Two of our Globalscope campus ministries have remarkably similar stories. El Pozo in Puebla, Mexico, and En Vivo in Salamanca, Spain, were both launched 20 years ago by a group of friends. These recent college graduates formed two different teams and, within two weeks of each other, set out to start new ministries, sharing the highs and lows of planting together. Today, both ministries are still thriving.
In the summer of 2000, a group of six recent college graduates moved to Mexico City with a bold vision. They partnered with CMF International to start a campus ministry for university students, inspired by the community they had experienced at Georgia Tech. They called it Globalscope. Little did they know this small beginning would evolve into a global movement that would span three decades and touch countless lives.
For the fourth straight year, several Globalscope campus ministries from Latin America have teamed up to travel to a different location to serve together. Claudia Ossa, campus minister with the team in Montevideo, Uruguay, shares how Proyecto La Paz continues to be an amazing experience.
At the end of December, we welcomed a group of new recruits into our Indianapolis office for a week of CMF orientation and training on how to begin their time of raising support. While they each come from different backgrounds and feel called to different fields and ministries, they are now at the point in their mission journeys where they begin the challenging and rewarding task of raising up partners to make their work possible.
A group of eight Globalscope staff and students from our El Pozo campus ministry in Puebla, Mexico returned on Friday from a five-day scouting trip to Guanajuato, a city in the middle of Mexico that is home to Universidad de Guanajuato and its 50,000 students. This was the second trip there to see if it's the right place to plant a new Globalscope campus ministry.
When we invited three busy executive pastors and a university ministry director to experience our ministries in Mexico, their first question was understandable: why should they sacrifice a week away from their work and families? After all, missions isn't new to them. They send missionaries from their churches and university, support and send interns during the summer, and are long-time financial partners with our ministries.
This summer marked a historic moment for CMF as we held a first-ever gathering in our 75-year history, bringing together around 175 missionaries and staff for an unforgettable week.
On university campuses around the world, CMF provides Christian communities for students who, very often, are not Christian. Our Globalscope campus ministries are unique in that Christians, atheists, agnostics and anyone in between can find community together. Their time spent as part of a Globalscope ministry, a community centered on the love of God, is life changing.
Our Globalscope international campus ministries started as a dream to reach college students in major university towns around the world, places where few opportunities existed for young people to explore faith in a loving and accepting community. Now, over 20 years later, Globalscope campus ministers are welcoming students into 14 different campus houses, in 10 countries.
Sophie Anthony will soon graduate with a degree in Human Health from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and in her four years of college, she has had multiple experiences that have shaped her. She interned at a church serving vulnerable populations, volunteered as a coordinator at a food pantry, spent a summer as a REACH intern at CMF’s Globalscope campus ministry in Uruguay, and even participated in a month-long study abroad program in South Africa.
