{"id":4925,"date":"2018-03-05T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/?p=4925"},"modified":"2024-04-29T16:52:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T22:52:10","slug":"fruit-among-african-american-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/blog\/fruit-among-african-american-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruit Among African-American Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I couldn\u2019t stop smiling. I was sitting in a room with seven African-American men who were students in a Navigators leadership Bible study with Dustin Butler at the University of Georgia. I was paired up with a student who quoted all 12 verses in the \u201cA-pack\u201d of the Topical Memory System without a mistake. Looking around, it felt like a moment to savor: Fruit from eight years of Dustin and his wife, Lori, and their team pouring into African-American students. Today, they have 50-70 students at their weekly meeting as well as a leadership team of 17. Since they began, more than 20 African-American college students have become followers of Jesus and grown through NavCompass (The Navigators African-American student ministry at the University of Georgia).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ATL_inside-story_cuza-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4926\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ATL_inside-story_cuza-and-emma.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ATL_inside-story_cuza-and-emma-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Serving alongside the Butlers on full-time staff are Mark and Emma Sumrall. Emma disciples a student named Cuza, who joined NavCompass her freshman year in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cComing into college\u2014joining a ministry and giving my life to Christ were the last things on my mind,\u201d Cuza says. \u201cI loved the welcoming spirit of the ministry, but it wasn\u2019t until I got more involved that I started to seriously consider a relationship with God. During that time, I gave my life to Christ. I started my discipleship with Emma Sumrall in my junior year, and not only did I fall more in love with Christ, I also began to see how much He loved me even more. With Emma, I get to see an example of Christian living, and I am continually allowing Christ to help me heal and become a stronger person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Student Ozzie Araga was discipled by Dustin, and also feels that deep transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was in a place of depression and darkness,\u201d Ozzie says. \u201cBut praise God for holding onto me and connecting me with a loving ministry that welcomed my brokenness. I had so many questions about God\u2019s existence, but Dustin was there to answer it all with the Bible, and boy was I ready to surrender my life to Christ. I am so blessed and thankful for meeting Dustin and being discipled by him. He was loving, caring, understanding, and spoke from his heart. That really made me want to pursue Jesus wholeheartedly, and The Navigators ministry allowed me to do that. It has been three years now and my life has dramatically improved. I see hope, I\u2019ve found peace and joy, I see light and no darkness, and more important, I have faith in Jesus Christ who loves me and died for my sins. I am devoting my life to doing ministry for God\u2019s Kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rejoice with us at the work God is doing in the lives of students like Cuza and Ozzie, and please pray for the ongoing, fruitful work among AfricanAmerican students at the University of Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"cta\">\n\t\t<h3>Support The Navigators at University of Georgia!<\/h3>\n\t\t<center>Partner with The Navigators to advance the Gospel into all the nations.<\/center>\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0;\"><a class=\"button orange\" href=\"https:\/\/donations.navigators.org\/s\/fund\/a4e1Q000000cvqrQAA\/university-of-georgia\/?sf_ac=w07\">Donate Now<\/a><\/p>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ministry at University of Georgia has led more than 20 African-American college students to become followers of Jesus and disciple others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_helpful_pro_status":1,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"mission":[13002,150,65],"topic":[44],"class_list":["post-4925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disciplemaking","mission-navigators-african-american-network","mission-navigators-collegiate","mission-navigators-i-58","topic-discipleship"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ATL_inside-story_cuza-and-emma.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"The Navigators","author_link":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/staff\/thenavigators\/"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263722,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925\/revisions\/263722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4925"},{"taxonomy":"mission","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mission?post=4925"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}