Just over a year ago, my wife, Kristen and I moved to Baton Rouge, La from Greenville SC, to restart a Campus ministry at LSU, Southern and BRCC. While we both have had experience in the campus ministry, and as campus ministers, neither of us were quite prepared for what God had in store for us. Our faith has been stretched in ways that we never would have imagined and has resulted in one of these most amazing times in our lives.
Over 30 years ago, men like my father, Andy Van Bueren, and Tom Brown, 
left everything to start up campus ministries from scratch. I have grown up my entire life hearing these amazing stories of the “old Days”, and yet now we felt like it was our time to do the same. It is about time that our generation creates our own stories that will be told 30 years from now…to God’s glory and for God’s glory.
We moved here with great faith and only one student, Jacob Rideau. By October, Daphne Augustin moved from Atlanta and the four of us were able to study the Bible with about 40 students from all three schools. God was most certainly teaching us perseverance because we had yet to see any baptisms. That is until the Sunday after the semester ended, when Chantell
Bush, a freshman student at BRCC made her goodconfession on December 20th, 2009. Then, in January, God moved two amazing brothers, Randy Edwards and Carlston Mills, out here to help us advance the gospel on LSU’s campus. Their impact was felt immediately as they reached out to Ryan Dwyer who was baptized on March 25th, 2010. While he was studying the Bible, he invited a good friend, Matt Holmes, who began to study immediately. Matt was baptized on May 3rd, 2010. While Matt was studying the Bible, he brought out his girlfriend to church, Rebecca Bond. After hearing so much from Matt about the Bible and seeing his life change before her eyes, Rebecca quickly began studying the Bible as a student at Southeastern, and she too was baptized on June 20th, 2010. Not only has God been faithful to the faithful, but he has helped us to truly be witnesses to “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”
We are now, not just at the three original schools, LSU, Southern and BRCC, but we are also now at Southeastern. But that’s not all because God has also allowed us to begin a campus ministry down in the great city of New Orleans, where Matt and Ashley Atkins help lead at UNO, where there are now 3 full-time students. Please pray for God’s work to be done and many more students to come to Christ.
-Stephen & Kristen Van Bueren
posted by Jerry Maday, Worcester, MA