All photos courtesy Linda Van Kessler.
When an ABC 10 TV News crew hears about 50 college students descending on a home, they know what to expect. But this past June a group of students involved with Cru made the news for different reasons.
Students taking part in a summer mission project worked with the organization Passion 4 K.I.D.S. to help transform Penny and Chuck Hauer’s home in El Cajon, Calif. The Hauer family includes 20 adopted children who have disabilities. The Hauers needed help with tasks they were struggling to accomplish.
Car after car loaded with students steadily pulled up to the house ready to help out.
“They just kept coming,” Penny Hauer says. “There were so many of them and they weren’t afraid to work … It was like a wind swept through. It was just incredible.”
They tore up trees, planted a garden, renovated the garage and completed other odd jobs. In eight hours they accomplished what would have taken two years for a volunteer working alone.
When the ABC 10 News station got wind of what was happening at the Hauer’s home, they showed up to interview Cru students and the family.
The TV crew hunted down the story of young people putting strangers’ needs ahead of their own, and loving every minute of it.
“College students today have a tug in their heart,” says Shayna Cramer, a Cru staff member. “Because of the internet and the news and how small our world is today, they see the brokenness, and they want to do something about it. It’s not hard to convince them.”
Throughout the day, the students and the Hauer children chatted about where they were from and about God’s love.
“Seeing the way they (Chuck and Penny Hauer) live and seeing the heart they have for these kids and for the Lord was so much greater than any physical labor that we were able to do for them,” says Bekah Binder, a student involved.
So a mob of students left a house in California better than they found it. And behaving like Jesus made primetime news.
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