Bold at Big Break

The college student’s spit hit him below his eye.

Chris Houghtaling, a freshman at West Virginia University, had approached a student on the beach and offered to go through a booklet called Would You Like to Know God Personally?

As he began to sit down, the guy spat in his face.

Fighting was at the front of Chris’ mind, but instead he said, “That’s all right. I love you, and so does God.”

He walked down to the ocean and washed off his face, though shaking with anger. The student was still yelling at him from up the beach.

Discouraged, he began to head back to the hotel, but another student from Big Break stopped him, encouraging Chris not to give up. Big Break is Campus Crusade for Christ’s spring-break mission trip for college students. Every year, thousands of students migrate to the beach to tell others about Christ’s love.

After evangelism training, students spend all afternoon applying their faith, talking with people about Jesus before returning for a nightly session.

Chris headed back to the beach and talked with two parents, near the student who had spat on him. He listened as they talked about their children, and stayed with them for more than an hour. They both prayed with Chris and accepted Christ.

“I knew if I’d hit the kid, then went over and tried to talk to these people, they’d go, ‘You just punched a kid! You’re not a man of God! How can you talk to me?’” he says.

But Chris is a man of God—a brand-new one.

He struggled through years of problems with alcohol, drugs and a difficult family background. Then, a few months before Big Break, Chris accepted Christ in a bowling alley.

“I finally found love,” he says. “It’s God’s love and I feel it. I want others to feel it, too.”

For more information, visit big-break.com.