Following the Badenhops

Elisabeth and Aaron Badenhop

We are working with Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) for many reasons, but as big as any is that God used this ministry to change our lives. Though we both had experience in church with our families growing up, when we began to attend our respective universities, neither of us understood how Jesus was relevant to college life. So we both got into the party scene, making decisions that could have significantly impacted our futures in a negative way. But by God’s grace, He crossed both of our paths with other students involved with Cru who were authentically following Jesus, and we desired to experience what they had. Building relationships with these students and eventually being mentored by Cru staff, our passions changed and we individually felt lead to serve Him by impacting college students the way that our own lives had been changed. 

We’ve both been working on staff now with Cru since 2004. Aaron earned a degree in history from The Ohio State University in 2003, while Elisabeth received her degree in education at Indiana University. Aaron spent his first two years after college working as an intern with Cru in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Elisabeth spent her first two years after college working with Cru in Freiburg, Germany.

We met in 2007 at Ohio State, when Elisabeth first reported to join the Cru at OSU staff team, and were married in March of 2009. We believe that God crossed our paths and has brought us together as a team to influence men and women on campus for Christ.

There are many good causes and many important ministries in the world. We hope that through this website you might be drawn to what God is doing on the college campus, among the next generation of world leaders.

To catch a glimpse of how God is working in college students’ lives through our ministry, check out Joel’s story.  

To learn more about Cru, you can visit our organization’s website by clicking this link.