Dear Friend,

If you could look onto campus and see what I see – you’d see passionate students burning to take the message of Christ to the world; professors, coaches, staff – teaching, reaching, transforming lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers!

What we accomplished this year is far beyond anything we can see on our campus – eternity will reveal it. God worked in mighty ways. When I look back and reflect on all the things that have happened, I say, “Oh God, how I thank you!”

God is at work! Conversations, cards and letters have told us the ways God is using our alumni. What a river, what an ocean of blessings CIU has poured out and is pouring out on the world. And you are part of that. Someday we will know how many lives CIU students and alumni have touched for the Kingdom.

These are the best years of my life, and I am so thankful to be here with some of the best people in the world. There have been hard places – but we never lose our focus. We are here to lift up, educate and train men and women to take Christ to the nations. Everything we do is for that purpose, every building, every staff person, every faculty member.

On May 4th we celebrated launching 214 Christ-following, Christ-hearted workers into the harvest to join our nearly 19,000 alumni. By God’s grace this was our 96th graduation. As we approach our 100th anniversary, I am remembering our beginnings.

I am inspired and challenged by the story of Robert C. McQuilkin, “Always in Triumph.” I even quoted it recently to our staff. McQuilkin was on his way to serve cross-culturally when God intervened and redirected his path to Columbia, SC to become the first president of our university.

His dream was to impact one community with the message of Christ. But God used him to send thousands of missionaries into thousands of communities to reach hundreds of thousands with the message of Christ. This is still the heartbeat of CIU. We exist to train students To Know Him and To Make Him Known from South Carolina to South Sudan.

Please visit ciu.edu/world to read stories of our world-changing students and alumni.

Thank you in advance for helping us in our Kingdom-building work with your prayers!

To God be the glory,

Dr. Mark A. Smith

President

Columbia International University