recently gained permission for Cru to be a school club on their campus! We will hold a special event meeting on campus one week each month, in addition to the regular meetings held off campus on the other weeks. 

If you know students at Central High, please invite them to come to the Central High Courtyard tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 27, 6-8 pm. There will be GAMES & PIZZA, and an opportunity to interact with a special speaker from Belarus, and hear of his culture & his faith in God.

DCC High

Every year between Christmas and New Years, our students travel to a Cru conference. For many years, we took students to the FastBreak Conference in the Twin Cities, and beginning in 2012, our students now travel to Denver for DCC (Denver Christmas Conference). This conference, planned primarily for college students, now welcomes our high school students with a special track geared especially for them.

Our group of six students came from three different campuses in our Cru Omaha area ... Central High and South High in Omaha, and Blair High. A smaller group than usual, as others who wanted to go had to stay home for family events, or sports events which were going on at the same time. We were joined by other high school students from Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.

An incredible opportunity for our students, as they joined over a thousand college students to hear great speakers, attend helpful seminars, and participate in meaningful worship. The Cru staff in Colorado went the extra mile to make us feel welcome - giving our students a greatly reduced rate, setting aside rooms for us to hold our small group meetings in (photos above), and providing us with four amazing young adult interns to walk through the conference with the high school students, and lead the small group times. And we're grateful, too, for the great leadership of Jake, our part-time staff guy - he was amazing.

One afternoon our students participated in an outreach called Poverty Experience. They walked to a Ross's Store in downtown Denver, and purchased clothing items to donate to a nearby homeless shelter. However, on their way to the shelter, they came upon a number of homeless people including a family with two young children, and were able to give out their items of clothing directly to those in need. It was a moving experience for them, and one of the highlights of their time in Denver.

For each meal we walked together to 16th Street, a street filled with shops and little restaurants. The group of high school students bonded well. We were also so thankful to have Bill Kollar (in plaid shirt in photo above) with our group - he came from our Cru High headquarters in Orlando, and was a great help during DCC.

Now the students are back home, and also back at their high schools starting out another semester. Please pray that the truths they were impacted with will stay with them, and that God will use them greatly for His purposes on each of their campuses this coming semester.

Cru Blair Middle

November was a big month for our Cru Blair High movement, as they moved their weekly meetings to their campus. Click here to read about it. And also, we are so thankful for the doors opening in Blair for our Cru Blair Middle School to also have access to meeting on campus!

Joy, our volunteer who leads Cru Blair Middle School, continues to hold their weekly meetings in her home (as the school is not available during the after school hours that they meet), but several times a year they will be taking advantage to the availability of meeting on campus for special events.

Nov. 18 was their first time to do so, and thirty-four students, family, and friends met in the Otte Blair Middle School Art Room for a fun Gratitude and Gaming night! 

Please pray that this open door on campus will result with many more students coming to middle school Cru events, and most importantly, coming to know Jesus.

Cru Blair Moves to Campus

After a number of years of dreaming and praying for this, it has happened! Our Cru Blair group now has started holding their weekly student meetings in the Blair High School building! They have been given the use of the Home Ec rooms for their Monday night meetings.

To celebrate what God has done in opening up this door, they held a Mustache Bash Kickoff event on the Monday after Halloween Day, Nov. 4. Thirty students came to their high school for this Cru event.

We're thankful for all those who prayed for this move, and we are thankful for our part-time staff, Jake & Chelsea, who are heading up this new direction for Cru Blair. 

This also signifies a change in the leadership of Cru Blair, as Jake steps up his leadership as a result of our other part-time staff guy, Andy, needing to transition to his new full-time role as Student Ministries Coach at Country Bible Church. And how grateful we are that Andy will also continue to work alongside Jake in an affiliate role with Cru now. They make a great team, and we praise God for them!

Please pray for those students who have been part of Cru Blair, that they will be energized and motivated by this change in location, and they will be burdened to help draw more students to Jesus on their campus.

Cru Central High Meetings

Students from Central High in Omaha have been holding weekly Cru meetings since the beginning of the school year. Our volunteers, along with our student leaders have been doing a great job starting off this newest Cru movement. 

Meetings were held for the first month or so at Bemis Park, and since then we have moved to a room made available for us at Citylight Church. Both of these locations are in the general area of Central High, which has made it easy for students to come.

The student meetings are held on Thursday evenings from 6-8 pm, and the last meeting of October happened to be on Halloween Day. We came up with the idea of meeting on the front lawn at Citylight, to roast s'mores over a firepit, and also hand out treats to kids from the neighborhood who would happen to come by. 

Ethan, a student leader, led the students in a fun game around the fire a bit later in the evening, followed with a talk by Kent, one of our volunteers. Kent related well with the students, encouraging them to have God at the focal point of their lives, instead of focusing on the various masks that we often put on. 

The students and volunteers who meet each Thursday are connecting well, growth is happening, and we are thankful to God for the start of what He wants to do in students' lives at Central High. Please pray for the students who are a part of our meetings, and for many more to be drawn to Jesus.

Another School Year for Cru Fort Calhoun

Another year of Cru meetings has started up for students at Fort Calhoun High! Gary meets with the five student leaders, and also a college volunteer (and former FC student leader) every other week for prayer, planning, and pizza in our basement family room. Then Josh (our college volunteer) and the five student leaders lead the student meetings the other two weeks of each month.

Students participating in an opening "ice breaker" game.

The students met recently and watched the video "Staci's Story", the story of a godly girl who died suddenly and the impact her testimony had on her high school peers. The students then gathered in small groups to discuss the impact the Gospel can have, and what kind of impact they are having with their peers on their campus.

Students gathering in small groups ...

The students in each small group became very serious and were obviously thinking through these issues very deeply. Our student leaders did a great job facilitating the deep discussions.

 Another of the four small groups ...

Cru FC is off to a great start this new school year, with seven new students at the most recent meeting. One of these new students shared how he had never been to anything like this before, but his mom had been wanting him to become involved in something that would make him a better person. He was very interested, and asked a lot of questions. Our college leader, Josh, gave him a Bible to take home with him. Please pray for the new students who are coming, and for many students to be given the opportunity to know and follow Jesus this school year.

Our Newest Cru Campus

After about a year of following God through open doors of connections, and a year of weekly early morning prayer times at Central High in Omaha, Cru Central is now a reality!

We began weekly student meetings  in August, first meeting for three weeks at Bemis Park, and then just recently moving to Citylight Church, just blocks from Central High. And possibly moving to meeting on campus in the near future, if that avenue works out.

College volunteer, Stephane, sharing at our very first student meeting this school year.

It has been an exciting journey as we have followed God's direction! And we are amazed at the leadership that He is raising up for this new campus movement.

We are so blessed to be starting out with four passionate, gifted student leaders. They are actively taking ownership of Cru Central - we are so thankful for Ethan, Ryan, Nick, and Maddie. They are full of life and fun, are active in leading the meetings, and in sharing their lives and their faith with their peers.

And alongside us as staff, God is raising up an awesome group of college and adult volunteers. Bryant, Athletic Trainer at Central, and his wife, Angie, are an integral part of how God is opening up this new campus to Cru. Along with this couple, we are also thankful for a group of Dundee moms who meet to pray for students, and also help with food and other needs.

Other volunteers are coming alongside us through a new CityGroup formed at Citylight Church, which is located near Central High. We began attending this new church about six months ago, and were approached by the leadership to lead one of their dozen or so CityGroups, smaller groups within the church, each one focused on a different mission in the city. We are in the beginning stages of forming this new CityGroup, specifically focused on working together with us as Cru in starting up a student movement at Central High.

Small group discussion time at our second meeting.

We are thanking God for the group of like-minded, passionate individuals that He is raising up - young college and adult leaders, each with a heart for reaching high school students at Central High. We are so thankful for Shelby, Erica, and Ashley. And also for Stephane, a transfer college guy from NY (and originally from Haiti). These volunteer leaders are amazing - we love serving together with them.

Students and volunteer leaders connecting together at our third meeting.

It has been a good beginning month of connecting with students in our weekly meetings, and we are watching with anticipation to see all that God will do in the lives of Central students this year. Will you please join us in praying that many students at Central will come to know Jesus this school year?