In 2001, Tim and Melissa Kern traveled to Helena from Dillon Montana with Curtis Cole, campus minister at University of Montana–Western (UMW) to check out Carroll College. Curtis and Delyn Freeman Cole were their XA pastors and mentors who invested years in them as students at UM-W. Tim and Melissa were 26 years old and were toting around their daughter Hannah Kern who was 1 month old. That day, God birthed in them a calling to pioneer Chi Alpha at Carroll College, a private Catholic campus. Pastors Ken Ross, Norm Christofferson and Paul Feuerstein were incredible mentors and supportive of XA along with so many other pastors in Helena and Montana that helped them start XA. Levi Mielke was their first student who transferred to Carroll to help the Kerns pioneer the ministry. Emily Roehm was their first full time associate staff and Haylee Petrusha and Haley Feuerstein were their first students to “give a year” back to XA at Carroll. Keith Elder, district youth director for Montana, challenged and appointed the Kerns to establish XA at Carroll College.
Nick & Haylee Petrusha and their team took over the ministry at Carroll College. Tim and Melissa received national missionary appointment in 2013, to relocate to South Bend, Indiana to pioneer another private Catholic University, University of Notre Dame and they have! They also began ministry at the Indiana University at South Bend and St. Mary’s College.
I always chuckle when asked how I came to Chi Alpha (XA) because my route has been anything but normal. In 2014, I first experienced the transformative community of XA while serving a three-month summer internship with Kelly Brown, campus minister, at the University of Texas at Austin. I was a fish out of water: a Nebraska boy, bible college student, with plans to pursue a church pastorate (not a missionary). I don’t know how I ended up spending that fateful summer at UT Austin, but needless to say, experiencing the Gospel in the frontlines of “being on mission” stirred a deep longing in my heart the likes of which I have never been able to shake.
Who are these people?
Fast forward to 2016 I graduated from Evangel University with a Biblical Studies degree. I began working for National XA with Severin Lwali, national director of XAi and Gary Paschal, national specialist, Conference and Events. As an outsider to the XA movement, I was shocked at how the excellence of leadership, character, and passion was ubiquitous through every level of this organization. The more I experienced, the more it stirred that aforementioned longing. I was embraced, given responsibilities and a voice, fought for, and (for the first time) discipled.
Preparation for Pioneering
It was in the hallways of National XA (or maybe Gary’s hot tub) that I first felt the tug towards long-term XA and pioneering. I saw the unmatched passion of XA’s top leadership and realized that they had found it on the secular university campus. A daunting realization for one that had never experienced the secular university as a student. So, I left National XA to go to study at Missouri State University. On the outside I was going for my Masters in Religious Studies, which I completed in 2018, but on the inside, I knew I was going for a bigger reason: to taste and see what had impacted those that had invested in me so much.
A Lifetime of Reaching and Pouring Into University Students
God got a hold of my heart as I lived and breathed amongst my new found peers. The need was overwhelming and the workers oh so few. So, while all of my peers were getting established in their careers, taking on churches, and moving on in life: without reservation I signed up for MSU XA’s two year Campus Ministers-in-Training program with campus director, Andy Estrella. I never looked back. Those two years have now turned into what I pray is a lifetime of reaching and pouring into university students.
“They are ready”
In 2019, God began moving my heart back towards Nebraska. There was only one XA in Nebraska at Chadron State College. And there was over 85 thousand university students between Omaha and Lincoln without a single XA representation. So, while prayer walking these Nebraska campuses, the Holy Spirit clearly spoke to me that “They are ready.” at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). How could anyone say no to that? In March 2020, I was named the new director of UNO XA and began strategizing and leaning into what God was going to do at UNO. Long story short, it would be a lot!
Five months In
As I write, we are five months into pioneering and about to complete the first fall semester 2021 on campus. Already, we have an incredible core of students, a staff team of committed volunteers, and a community that cannot get enough of being with each other. Don’t get me wrong, there are many. . . many hard days and weeks. Learning the nuances of UNO is a daily challenge: covid-19, commuter school, located in a major city, 1/3rd are first generation students, highly secular environment, etc. Our team is constantly adapting, being creative, and learning from our failures (which are many). Despite all these things, I am reminded that “it all grows strangely dim” in the light of my house being daily filled with laughter, tears, and divine moments of authentic transformation. How thankful I am to have listened to the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit and to be a part of this exciting new move of God in Nebraska. As the lead on a pioneering team, I daily learn, wrestle, and grow in ways I cannot recount in this short retelling. Yet how might I summarize what pioneering looks and feels like? I reap what I have not sown, and sow what I will not reap. To God be the glory!
As a senior in college, James Damude walked the campus of Northwood University, Midland, MI, with the XA campus pastor. The campus pastor asked James, “what do you see when you look at all these students?” James paused, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in him, and said, “I see spiritually dead people.” It was on that cold crisp fall day in Michigan, James heard the Holy Spirit call him to campus ministry.
That next year he entered an XA internship with campus minister, Scott Miller, on the campus of Boston University. For 18 months, he learned how to take the calling and actualize it on the campus. James returned to NU in 2001 and directed campus ministry until 2010. In 2011-2012 he served with AG World Missions in Jaipur, India on a campus missions assignment. After he returned stateside, he launched a XA ministry at Saginaw Valley State University, Saginaw, MI, and served the next four years. For 15 years, his calling was to bring the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ to college students all over the world.
The transition from XA to US Army chaplaincy was much like his transition from a full-time student to a campus minister. It started with him hearing from the Holy Spirit and then working hard. Over a Thanksgiving dinner, my uncle talked about his chaplain while he served in the Gulf War. James learned about the influence the chaplain had in soldiers’ lives. That night, the Holy Spirit was speaking again. James researched chaplaincy, saw the path was difficult but worthwhile to pursue.
The US Army holds the position of chaplain in high regard, as they are the Shepherd of a soldier’s spiritual life. It comes as no surprise; the requirements are immense. They require applicants to be ordained ministers, complete an MDiv have substantial ministry experience, pass a physical fitness test, and receive approval by the endorsing denomination. For James, that process was nine years in the making.
Now as a US Army Chaplain, it is his great honor to continue to serve the Lord, my country, my soldiers. Titles have changed from campus minister to chaplain, but the calling remains the same!
Chaplain (CPT) Jasmin R. LuckUS Air Force*
Jasmin 27, is a recently commissioned U.S. Air Force endorsed chaplain and ordained Assemblies of God minister. She credits her training in XA with setting her course. Jasmin, a captain, stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, planning to build a spiritual community among the airmen at Kadena.
Military personnel at foreign bases often can’t just visit the local church of their denominational choice down the street. “Whatever spiritual community is on base is where they go and that’s why it’s so crucial to have strong spiritual communities overseas,” Jasmin says. “There are worship services held at churches off base, but often people look first to chapels where they can be around like-minded believers in similar seasons of life.”
Jasmin understands the value of having a strong spiritual community away from home. As a college student at Arizona State University, she too wondered if there was more to life than the party culture that surrounded her on campus.
“I knew that I was called to ministry at age 12, but I didn’t have a strong foundation in my faith until I went to college,” she says. Jasmin gained the spiritual foundation she needed through ASU XA chapter.
“XA not only gave me the grounding that I needed in my faith but also as a minister,” Jasmin says. Through XA, Jasmin received formative discipleship and training that solidified her calling to ministry. While active in XA, she took part in two transformational missions trips (XA Expeditions) to Greece and Macedonia.
Chaplain candidates must pursue their MDiv, work toward ordination in their church, and receive military training during their time in the program.
Jasmin enrolled in the chaplaincy candidate program and applied to the MDiv program at AG Theological Seminary. She gained acceptance into both programs in 2015 and finished in the top 5 percent of her class, which contained 235 chaplains candidates.
“I received a lot of training and experience in the chaplain candidate program that included assignments in Guam, England, and South Korea. The training helped me see the need on our overseas bases,” says Jasmin. Kadena Air Base is her first active duty assignment. One of her goals is to build a strong gospel and contemporary worship community, especially among the younger troops. Jasmin believes she has the coolest job ever.
Chaplain (Major) Russell H. Trubey—US Air Reserves
Russ Trubey
Russ Trubey’s XA story began in a roundabout way when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. He was 21 years old, and in the Army, stationed at Ft. Sheridan, IL, about 30 minutes north of Chicago. Rusty was less than one month from getting out of the Army, and that day couldn’t come soon enough. He had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. The one thing he knew was he wanted out of the Army. Apparently, however, trumpet players (Russ played the trumpet in the Army band.) were needed. “Stop-loss policy” involuntarily put his exit from the Army on hold. He wondered if his band and trumpet playing were critical to national security.
In the providence and grace of God, the Holy Spirit brought people into my life who helped me understand and respond to His leading. It became crystal clear. The full-time ministry was my calling, but its shape would be a process. When he left the Army, he enrolled in Southeastern University, Lakeland, FL. from 1991 to 1995. It convinced him of two things – he wanted to reach young people and didn’t want to do it in a church.
After graduation and an internship, he met Mario Solari, the XA missionary at Florida State University, Tallahassee. After exposure to XA, he was hooked. XA was his path, and so he embarked on the daring journey of faith and finances as a campus missionary intern with campus minister, Gary Paschal at Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX,1996-1997. He spent 16 years directing XA at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and West Virginia University, Morgantown. It was a rewarding ministry, but Russ felt his time with XA was ending. The Army needed chaplains.
He wondered if there was something to his calling to ministry that began when he was a soldier. Again, it was clear. He knew what God wanted him to do. He completed all the education and requirements necessary and became a chaplain in 2012. Because he was a Reserve Chaplain, he still needed a “civilian” ministry. The calling to help Soldiers and Veterans was primary, and so in 2015, He became a chaplain with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
His passion was to carry the stories of those on the front lines of faith who struggle with life’s greatest questions. XA helped prepare me for this unique ministry of bringing hope of Christ to those who have borne the battle.
*Originally an AG News article “Building a Bedrock of Faith,” about Jasmin Luck by Ally Henny, June 14, 2021, appeared: https://news.ag.org/en/News/Building-a-Bedrock-of-Faith
