For me personally, there have been some steps forward in that I’ve been able to see some improvement in my constant headaches. It’s still a moment my moment problem for me and that probably won’t change, but it makes me increasingly aware of how God has to be involved in every day and how he determines how I will spend it.

One blessing stemming from this improvement is that I’m able to take over doing some of Keynote’s financial jobs, and have been spending a lot more time in the office getting trained. Some friends are transitioning out of Keynote to open a local branch of FamilyLife (another great part of Cru) here in Indy. The timing has worked well for me to take up where he left off on this part of his job. One of the other moms has taken another big piece of his responsibilities so the gap is being filled.

Another way we’re happy to serve is by opening our home to visitors. With the Superbowl just around the corner, housing is, as you can imagine, a bit scarce. Athletes in Action (yet another part of Cru!) hosts a Superbowl breakfast every year as one of the official events and they have a lot of staff heading to Indy to run this great event. We’ll be able to make things easier by sharing our home with some of them.

The following month, we’ll host another staff member from Orlando coming to attend Keynote’s Comm Lab. No matter how long we have been in ministry, we’ve found that the skills Comm Lab teaches on how to effectively communicate your story and your message are invaluable.

Keynote will host the third annual Comm Lab at the end of March. Keynote loves to serve others and equip them to more confidently proclaim God’s truth. Please pray with us that this would be an effective and helpful event for all who participate. This event is open to anyone who would like to attend, so if you or someone you know would like to take part in this event, you can learn more here.

Thank you all for your involvement in our lives. You make our ministry here in Indy possible through your prayers, your generosity, and your encouragement. We are so blessed by you!

“I was against planning because it would push the Holy Spirit out of our [Cru] meeting,” said Lauren, a student leader at Butler University determined to honor God in the weekly meeting.

Lauren’s heart was in the right place but she didn’t understand she could honor God by spending time preparing for Cru’s weekly meeting. The door to the Cru meeting is always open to the 5,000 students on campus. It is often the first experience students have with Christianity. Yet each week leading up to the meeting Lauren wondered if she and the other leaders had taken care of their responsibilities.

Campus Crusade staff member Jeff describes the weekly meetings as chaotic and thrown together. “I was at a loss for how to inspire and equip our student leaders with a vision for what an excellent, Christ-centered weekly meeting could look like,” says Jeff.

Keynote was able to support Jeff’s ministry through our Communication Training curriculum. Vicki Guinn of Keynote facilitated a Weekly Meeting Training Workshop to train 15 Butler students including Lauren, Josh and Kevin. This training is specifically designed to develop student leaders and equip them to plan, pray, and prepare well for a weekly event. In the relaxed environment where students could spread out on the floor and think creatively, Lauren had an “aha” moment. She realized the connection between inviting God into the process of planning and a Christ-centered meeting. From both a spiritual and a practical standpoint, these students now feel equipped to lead.

With a sigh of relief Kevin leaned back in his chair and said, “The training pointed us to God first and also helped us plan our next three meetings.” Josh, the emcee, is glad he can join in worship during the final song rather than frantically brainstorming his closing remarks. All three leaders are confident they can set their hearts on glorifying God in the planning process so they and other students can experience God in a real way in the weekly meetings and on campus.

Earlier this month, Keynote hosted an emcee training to prepare the emcees of our Christmas/winter conferences around the country. We hosted the two people who will emcee the Destino Conference, for the Latino branch of the Campus Ministry. It was encouraging to hear them say many of the same things and know that they are trained to do their ministry at this conference.

MinistryNet, the international Campus Crusade tech conference that Karl and just under 200 of our staff around the globe are preparing to attend next week, has been a matter of prayer, since there’s a great deal of flooding in Thailand right now. The conference is still happening and Karl will be heading there November 1-7. Please pray for safety and God’s provision for all attending and for our ministry to grow by leaps and bounds thanks to this time.

And while we’re thinking internationally, we’d love to let you hear what God did through Keynote in India this month! The Gap Theory took to the stage to share God’s love, despite many obstacles. One example is the concert at Hindustan University in Chennai. Rain threatened to either cancel the concert or move the show indoors to a less than optimal venue. Campus Crusade for Christ leaders at the university trusted God and continued with the outdoor setting. Before long, the skies cleared and the concert began. More than 500 students filled the courtyard and engaged with the band’s music.

The president of the university came onstage to personally thank the band and give them a gift. At the end of the concert, 111 people indicated a first-time decision to call on Jesus to save them. A number of others asked for more information about getting connected with the on-campus ministry.

Difficult circumstances and great faith were also evident in Hyderabad, a city plagued with political turmoil. Public transportation had not been running for several weeks and this played into concert attendance. All of the schools and colleges were supposed to be shut down due to labor strikes related to the political unrest, but two schools remained open under threat of violence in order to host The Gap Theory for evangelistic concerts.

The chancellor at one of the colleges told the band they kept the school open just for the concert, but planned to release the students after the show. Close to 300 college students stayed for the concert and heard the gospel. At least 10 of them indicated a decision to trust Christ, 25 wanted to know more about Christ and 23 others wanted to get involved with the local ministry.

When asked how this international tour compared to others, Ethan said, “The fruitfulness from this tour far exceeded any other trip I’ve been on. We need to be thinking about going back and seeing God do even more.”

Despite the influence of Islam, Hinduism and other religions, the people of India were open to the gospel of Jesus Christ. More than 400 people indicated a decision to begin a relationship with Jesus during the band’s two-week tour and close to 40% of the audiences indicated some sort of turning towards Christ. God is so good! Thank you for being a part of what God is doing around the globe by supporting our ministry prayerfully and financially. You make stories like this possible! God bless!

For me (Karl), this was the first time leading the Tech Team. We were a team of 7 staff and students who served the rest of the Conference Team and the people who were attending training courses and conferences.

We struggled with some frustrating problems that had never plagued us before: strange Internet slowness and printer problems were at the top of the list. It was stretching for me to delegate tasks to people when I was tempted to try to do the work myself. I still have a lot to learn about being a team leader!

I’m so thankful for my team: Suzanne, Chris, Jeff, Mike, Chris (also called Peter) and Terin. They were a joy to serve with, and we heard that it was a very friendly and helpful tech team (Suzanne probably deserves much of the credit for that).

Thank you so much for praying for our team – we needed it! It is easy to get buried in the tasks and forget that this is a ministry: we are serving so that God’s people are prepared and refreshed to go and serve more effectively.

One of the highlights of our time in Colorado was the incredible speakers that ministered to us during the US Staff Conference. God was definitely at work through the planning team and the speakers.

The first two mornings we got to hear from Francis Chan, who warned us not to listen to people so much. We need to listen to God and His Word. Are we concerned about our reputations with man, or with God? If someone asked my coworkers and friends about my character, and then was able to ask God about my character, would the two line up? Am I going through the motions without really loving God and His Word more than anything else?

Dr. David Platt brought the closing message from Isaiah 6: 1-8. Even though this is a very familiar passage, Dr. Platt’s message was challenging. We have an incomprehensibly great God who has the nations in his hand. We are a sinfully depraved people. We have a scandalously merciful Savior. And that leads us to an indescribably urgent mission – we need to trust Him with everything and not hold back! It was a great way to close the conference and send us back home with renewed purpose.

Thank you for being a part of the team that keeps us going!

Liesl’s update on her classes:  This summer I had the chance to spend four weeks learning more about how to accurately interpret the Bible and how to effectively communicate those truths in relevant terms that people can apply to their lives today.  It was a daunting subject on the one hand, but a great learning experience for all of us.  We had small groups to dialogue and learn with as we each tackled one of 4 scripture passages (mine was 2 Samuel 9, where we learn about God’s promise-keeping and welcome to us by seeing David welcome Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth).

As usual, I feel like the Bible classes we get to take are a spiritual refreshment time where I get to dig deeper into some aspect of God or another and leave more aware of God and how valuable my relationship with Him is.  I know that my experience is that of most of our staff as we gain wisdom and insight that we can take with us in our regular ministries.  In the photo we have several of our Athlete’s in Action staff, a couple of our Campus Team Leaders, one Canadian staff, and two of us Keynoters.

Keynote Summer Project review:  (Keynote and Impact Music combined)

• 5 Outreach teams
• 38 students
• 13,700 miles traveled
• 52 events
• 5,033 evangelistic exposures
• 311 people indicated a decision to trust Christ

At the final event many students shared about the impact the project had on their lives. For some it was a time to overcome the fear of telling others about Jesus; others wrestled with apprehension about performing in prisons; still others needed to see God move in amazing ways to deepen their understanding of His purpose. As always, God was faithful to do a work, not only the lives of our students, but also in the lives of hundreds who heard about the hope that can be found in a personal relationship with God. He offers forgiveness and a chance to begin a new life.

We look forward to seeing how God will use these students in the months and years to come!

Next month, we’ll tell you about the great speakers that were at the staff conference and Karl’s experience with the tech team.  Thanks so much for your prayers – the crazy technical problems mostly got solved!

You may have heard that Campus Crusade for Christ will be changing our name to ‘Cru’ next year. We are excited about this change, and we like the new name. In the two days since our leadership made the announcement, media coverage (Fox News, Huffington Post, CNN, USA Today, etc.) has shifted from noting the change to implying that we caved in to social pressure to remove “Christ” from our name.

Nothing could be further from the truth! We remain as committed as ever to the cause of Jesus Christ, and we want to be known as a caring group of people who follow Jesus and invite others into a relationship with him. It was actually the other two words, “Campus” and “Crusade” that were removed because of the confusion they create about our ministry. Cru has been a nickname of our campus groups for years, and it seemed suitable (after lots of research) as a name for the entire U.S. ministry.

We had lots of questions, so we figure you may as well. Below is an ‘official’ letter on the matter from Campus Crusade for Christ, and you can read more here (www.ccci.org/cru).

One question we’ve already been personally asked is how will this affect you, our ministry partners. The answer is, very little. How you contribute financially will remain the same (and checks made out to either Campus Crusade for Christ or Cru will continue to be accepted). Mostly, we just want you to know it’s happening and to understand that it’s to further the cause of Christ, not to hinder it. Please feel free to contact us with any of your questions or concerns! God bless you!

Here is the letter from our leadership.

From Keynote in Indiana, several bands formed by the summer project students are finishing up their 3-week concert tours. Here are some comments from some prison concerts:

“I’m really glad they came. Those songs started opening the brick wall I had between me and God, and now thanks to the band that wall that was up is no longer there!”

“You were a positive influence on inmates such as myself. I never would have considered giving my life to God without the help from you.”

“I started praying when I got arrested 2 months ago. But for the first time in years I don’t feel dead inside and I’m happy – I started a relationship with God.”

“I feel very good to know that there are others that care about me, and who want to help me change my life.”

From the Staff Conference Team in Colorado, things have been going well. Karl is leading a wonderful team of technical people: Jeff from the Jesus Film Project, Mike from the Office of the President, Suzanne and Chris from the IT Group (Karl’s previous office), and Chris and Terin, our summer project students. We have a great mix of perspectives, knowledge, and experience.

We’ve been setting up offices, fixing computers, linking people to information, and generally serving wherever we can. Please pray that we would be granted wisdom from God – we have been struggling with some strange network problems.

Liesl has just finished the first of two classes that she’s taking this summer. Reading ahead made it less stressful than we expected. Please pray that the Biblical Communication class goes as well for the next few weeks.

Thank you for supporting us with your prayers and finances! We are looking forward to the big US Staff conference in July. It’s going to be filled with fun, friends, and new technical challenges for Karl’s team.

This edition features an outreach trip to Australia, Keynote’s Summer Project, and the new Keynote.org web site.

To see the newsletter, click this link.

Karl is increasingly busy with regular Keynote tech needs, and preparing for our US staff conference time out in Colorado this summer. He will be directing the tech team out there this summer for the first time and is still overseeing parts of the project to use technology to connect people with global ministry opportunities. The goal is to have that developed enough to train our staff to use it this summer. And he has a birthday tomorrow!  [this was written on 3/30 -kwk]

I just did an overhaul of most of the Keynote library. We keep resources on hand to train and develop our staff, and it occasionally needs some reorganization and attention . My highlight of the month though, was being able to host friends from Orlando who we used to work with. Keynote occasionally has communication trainings. This past week was a marathon of Comm Lab and then Speakers training (for those whose ministry is predominantly in front of groups). Our friends came in for the latter, and stayed with us, so that we could care for their little girl and make it possible for both husband and wife to attend.

It was a pleasure just to reconnect and hear how God is using them, but it was also a joy for me to use my home to serve. Ironically, my back got cranky, and made it tricky to take care of their child, but that turned out to be a blessing, too. Anja and Karl were around to help, and we all thoroughly enjoyed having a sweet, singsongy little girl in the house. I loved seeing Anja rise to the occasion and be so sweet and kind and helpful with her. It did my heart good (especially after a week of dealing with her sin issues, and my sin issues, too).

And as for Anja, she’s proud to be up to my chin now, excelling in 3rd grade, and will test for her karate gold belt this week. She also is looking forward to spring break, but thinks it’s awful that it starts on April 1, because she can’t do April Fools jokes at school

Karl and I also do some online missionary work with Global Media Outreach (affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ). This past week they asked us to prepare for a lot more contacts to come, as they were going to have a 2 day campaign to reach 2 million people. Here’s what happened!

God drew over 2.5 million people to the websites, over 244,000 people indicated decisions for Jesus Christ and we saw about 26,000 emails requesting follow up from our Online Missionaries.

From there we direct people to web sites designed to help them grow in their faith. We also do our best to answer questions they have. We know that not everyone truly “gets” the Gospel, but the chance to help so many people grow to know the Lord is amazing.

Thank you for being a part of all of this! Your love and care, prayers and financial support make our lives in ministry possible, and we love having such a wonderful team like you! God bless you in your victories and in your struggles,

Liesl, Karl, & Anja

How have you gotten connected with opportunities to serve in your local church or another ministry?  Many of you filled out a form and dropped it into an offering plate or a collection box.  Over the years, thousands of students have done the same thing, expressing interest in a summer mission trip, or serving on the worship team, or joining a small group Bible study.

Here’s a different way:  Imagine that you’re a college student at a winter conference, and you’re told that you can be connected to ministry opportunities by sending a short text message.  You send the text, and get a reply that sends you to a form that lets you indicate the kinds of opportunities that you’re interested in.

Because the system is connected to facebook (and you and your friends are avid facebook users), you soon find out that several of your friends are interested in the same overseas trip as you.  You’re even more interested in the trip now that you know that you could be serving with some of your friends.

In another context, the local leadership sees that a student, Alice, has expressed interest in an investigative Bible study.  The system shows them that Alice’s friend Beth is a student ministry leader and Beth gets to introduce Alice to the Bible study and eventually the Savior.

This is just part of the vision that we have for a project that we’re currently calling the “Mission Accelerator”.  It’s already under development, and we’re praying that the first phase will be ready for use on campus in the fall.  Down the road we hope that it could be used by churches and other missions organizations.

Please pray with us for:

• wisdom for all of the decisions that will need to be made by leaders, the project manager, and the coders
• a spirit of teamwork and cooperation
• quick progress

Thank you for your partnership with us!  We’ll keep you informed as progress is made.

Serving the Campus Ministry

For many years, Keynote has been sending representatives to various college Campus Ministry Christmas Conferences in order to recruit students for our own Summer Project or for internships or full-time positions.

In recent years, God has opened doors for Keynote to be a resource to some of these conferences through worship leading, program planning and emcee training.

In December of 2010, Keynote sent teams of musicians to San Diego, Minneapolis and Boston to lead worship bands of students from the respective regions. We love being able to work alongside the Campus staff and help shepherd these students in becoming “lead worshipers.”

Along with helping conferences musically, Keynote has served in other roles. Keynote was able to serve the conference in Denver again in the area of program planning. Several of the student emcees at conferences across the country were trained at Keynote!

You all could pray for the students around the country that God wants to be a part of the 2011 Summer Project to begin the application process! (And if you know any students who would like to take part, send them our way or to www.keynotesummerproject.org)

International Opportunities Abound

• January – Slovenia – our team recently returned this weekend from worship leading at the Eastern European Campus Crusade Staff Conference
• January – Spain – worship leading at a mid-year conference for Short-term International Staff serving in North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This team is coming back now
• March – Egypt – ad hoc band, The Replicas outreach tour (Please Pray for Egypt. The country is having great unrest presently. Pray for our team to know how to prepare in light of the uncertainty of being able to go or not.)
• March – El Salvador – ad hoc band, Stop on Green outreach tour
• April – Guatemala – Communication training
• May – Australia – blackSoil project outreach tour

New Media Labs

Please pray for the team to be creative as they field multiple requests for tech tools, apps and language translations for existing tools. They have a lot of great new ideas, so pray that God would help their time and energies to be used well.

It was especially nice to slow down after a full month. Keynote’s Vision Event went sooo well. If you weren’t able to watch Karl’s live broadcast you can see it now at www.keynoteconnection.org.

The weeks before and after that event also saw us hosting Tom and Harro, two CCC Australia Interns! They just released an iPhone app to help others share the gospel. They took the most widely used booklet for understanding who Jesus is, Would You Like to Know God Personally?, and made it available through the iTunes store (since it’s the Australian version, it has slight differences from the American booklet).

Similar to Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws, Knowing God Personally is the perfect tool for helping people understand how to have an intimate relationship with God. People can download the application free of charge. Harro grins, “It’s a God thing because we didn’t advertise it. We placed just one wallpost on Facebook and it took off from there. The first week the Lord allowed us to have 350 downloads from 31 countries.”

We had them come in to brainstorm ways we can use modern media to communicate the Gospel in more creative ways (and do programming). Keynote’s New Media Labs has been working on God Tools, another app for iPhones (and soon for Android phones). God Tools offers several Campus Crusade for Christ gospel booklets and the great articles from EveryStudent.com. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can download Knowing God Personally and God Tools for free from the app store.

This month we’ve also had a number of conversations that reminded us just how challenging it can be for most of us to know how to clearly communicate how to begin a relationship with God. Even long-time believers find it hard to know what out of the whole Bible and their lives to focus on when talking to someone who doesn’t know God.

Simple outlines of the Gospel can be a big help.  Whether you get an app for your phone, carry a paper copy with you, or use some other method, the important thing is to be ready to share, in a simple way, what God says. I find that just getting the 4 points in my head (and keeping them there) can make it so much easier to know I’ve clearly shared what’s important when I have limited time. When in doubt, just read through the booklet with someone!

Most important is praying and trusting God to work in people’s lives. He’s the life changer and he can use all of us as we step out in faith to share our own stories of God in our lives. You don’t have to “do it perfectly” for God to use you to share His love with someone. We’ll be praying for all of us to trust God and reach out this Christmas season.

GLAMMM in Singapore

Two years ago, Keynote was able to host our first International Summit for dialoguing about music and creative communications as ministry. Last week, Keynote’s Singapore-based counterpart hosted the second one! About 30 CCC staff from 15+ countries attended the Global Leaders in Arts, Music and Media Ministries conference. They were able to worship, share ideas, and build relationships that will help them grow their ministries around the globe with more fruitfulness.

After flight troubles that caused them to travel from LA to Singapore through Paris (44 hours of travel), Chris Zaugg, Keynote’s Director, had the opportunity to share about ministry planning and Chris Kellum, International Director, shared about partnership. Both had lots of good conversations with other leaders who want to learn, share, and explore next steps.

Inmates, Soldiers and Romanians

This month alone, bsn has been all over the map. They went to Ft. Knox and performed for 1100 basic training recruits, seeing 21 decisions for Christ! Then they went on a three-prison mini-tour where 325 inmates heard the gospel, 13 indicated a first-time decision to trust Christ and more than 24 said they wanted to talk more with someone about a relationship with God.

Then, with only a few days to do laundry, they packed their bags and headed to Romania for a seven-city outreach tour (October 7-25.) The concerts have been well attended, with hundreds of people being exposed to the gospel. At a few of the shows, the Campus Crusade hosts estimated that close to 95% of the audience were unbelievers. One show yielded more than 100 comment cards with all but two of them indicating an interest in further contact from the hosts!

Vision Event 2010

On November 6, Keynote will be hosting our annual Vision event, highlighting how we’ve seen God move this year! We’d love to have you all here personally (and if you’re in the area and want to come, please let us know!!!), but Karl will be broadcasting the event live, and you won’t want to miss it. Tune in to www.keynoteconnection.org at 7:20 pm to join in and catch the vision!

Please pray for the Keynote staff as they seek to see God direct the event while they work hard to make it happen (and pray for the internet broadcast to go smoothly, since that’s Karl’s job). God bless you!

We’ve been thinking a lot about marriages lately. We’ve watched several people we know get engaged this summer, and seen them seek to build strong, healthy relationships from the start. We’ve also seen other marriages that have hit bumps in the road or have even fallen apart.

No one is immune to troubles, and as Christians we need to regularly and repeatedly seek God in growing our marriages, not tearing them down.

One tool Campus Crusade offers to all of us is the FamilyLife Marriage Conferences. The Weekend to Remember emphasizes a commitment to God’s timeless blueprints for marriage, communi-cation and commitment, romance and resolving conflict. Projects help couples focus on each other and resources are available to take home with you to continue the process.

If you are looking for a weekend getaway for you and your spouse, or find yourself living a life of isolation in your marriage…if you want to point a hurting couple toward help…if you would like to be catalysts for family or friends or church members in equipping homes to be all that God intends… go to www.familylife.com. You will find dates and locations and lots of other info there.

Consider:

Statistics show one in every two marriages fail. Divorce touches us all.

Is God bringing to mind a couple or family in need of help?

Might you be that couple? Does your marriage seem headed down the wrong track?

Are you financially able to scholarship a couple in distress who cannot afford the cost of the conference?

Can you be that person in your church or business that organizes a group to attend a local conference?

Are you blessed with a terrific marriage? Thank the Lord now for your spouse!!

Our Family

has had a lot to be thankful for. Anja just started 3rd grade this month and turned 9 yesterday! We love this blessing of a young lady God has entrusted to us and are praying for wisdom as we seek to teach her how to connect with God personally and grow to love Him, not just His blessings (something we keep working on ourselves). We are thankful for 12 years of marriage as well and for the privilege of serving God with Keynote these last couple of years. And so we are grateful for your partnership with us! God bless you all!

Students and staff shared what God has taught them this summer:

• Our talents and even our voices are not our own – they are tools to bring glory to God
• Everything we have is a gift from God
• He doesn’t need us, but He chooses to use us
• Everything we do, even how we set up and tear down before and after concerts, can show people that God is in us
• Learning to tell our God stories for tour is preparation for being ready to tell our God stories for the rest of our lives
• God doesn’t want us to fix our lives before we come to Him – we come broken to the One who fixes lives

Thank you for praying for the Summer Project, and thank you for your partnership in ministry with us!

Summer Project Concerts

Keynote’s New Media Labs (which includes Karl) has developed an official Campus Crusade for Christ iPhone app. God Tools puts classic resources like Knowing God Personally, Satisfied? and the Four Spiritual Laws booklet directly onto your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The app also includes a searchable library of questions from EveryStudent.com, and, for a limited time, a mobile version of Soularium, A Dialogue in Images. It’s available for free in the iTunes store. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, give it a try!

We’re already trying to figure out how to improve it and create similar tools for more kinds of mobile devices. Please join us in praying for this effort!

Summer Project Students Preparing to Tour

The Keynote Summer Project students, who have been here since June 7, are in their final week of rehearsals before going on tour. The four Keynote bands, along with the Impact Movement’s Level 3:16, will take the gospel to prisons, military bases, and other Campus Crusade for Christ summer project locations.

You can watch the dress rehearsals live online at www.keynotesummerproject.org/live on July 4, 5, and 6 at 7pm Eastern (the time is approximate — doors open at 6:30 with bands performing around 7)

Please pray that the bands would be ready and that God would use them to change lives for His glory!

While there, Mark, still a seeker, heard about the Keynote Golf Challenge and Karen encouraged him to sign up. Mark ended up being paired for the day with Craig Parker, the pastor at BridgeWay. Even though their golfing skills were worlds apart, they ended up having a great time and Craig asked Mark a lot of questions about his spiritual journey.

As Mark was packing up things at the end of the day and walking to his car, the prize he received (a ceramic plate with the words, “You Are Loved” and “We Thank Our God Through Jesus Christ for You” – Romans 1:8 painted on it) fell out of the box. Mark watched as the plate hit the pavement and bounced but didn’t break. It was a reminder to him that God did love him and had given His only Son to die for him.

Not long after, Mark gave his life to Christ, got involved at the church and has played in the Keynote Golf Challenge every year since, raising more than $30,000!

Over the last 14 years, more than $1,500,000 has been raised through the Keynote Golf Challenge crazy events! As a result, Keynote has continued to offer innovative tools for outreach and training in communication around the globe!

The Keynote Golf Challenge is more than just raising money and playing a lot of golf! As you can see from Mark’s story, even the golfers can have a life-changing experience!

The Golf Challenges in May (California on May 10 and Indiana on May 24) have been one of the biggest ways God provides Keynote with the resources we need to serve as a ministry. This enables us to do concerts for free, turn the lights on at the office, buy needed equipment, etc. As you see, God has provided through many people using their talents (or even lack of talent – there’s a prize for the worst golfer, too) and their willingness to find sponsors to make Keynote’s ministry possible.

If you find yourself interested in ministering in a fun and crazy way, check out www.keynote.org/golf and see what it’s like. And we would love for all of you to pray for those involved in the challenge, the organizers, volunteers, and sponsors. The recent recession has affected so many of our generous supporters that it’s more important than ever for us to see God provide the resources needed.

On a personal note, we had a great time over spring break being involved in our dear friend’s wedding. Anja was a great flower girl, too. Since we’ve gotten back, it’s been non-stop doctors’ appointments for me (they multiply!). I would love for the doctors to have wisdom in sorting out what’s up with me and success in treating it. Karl, as ever, is wonderful and I’m blessed to celebrate 12 years with him as my husband this month! God is good! Thank you all for your care for us and your part in our ministry!

Karl’s had a lot going on this month.  He and a couple of the guys went to a tech conference in Texas to get exposure to the “latest and greatest” in technology and social media.  Since social media changes practically at the speed of light, it’s good to see where things are going so that our ministry can spend time and resources on the best options for connecting with people now and in the future.  He also has been training not only Ryan, but a son of one of our staff, who volunteers after school   And, last but not least, his birthday is tomorrow!  Happy Birthday, Karl!

I have been working with some of our new staff over the last few months as they develop their Ministry Partner Teams and raise the support they need to serve full time with us.  Some have had God lead them away from serving with us, at least temporarily, as God has given them great opportunities to meet needs where they are.  Others are continuing to work hard and I would love if you would pray for all of our new staff to be able to grow spiritually and emotionally as God prepares them for ministry with us during this time.  And we thought you’d enjoy hearing about just one of the exciting things God is doing through our staff at Keynote.

When God uses dummies…

David Pendleton, Keynote’s comedy ventriloquist, spent time on various college campuses in South Dakota and Iowa recently.  Six shows were planned over the course of four days in conjunction with Campus Crusade for Christ ministries (Cru) on various campuses. Most of these ministries are “student-led” and coached by one or two staff members who serve all of the campuses in the area.

More than 600 students heard the gospel through one of David’s shows and 109 indicated a first-time decision to begin a relationship with God!  Many others indicated a desire to connect with a Bible study or meet with someone to talk more about God.

Student leaders have already begun contacting those who turned in cards, to talk more about their decision or their questions.  In fact, a couple of weeks ago we heard that 11 new students came to a Bible study as a result of David’s show!

Thank you for your part in reaching students for Christ as you serve us!  God bless you!

blue sky nine (bsn) played in Ellsworth Correctional Facility (a medium security prison), in Ellsworth, KS in April 2009. While there, Laura (bsn’s lead singer) got in a conversation with one of the inmates, Tom (name changed). He kept talking about how he was 28 and hadn’t done anything with his life. She could sense that he really wanted to turn things around. Laura encouraged him to press into God and ask him to help to stay away from the friends that steered him towards the life he didn’t want to lead anymore. Then she and other band members prayed with him and encouraged him to take steps towards God. After they returned home, God led Laura to pray for Tom every day.

This past fall, bsn returned to Ellsworth. Tom was still there, and he was surprised when Laura remembered him and their conversation in April. Before the band left, Tom handed Laura a poem he had written about his relationship with God.

Fastforward to Christmas: Laura received a card in the mail from Tom telling her about how things have been getting better for him. He’d been able to mend some of the bridges he burnt with his family — they even came to see him on Thanksgiving. He said he wanted to write and let her know how much blue sky nine and our conversations helped him.

David Pendleton & Co. (David uses ventriloquism and comedy to share with people)

David Pendleton performed at an Indianapolis prison as an outreach for the Indy Christmas Conference. After his performance, the students spent time sharing one-on-one with the inmates. Here is a story from a student at Miami University (Ohio):

I have shared my testimony several times, but I have never really told someone how they can accept Christ. Before Christmas conference I didn’t really know the words to say. I had the amazing opportunity to witness someone being led to Christ first hand. I went on a prison outreach during conference. I was extremely afraid and was highly doubting my ability to share the gospel to an inmate…. I ended up with an 18 year old kid … I was completely overwhelmed….I tried reading the cards they gave us but it wasn’t going anywhere. Then a staff guy named David Pendleton sat down with us. He saw that I was struggling and ended up sharing the gospel with the kid. It was absolutely amazing to see the Spirit speak through him….David made a great illustration. He told the inmate, “It’s as if I were to walk into the prison and change clothes with you. You would walk out and I would stay here and serve your sentence for you.” It was at that moment that I saw in Robert’s eyes that he truly understood.

I love how David not only led the prisoner to Jesus in a way he could understand, but also opened the student’s eyes to how he could learn to share his faith better. God is so good! Praying we’ll all see the opportunities to reach out to others around us. God bless you!

Karl and Ryan

I�m excited to let you know that the Information Technology team is now a team of two! Ryan Menzer was the percussionist for blue sky nine and was ready for a change. Everyone agreed that he would be a great fit in IT, and it�s working out well. He�s already finished some projects that I hadn�t been able to focus on.

Even with Ryan, though, we know that there are more computer needs at Keynote than the two of us can handle. Our plan is to train a person in each Keynote team or department to be the �level 1 tech� for that team. Please pray that we can communicate clearly and encourage people throughout this process. Please also pray that I lead and teach Ryan well.

In addition to being Keynote�s IT Director, I�m also part of a new team called �Keynote New Media Labs�. Our purpose is to help other Campus Crusade for Christ ministries use the Internet more creatively and effectively. We are starting to build a library of resources at www.mediaforministry.org. We�ve also helped the ministry at the University of Iowa create a new web site so that students, leaders, and even alumni and parents can stay more connected:

One of the staff from Iowa wrote this to Sam on our team: �to say thank you doesn’t even begin to express how thankful I am to what you have done for us. The site looks amazing and you’ve given us the tools to maintain it as well. Sam you have been so giving and helpful to us! Thanks for setting us up for a huge win on our campus in reaching students more effectively online at iowa!�

Please pray that God would lead us to the best tools and strategies, and that we would be able to connect people in the wide world of Campus Crusade for Christ who are also developing new ideas.

Personally, Liesl has had a hard time as the allergy doctor has made major changes to her diet. No more dairy, sugar, vinegar, or a bunch of other things. We�re hoping for health benefits eventually, but for now it�s been very difficult with no apparent benefits. We appreciate your prayers!