Front left Joana (student in Porto, Portugal), and front right Daniel (American high school student), share Soularium with Portuguese high school students in a mall in Porto, Portugal.
High School

The question that changed a life

Rich Atkinson November 14, 2014

PORTUGAL – Samuel Batista stood quietly to the side while students played some getting-to- know-you games.

The then-14-year-old Portuguese student was one of several young people Cru staff member Shawn Faulkner trained during Cru’s high school spring break trip to Portugal.

Shawn’s team partnered with local churches, Christian students and Agape Aventura, the name of Cru’s high school ministry in Portugal, to train students on how to tell others about Jesus.

The Portuguese students prepared talks on how they came to know Christ and practiced having spiritual conversations with others using Soularium, a spiritual conversation tool that uses photo cards.

A week after Samuel watched the getting-to-know-you games, he went to a Cru High School party to return the Soularium cards to Shawn.

“Oh, those are yours to keep,” Shawn said. “If you are going to use them.”

That is when Samuel shared what happened the day before.

“Our teacher was done teaching and we had nothing to do,” Samuel said. “I was talking with my friend and said, ‘Hey, would you mind if I showed you these picture cards?’ ”

Samuel pulled out the Soularium cards, placing the photos on a table. He asked his friend to pick three cards to represent how he viewed his family, his school and God, just as he was trained to do.       

He then asked, “If I told you how you could have a relationship with God, would you be interested?”

When his friend said yes, Samuel took out a Connecting with God booklet and walked him through the salvation message. When Samuel finished, his friend placed his faith in Christ.


Learn how to get involved with Cru’s high school ministry.

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