David Englehart, the campus director of New Mexico State University’s (NMSU) Christian Challenge, was moved with emotion as he recalled a quiet but stunning moment in his life some 30 years earlier during a trip to Central Asia.

“We were coming up out of the metro, it was freezing cold, cloudy sky. I was walking up the stairs, he was just walking by me,” Englehart recounted the details, describing a Central Asian man whose round face was framed by the hood of a warm, winter parka.

“We didn’t even make eye contact, but God impressed on me, ‘David, this man will never hear the name of Jesus.’”

Swallowing back tears, he revealed how God used that chilly December day to propel three decades of mobilizing students to bring the gospel to the nations.

“God very gently, but very pointedly, helped me to see the face of unreached peoples,” Englehart said. His life and ministry would never be the same.

The trip, made to visit a former NMSU student serving as a Journeyman with the International Mission Board (IMB), was Englehart’s first ever inside the world’s least-evangelized region and marked the beginning of decades of partnership with the IMB.

Now, as he approaches retirement after almost 40 years in campus ministry, Englehart reflected how his former student was a “key factor” for how they began partnering with missionaries and set the precedent for years to come.

“As a campus ministry director, knowing that we had a former student on the field, I wondered, how are we going to support him and encourage him?” Englehart said. “And I think God used that visit to kind of kickstart us into not only being aware of and praying for the unreached, but asking God, ‘What can we do?’”

Exactly one year after his trip to Central Asia, Englehart took a group of 20 students to a mission conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Late one night, as they gathered in a hotel room to debrief, a unified vision began to emerge from their conversation.

God was calling them to partner with missionaries on the field by sending teams every year to reach university students. Just six months later, they sent their first summer team to another region of Asia. The next summer, a team went back again. Then, they began sending students to stay for whole semesters. What developed were robust, long-term partnerships.

Over the years, missionary partners have significantly influenced their campus ministry, providing valuable input for areas where students need growth as well as mentoring and investing in them during their time overseas.

He recounted an instance in the early 2000s when a missionary partner in Asia contacted him with concerns about the students on her team. Because of security issues and poor technology, clear communication was a challenge. Englehart wasn’t sure what to do until a mentor asked him a simple question.

“David, how important is that partnership to you?”

Within two weeks, Englehart was on a plane flying to Asia. He met the missionaries at a hotel and was on a plane back home less than 24 hours later, after resolving the situation.

Since 1993, NMSU Christian Challenge has sent 470 students to serve overseas through the IMB as summer or semester missionaries. Sixty went on to serve as Journeymen or in a similar capacity. Englehart said 20 of those returned to serve as career missionaries with the IMB, and now some of them are long-term partners for new generations of NMSU students.  

“Isn’t it amazing to have your alums investing in your summer teams and guiding them?” Englehart asked. “And isn’t it great if you’re on the field and you have people coming from your campus ministry to serve? You know that ministry, you know the DNA. And that’s going to spur students to want to come back the next summer and then maybe do Journeyman, right?”

Looking back with gratefulness for all God has done, Englehart emphasized the key to his ministry has been nurturing strong, committed, long-term partnerships for the sake of the gospel.

As he prepares to pass the baton to a new campus director this fall, he confessed, “There is a continuing ache — for that Central Asian man heading down into the metro — and so many others like him who will never hear the name of Jesus unless the people of God pray and give and go and proclaim.”

Individuals, students, pastors and others can find more information about working with the IMB around the world here.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Kristen Sosebee writes for the IMB.)