Campus Connection At Brock University, Kassie Van Every takes every opportunity to share her faith BY KRISTIN FRYER, STAFF WRITER
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oing into university, I had heard so many stories about Christians who go to school and then fall away from their faith, and I was really worried about that,” remembers Kassie Van Every, who has just entered her fourth year at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. “I’m not very outgoing, so I was afraid that I wouldn’t get connected to a church or have Christian friends. But my first day in residence, I sat down for dinner with a group of girls, and it turned out that everyone at the table was a Christian.
Right away, I knew that this was where God wanted me to be.” That first semester, Van Every joined the St. Catharines Corps and became involved with Power to Change, an on-campus Christian ministry. Three years later, Van Every is a mentor and a Bible study leader at Brock, but her greatest passion is evangelism, a ministry she admits “is something I said I would never do.” Growing up in Delhi, Ont., Van Every attended Simcoe Community Church with her family. Before leaving home for
university, she taught Sunday school and sang on the worship team at the corps, and she spent several summers at music camp. “I learned so much at camp and I had wonderful counsellors,” she says. “They would e-mail me throughout the year to see how I was doing and tell me that they were praying for me.” Van Every has since been a camp counsellor herself, first at Camp Glenhuron in Bayfield, Ont., and then as part of a Camp at Home team. In her final year of high school, Van Every participated in X{LR}:8, a Salvation Army youth mentorship program. Through this, she developed a desire to disciple others and so, in her second year at Brock, Van Every became a Power to Change Bible study leader and a mentor to two girls in her Bible study group. Becoming a Bible study leader was just the push she needed to start sharing her faith on campus. “Evangelism was something that scared me, so I avoided it,” she recalls. During her first year, she was involved with Power to Change, but she passed on any outreach opportunity. But as a Bible study leader, Van Every had a responsibility to her group. “If the girls in my group wanted to go out sharing, they needed to have someone to take them, so I thought, ‘I should learn how to do this,’ even though I didn’t want to,” she says. On her first night of sharing, Van Every went to the university’s cafeteria and starting talking to a student with another Bible study leader. “We asked her for her name and when she told us I thought, ‘That sounds familiar,’” she remembers. “A couple of days before, a friend of mine had asked me to pray for some girls on her wrestling team. The girl at the cafeteria was one of her teammates. Right there,
I knew that God was working and I was hooked.” As she continued to share her faith regularly at Brock, Van Every was surprised at how receptive people were. “We go to people and ask them if they would be interested in talking about spiritual things. If they’re willing, we share the gospel with them,” she says. “Most of the time, they’re friendly and open to talking with us.” When people are less open, however, Van Every says it can be difficult not to feel discouraged. “Last February, I went to the University of Glasgow in Scotland with Power to Change, and we found that the students were generally less receptive and were not willing to talk to us,” she says. “That was hard. “When I feel discouraged, I try and remind myself to pray and ask God for guidance and direction—where to go and who to talk to. And, ultimately, whatever happens is in his hands.” Off-campus, Van Every attends the St. Catharines Corps, where she is a worship team member and a youth leader. Last year, she led the youth group on a trip to Hillcrest Community Church in London, Ont., where she shared her testimony and helped the youth perform skits that she wrote. Van Every is studying drama and English with the aim of becoming a teacher, but she is considering going into full-time ministry. Though she does not know what the future holds, she says that God has given her a heart for university students, and she sees university as a unique opportunity for ministry. “You have people from all over the world at universities—people who will go out and become leaders and make a difference,” she says. “If we reach them, then we can change the world.” Salvationist I September 2012 I 17