Chris' Story | Laura's Story | Our Story

I grew up in a good Christian home, and became a believer at a tender age of 6 at a Christian summer camp. One of the leaders was describing what hell looked and felt like, and I decided that I didn't want to go there. I suppose fire and brimstone preaching does work, sometimes.

Not much happened over the years until High school. I attended church, and helped run the sound system, and helped rewire the audio and lighting systems, being a good dutiful teenager. My parents were permissive, and allowed me to go out with the wrong crowd, where I found out through public school and the school of hard knocks why certain ways of living are better than others.

In high school, I was involved with a Bible Club. They decided one year to raise a large sum to bring a popular Christian band to our school for a concert.  I bowed out for the year, because I didn't believe that a bunch of high school kids could raise that amount.

Of course the event happened! As I sat on the bench in the high school gym, watching some of my friends whom I had written off:  "They will never trust Christ."  walk down the aisle and come to faith. I can still hear God speaking the rhetorical question:  "are you going to sit on the bench, or are you going to become involved in my work?" I resolved that day to become involved in his work, and to go where he is working.

Before attending the University of Washington, a few older men at church pulled me aside and challenged me to do three things: 1) Read scripture at a pace that I would complete it once a quarter. 2) Get involved in a local church and stay there all the way through college. 3) Get involved in a campus ministry and stay there all the way through college. I didn't succeed in the first two. After three years of several chapters a day, I craved more in-depth reading, and settled for inductive study. And the Lord had his hand in moving me through three churches.

I did accomplish the third, staying involved in Campus Crusade for Christ through five wonderful and grueling years. Ministry was tough, and not initially rewarding, but I began to see the impact of a spiritual movement being built up in the last two years in the south campus dorms. Many lives were touched, and many people considered Christ.

During the summer of 1999, I heard Bill Bright speak to a group of college students and challenge us to commit to spend a year in ministry after college, and commit our lives to a lifetime of ministry, perhaps with Campus Crusade for Christ. I stayed up, talking from staff from the Greater Northwest, and concluded that making my main business the Great Commission would be more rewarding than anything else I could accomplish in life.

After graduating from the University of Washington, I spent a year in Osaka, Japan. We started a ministry on a campus with just five students. By the year end, we had over forty students involved. But only one had trusted in Christ. Two years later, a team saw a number of those students come to faith. It just takes time.

Returning from Japan, I was trying to determine whether to work in industry, or go into full-time ministry. After consulting with some wise individuals, I decided to work, knowing that in time the Lord would lead me back into ministry at the appropriate time. During that time, I stayed involved with Campus Crusade in the Seattle area. I helped do administration for retreats, and helped launch the Epic ministry at the University of Washington.

My work involved the area of Business Analysis and Process Improvement. When I applied to join the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, I was fairly surprised to learn that there was a team of Business Analysts in their headquarters that worked on much the same type of work I had already been performing. The Lord's hand has been in four years of preparation for what I was about to do.

Laura's Story | top

I also grew up in a Christian home, but I didn’t believe that God was real until I went through confirmation class in Junior High school.  It was during that time that some scripture opened my mind to the idea that God was real, but I thought that he was a far off God who created the world and then spun it like a top to let things happen on their own. 

A lot of really hard things occurred during the first half of my senior year in high school.  I complained and wondered why God would let this kind of stuff happen.  I borrowed a friend’s Bible during school once and read Psalm 30 (randomly) where it talks about God bringing David up from the grave, and that weeping lasts for the night, but joy will come in the morning.  I came to a point of issue in my logic.  How can I complain to God if he isn’t involved in the world?  Why would God rescue me and care about me?  In Psalm 31 David tells God that he is trusting Him and that he is putting his life in God’s hands.  Why should I let God be in charge of my life?  Between this and seeing some friends (one of them my future husband) living out their faith I came to have a relationship with Christ.

In the fall of my senior year in college a friend came to me and told me that she felt led to tell me that I wasn’t giving God control in all areas of my life.  She didn’t know what they were, just that it was there.  After spending some time in prayer I came to realize that those areas of control were a) occupation and b) area of residence.  Previously I had had this stubborn desire to be an elementary teacher in Spokane.  I spent some time trying to discern whether God wanted me to continue in the direction I was going, but be open in my heart to something else, or to drastically divert paths.  It was with thoughts of “I must be crazy,” that I quit the education program at Eastern Washington University, and graduated with a nondescript “Interdisciplinary Studies” degree. 

I felt like God might be calling me into full-time ministry, but I didn’t have a clear sense of what or where.  Now, looking back, I see that for me, ministry has and will continue to change over the course of my life time.  Ministry was working at a children’s home before I got married, now it is working at Campus Crusade for Christ headquarters, after the Lord provides children it will look different again, as they get older- different again, and after they leave the nest- again changing.

Our Story | top

Why did it take over 11 years for Chris and Laura to get married? Chris was the first to date of four siblings, and the last to get married. Therefore, Chris' dad chastised him for being slow.

Laura noticed Chris first because he would bring his Bible to the 20-minute reading times during High School. One of Laura's first memories of Chris occured at one of the after-school gatherings. Chris whips out a set of keys and begins to talk about how each one represents a responsibility that has been entrusted to him.

We went on our first date in 1995 in high school. Many conversations, dates, Mariner's games, and other activities ensued.

Then came college. Laura went off to Eastern Washington University, and Chris was still a senior at high school. They kept in touch with this new form of communication called "e-mail."

Chris then entered the University of Washington in the fall of 1996. Being a college freshman, Chris was distracted with studies, and other pursuits, and held Laura at arm's length. At that time, Chris and Laura had a typical college freshman break up. Chris is now in the dawg house.

We stayed friends, and in 1999, Chris and Laura crossed paths again, when Chris spent the summer in Coeur d'Alene, ID, and Laura was living 30 miles away in Spokane, WA.

In the fall of 2000, Chris asked Laura to visit the next stage of our relationship. This meant that Laura drove out from a Bible College 30 miles out to church, and we spent the day together. Chris remembers long bus rides back home in the evenings.

In 2001, Chris was busy finishing up school and preparing to spend a year in Japan. In the fall, Laura had moved to the University District with some friends, and spent time working as a phlebotomist.

Chris went to Japan for all of 2002, and then came back a different man. He was distant, didn't want to hang out with anyone, much less Laura. And so months of time went by. Laura asked Chris what was going on and if she was hanging around for something. And Chris slammed the door in her face. Ouch!

Laura took a year to go work at a children's home in Idaho, while God began to do surgery on the heart of Chris. A few conversations with some wise counsel set him straight. It comes back to Jesus, and His reconciling the world to himself. Was Chris going to be the type of guy to left behind a string of broken relationships, or was he going to reconcile and heal that which was broken? In the fall of 2005, Laura had come back into town, and Chris was ready.

Laura took some time to catch her breath, and referred Chris to some friends of hers who didn't think very highly of him to see if he was serious about this relationship. Chris was serious! And Laura quickly became so.

Parents were asked, a ring was ordered, a date was announced, and a whirlwind of planning was encountered. We survived. And we were married on May 20, 2006 in a celebration with family and friends.

The first year of marriage was easy. We had a few goals: Prepare for a lifetime. We intentionally took a step back from ministry at church and with Campus Crusade to spend time with each other. Another goal was to pay off Laura's school debt. Dave Ramsey would be proud. On May 31, 2007, we wrote the last check, and we were free of our obligations.

And so, on June 6, 2007, we left our jobs, and joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ.