Destiny’s Story

“Why would God call me his child?” asked Melissa* after meeting InterVarsity campus minister Destiny during a student outreach event at Bakersfield College in California.

“I want to seek God,” Melissa said. “But everyone around me, my friends and my family, they’re all atheists.

”Melissa described how every person in her life pulled away whenever she tried exploring who God is. They told her that pursuing her faith was weird.

“So it makes me stop. But because I stop, I feel like God’s mad at me.”

Melissa isn’t alone in her questions about God. Destiny and InterVarsity staff across the US are seeing an unparalleled spiritual openness among students.

“When I first got involved with InterVarsity as a student at Bakersfield College, there were only six of us,” she says. “Since then, there are 70 students. There’s just been so much growth.”

God is causing a movement of faith to rise up on campuses, and he’s using the leadership and presence of staff like Destiny to fan students’ openness into flame.

“Since the last half of 2024, we’re running into a lot of students who are just looking for Jesus,” Destiny says. “Students were always looking for Jesus, but this year specifically just feels like we’re walking up to people, we mention God, and they say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve been looking for that.’”

On a recent prayer walk with one of Destiny’s Bible studies, students paired up and went around campus praying for people. “We all talked to about five people, and no one said no to prayer. Usually you get four nos and only one person that says yes.”On campus, Destiny trains students in evangelism, disciples them into leaders, and helps them organize outreach events.

But Destiny has struggled to get to the full funding she needs to be fully present on campus.

To reach full support, Destiny shifted her time away from campus to focus on trying to build up her team of financial partners.

But her network is tapped out.

“A lot of my network is people who really love what I’m doing and pray for the ministry. But they just don’t have the finances to support it.”

The long hours Destiny put into fundraising within her network haven’t always raised her enough support to be on campus.

God is providing for Destiny in a creative way: through caring donors, like you, who she's never even met! These donors give toward underfunded staff who cannot raise enough support through their personal networks.

Thanks to donors’ generosity, Destiny has received a strategic staff grant that fills the gap so she can focus her time ministering to students on campus.

“Being able to receive a grant, it just takes a weight off my shoulders,” Destiny shares. “Because even $1,000 – compared to your full budget – can seem like nothing. But trying to raise that $1,000 can be so much effort and time, finding someone in some network that doesn’t exist … It just deletes hours of work. The grant has pushed me to be funded enough to where I can be on campus.”

Back on campus with Melissa, Destiny shared how much God loves her.

For nearly an hour, she and Melissa cried and prayed together.

In those moments of life-changing outreach, Destiny saw what Melissa needed most to grow in relationship with God: a Christian community on campus. And who better but a campus minister like Destiny to help Melissa connect with such a community?

“Melissa recently went to her first InterVarsity Bible study,” Destiny says. “She was able to talk about her faith and explore the Bible with others for the first time.”