How It Started
Daniel and Sarah met as Baptist Collegiate Ministries (BCM) members during their first year at Virginia Tech in 2005. There they grew tremendously in their faith, and the Lord solidified their callings into missions. They married in 2009, and after graduating, they remained in Blacksburg for work. They volunteered as youth leaders in their local church for two years. They naturally gravitated to spending increasing time with college students ministering to them by providing counsel and prayer. In the spring of 2013, they attended a missions conference in which they felt the Lord clearly directing them to start a campus ministry.
Klēros
In the fall of 2013, Daniel and Sarah started Klēros Campus Ministries at Virginia Tech, an independent ministry through their local church, Dwelling Place Christian Fellowship. Klēros' mission was to provide a safe place for community and fellowship to enable students to experience, learn, and share the love of Christ. While always remaining small, they accomplished this goal through various means, but primarily through generous hospitality and evangelism through personal relationships. Their most successful and longest-running outreach was the community group slacklining times on the Drillfield, which met weekly since the spring of 2014. The COVID pandemic drastically impacted Klēros; in the fall of 2020, they only had two student members. Daniel and Sarah spent the year praying and waiting on direction from the Lord and felt led to reboot the ministry for the '21-'22 school year. The year saw an explosion of growth both in the numbers of students and in their own personal spiritual lives. They ended the year with over a dozen students consistently attending their community dinners each week.
InterVarsity
In February of 2022, amid Klēros thriving, God almost serendipitously led Daniel and Sarah to a job listing to another campus ministry at Virginia Tech, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. At first, they were confused over their attraction to InterVarsity but quickly realized the Lord was calling them to something new. They reached out and five weeks later were hired. Klēros continued for the remainder of that semester. Daniel, Sarah, and the Klēros students transitioned to InterVarsity the following summer. In many ways, Klēros did not end but instead was absorbed and became part of InterVarsity. Daniel and Sarah now serve almost 30 students and look forward to seeing students and the chapter grow for many years to come.
The Future
Beginning in the fall of 2023, Daniel and Sarah will once again be doing campus ministry independently at Virginia Tech as missionaries from their church, Dwelling Place. While the specifics are still to be determined, they know they are to continue a ministry of generous hospitality, providing a safe place for community and fellowship to enable students to experience, learn, and share the love of Christ.