JB and Abbie Windle

SIUE Leadership Team

2010-02-23T18:46:00Z

Our SIUE leadership team meeting! We spent last night talking about the importance of discipleship.

Leadership Overnight

2010-01-23T15:56:00Z

You may remember that at the beginning of every semester, we have a 24-hour retreat with our student leaders from the campuses our team works on. This semester, spring of 2010, we had around 150 student leaders gather from SIUE and other schools all over the St. Louis Metro Area!

We heard from a great speaker on eternal perspective, the importance of discipleship, and received practical training in discipleship. As part of the leadership overnight, we had about 25 students in our home on Saturday night to learn more about our international partnership in East Asia—we spent time talking about what it means to be a World Christian our whole life long and how they can continue to be involved in moving the Gospel forward in East Asia by going, giving, sending and praying! We continue to see students’ hearts burdened to go to the world—what a cool thing it is to see God at work this way!

The Source

2010-01-15T15:48:00Z

The Source is our large-group weekly meeting on the SIUE (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) campus. Every Thursday night at 8pm, over 100 college students gather on campus—we sing, have a speaker, and our awesome student MC makes the whole night really fun! The Gospel is shared every week here, and students really love it. We often talk about the Source as being the “front door” to or the “face” of our ministry on campus…it’s often the first thing people come to, and it serves as a way for people to connect with others, get involved with one of our on-campus small groups, etc!

Getting ready to start!

We have a great student band that leads worship every week!

Around 100 students hear the Gospel here through our speakers every week. We always have new people, and always have people who don’t know the Lord yet.

Hanging out after the Source!

Making new friends!

The Denver Christmas Conference

2009-12-31T15:35:00Z

The Denver Christmas Conference is a ministry highlight for us every year! Around 1,000 students from our movements in six states make the road-trip out to Denver for a week to worship God, receive ministry training and serve the city of Denver.

I don’t know why the Lord chooses to work the way He does at conferences. However, it really does seem like the momentum of 1,000 people gathered in the same place surrendering their lives to Jesus helps college students make categorical leaps in their walks with Christ. Two students from our 40-person group placed their faith in Christ, and another five committed to giving at least a year of their lives in full-time ministry after college. So exciting!

One of the most powerful things at DCC is seeing 1,000 college students worshiping together in song!

We heard from great speakers all week.

Students spend one day of the conference serving the city of Denver--they share Christ on college campuses and partner with local churches to help them serve in neighborhoods where they minister!

Our group from the Metro East!

East Asia

2009-11-30T15:18:00Z

As you may know, one of the unique opportunities we had just a couple of months ago was to travel to one of our international partnership locations in East Asia. Our partnership with this city is relatively new—our movements in St. Louis has been sending short- and long-term laborers here for the last two years. It was exciting to go see people who we knew when they were students now reaching college students in this city!

Us and Devin and Casey (two interns that work with us) at one of the famous landmarks in this city!

Abbie standing in a famous square in this city.

Almost every day that we were there, we would walk down to the local market to eat “street food” for breakfast or lunch. It was so yummy!

A stone carving depicting part of the history of this country at a national monument.

JB eating dinner and sharing the Good News with some students.

Some pictures of us standing on a rather famous wall just 45 minutes from the city we were in. It was quite cold!

Virginia Beach Summer Project

2009-10-20T16:04:00Z

Time with Family

2009-10-14T14:38:00Z

A little over two months ago, we got news that Abbie’s Granddad had a brain tumor. We were blessed to be able to get down to Oklahoma to see him once before he passed away on October 7th. This past week, we went to be with Abbie’s family at her Granddad’s funeral.

Monday and Tuesday were truly a time of celebration because he is with Jesus! Granddad left an incredibly godly legacy—he loved Jesus and people, and never stopped telling others about his Savior! It was great to be with Abbie’s family for these few days. Please keep them in your prayers as they continue to grieve, though with sure hope of seeing Granddad again!

Fall Getaway

2009-10-05T04:19:00Z

Fall Getaway is a retreat our staff team puts on every October. We invite students from the St. Louis Metro area, as well as a few other Missouri schools. This year, over 20 campuses were represented, and around 500 students attended!

Fall Getaway is always a huge turning point in our semester. Student come and hear from the word, spend time alone with God—some for the first time ever!—and have a chance to go deeper in their friendships with people from their campus. A lot of bonding happens over Fall Getaway—some SIUE girls are currently in a bit of a fun prank war with some SIUE guys.

Check out some pics from the weekend!

Students Sent!

2009-09-29T15:18:00Z

A year ago, two students from schools that JB and I work at decided to go to East Asia as missionaries. They were back this fall after having a baby, so we took advantage of the time and had them and some SIUE students over to our house so that our missionary friends could cast vision for the world to these students.

There are people who have never heard the Gospel. We encounter them every day on campus—people who have maybe had many chances, but have never truly understood the message of Jesus. There is another kind of people who have never heard the Gospel, though—people who have never had even the opportunity to hear of Christ. They couldn’t trust Jesus even if they wanted to.

Approximately one third of the world finds itself in this second camp. Because this is true, it’s our desire to send missionaries from the college campus to places where the Gospel has never been preached. One of the places that our St. Louis team is committed to sending to is East Asia.

They told us what God is doing in the country they live in—it’s truly amazing, and was a huge encouragement to us and our students!

Kim’s Story

2009-07-20T07:58:00Z

On Campus

2009-07-18T19:40:00Z

There are almost 250,000 students in the San Diego area. One of the ways that the students on our Project put their training into action is by reaching out on 5 San Diego campuses this summer! In doing this, our project helps to serve the Campus Crusade San Diego Metro team that works here year-round.

We are sharing our faith on campus, beginning Bible studies, and trying to connect with student leaders, asking the Lord to start movements of students on San Diego Campuses!

Service Day

2009-07-18T19:35:00Z

Because San Diego is both a big city and a beach community with nice weather through most of the year, the number of homeless men and women we see every day, even just on the beach, is staggering. Every day, the homeless serve as a daily reminder to us to obey Jesus’ commandment to “Give to everyone who asks of you…” (Luke 6:30).

One of the ways that our project was able to practically serve in this area was by doing work for a church who is beginning a ministry to the 10,000 homeless men and women in downtown San Diego. We helped them paint, clean and do yard work around a home that will become a center for this ministry. It was great—our students served so joyfully!

Sharing Our Faith

2009-07-18T19:24:00Z

One of the huge focuses of Summer Project is training and practice in sharing our faith. Every week, each student on the project participates in multiple outreaches. One of the ways we share our faith is to go out onto the beach and initiate conversations with people using a 5-question spiritual interest survey.

Here are some of our students sharing Christ. For many students, this is their first time ever to communicate the Gospel to another person!

Grand Canyon/Trip Out

2009-07-18T19:22:00Z

About 4 days after finals were over at SIUE, we packed up our car to begin the three-day drive out to San Diego for seven weeks of our summer! It was a fun trip—we stayed the first night in Oklahoma City with Abbie’s grandparents. The next day, we drove through Oklahoma, Texas, and a lot of New Mexico and camped for a night in Cibola National Park.

Our third night was the most fun—we drove a little further and camped out at the Grand Canyon! We even had enough daylight hours to get a glimpse of the canyon—JB’s first time ever, and Abbie’s first time since she was a little kid!
We arrived in San Diego on our fourth day of driving—a long haul, but a fun trip!

What is Summer Project?

2009-07-18T19:18:00Z

This summer, Abbie and I are staffing the San Diego Summer project—a 10-week discipleship-, evangelism- and leadership training-intensive missions project. We arrived in San Diego mid-May, two weeks before the arrival of 120 college students from all over the country to Mission Beach in San Diego!

The San Diego Summer Project holds a special place in our hearts because it is where Abbie and I met as students in the summer of 2003! The Lord really confirmed both of our calls to ministry while we were here as students, so we are blessed to be here and lead students toward becoming life-time laborers for Christ!