Meet Jessica Senbetu

I met Jessica through Cru my junior year. I remember the day exactly. I walked around the chapel where Cru was having their weekly meeting, probably 4 times. I was so nervous to go in. But I knew that I would find my friends there. I connected with Jess and we realized we were in the same major, plus we had the same class together after the meeting was over. I instantly loved Jessica. I love her personality, her humor, and her love for Jesus. She does her job so well – it was made for her. I’m excited for Jessica to share more about herself in this month’s “Meet Captivating Women.”

I live in San Jose, CA and I am 23 years old!

I got my degree in Recreation from San Jose State University.

Passionate, creative, intuitive.

I work full-time with a Christian missions organization called Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ). I work with the “campus ministry” of Cru at San Jose State University reaching college students with the Gospel! It’s crazy fun! Our tagline is, “Cru is a caring community passionate about connecting people to Jesus”, and I love that vision-because it’s about changed lives, changing lives. My life was radically changed by Jesus through Cru during my freshman year of college and I was so changed that I wanted as many college students lives’ to be changed by the Gospel as well, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Let’s see…it usually starts with me waking up to the sound of my husband watching ESPN and thinking “How long has he been up? What day is it? I’m so thirsty!” Every. Single. Morning.

Once I break out of my haze I get some reading and/or praying in. This doesn’t come naturally to me, I gotta work for it. After that it’s usually straight into some type of meeting with my Cru staff teammates, staff meeting, staff prayer, check-in with my team leader. I like starting the mornings with my team, it keeps my focused and fills up my relational tank! The afternoons are usually meeting with students, sometimes that’s meeting up for coffee to talk about who Jesus is or what it looks like to follow Him, sometimes it’s going into the dorms to pray and meet students, and sometimes it’s planning to meet up with a student leader but then running into 5 other Cru students on campus and having an impromptu hangout! I love college ministry because it’s highly relational and unpredictable. God is always doing something unexpected. Lastly, the evenings are Cru meetings and small groups. This next Spring I’m helping launch a co-ed Greek Bible study, so you’ll find me on Greek row on Wednesday nights!

My favorite part of my job is watching God change lives. I know it sounds simple, but I can just never get enough of it! This past Fall semester I personally got to see 5 freshmen girls surrender their lives over to Jesus and begin to follow Him, and that was out of 28 students who indicated decisions for Christ through Cru! Crazy! I watch students leave everything behind to follow Jesus- girls texting me at some odd hours in the night to tell me they need to break up with their boyfriend because the relationship is leading them away from Christ or that they need prayer because they just shared the Gospel with their friend from home and they can’t believe they even got through the conversation! I love getting to see answered prayers be manifested through the Spirit in real lives of college students, it’s like we’re real characters in this beautiful story God is writing.

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'” -Romans 10:14-15

What makes a Captivating Woman?
A Captivating Woman is a woman who lives out who she is supposed to be. Who she was created to be. She is unwavering from the woman God created in her mother’s womb and she seeks His voice because her identity is not in what she can do, but in Who gave her life.

My favorite story in the Bible right now is the story of the sinful woman who broke her alabaster box at the feet of Jesus in front of the crowd. I came back to this story again and again this semester with my freshmen girls bible study and I was so overcome with emotion when it really hit me for the first time, I am the sinful woman and I need to come to Jesus. I love all the gems of historical context in this story…the box of perfume, the Pharisees, the washing of the feet…so good. This is one of my favorite pictures of how Jesus feels about mankind, so much compassion & love for us and so much hope offered to us.

Elisabeth Elliot – wife of missionary Jim Elliot, and missionary herself who followed God’s leading with her husband into the remote villages of Ecuador to bring the Gospel to people who had never heard the name of Jesus. Her book Through Gates of Splendor is the account of their journey and their story changed my life! When I first became a Christian I wanted to be just like her!

Christena Cleveland – In 2014, Christianity Today named her one of the “33 Under 33” millennials leading the next generation of Christian faith. She is “a social psychologist with a hopeful passion for overcoming cultural divisions in groups”. I first heard Christena speak at our Cru staff conference this past summer and I was obsessed. Her strong voice for justice lit up the room, created discomfort, and got people talking. I loved how she used her voice to eloquently and unapologetically speak truth. www.christenacleveland.com