Zelma had some joyful and some traumatic childhood moments. She was baptized as a kid, but turned away from God as she grew up. When she attended College of the Muscogee Nation, she struggled with nightmares, sleeping, and drinking. But eventually, she accepted Jesus transferred schools, and stumbled upon the InterVarsity chapter, making friends, reading Scripture, praying, and having her many questions answered. By the next year, she was leading a Bible study.
I came into college with burning questions: Was the gospel really true, or was being Christian just a cultural expectation I had from where I grew up? Could following Jesus actually be good for me? Maybe moving to Boston was a chance to start over with new people and finally get some answers.
Andrew McDowell, an InterVarsity alumnus of Occidental College, experienced Jesus through InterVarsity in a way that shaped the rest of his life. Today, he runs With Love, a nonprofit centered around a social enterprise market and cafe, that helps fund community programs around health, child development, and career skills for those in southwest Los Angeles.
Before Andrew McDowell founded With Love Community Programs, he was a college student trying to figure out his purpose.
“I came into college wide-eyed, not knowing what I wanted to do,” he said.
When she was a student at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, God used InterVarsity to give Emma a deep love for the Bible, build friendships, and spark her calling into ministry. But after she graduated, Emma’s former InterVarsity chapter dwindled and eventually closed. Then, one day, Emma got a phone call out of the blue.
"The Mark Drama" was one of the most powerful demonstrations of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that I’d ever witnessed.
“It had to be geese …” InterVarsity campus minister Amanda Koch muttered under her breath.
Amid so many divisions and uncertainties in this season, a group of students have been regularly gathering for a single purpose: peace.
Naomi, a 15-year-old dual enrollment student, wanted to start a ministry on a satellite campus in Keystone Heights, Florida.
Dayonna, a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), prepared for the fall semester with a heavy heart.
Transformation can be exponential. When one student at the University of Massachusetts Boston caught a glimpse of God’s transforming work on campus, she began praying and longing to see that happen on her own campus among fellow Black students.