Chi Alpha Missionary Couple Serving Three Campuses, Each Distinctly Different

Together the seven colleges and universities located throughout Winston-Salem, North Carolina, comprise a mission field of 29,000 souls. Vastly different from one another in character and composition, these campuses all sizzle with new life, new ideas, and tremendous spiritual need.

Pioneered by U.S. missionaries Steve and Belkis Lehmann nearly a decade ago, Chi Alpha campus ministries currently exist on three of the seven campuses — Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), Wake Forest University, and Salem College.

Today, a team of four runs Chi Alpha ministries on these three campuses, dreaming of growing their capacity to serve even farther among endless opportunities.

Raydon and Kim Haskins have led Chi Alpha in North Carolina since 2021. Raydon, 36, was himself saved and discipled in a Chi Alpha ministry in Indiana. He began to serve with Chi Alpha full time in 2011 at Purdue University, under U.S. missionary Linda Seiler. There he met Kim, 42, who was also doing a Chi Alpha internship.

The friendship they forged at Purdue blossomed into marriage in 2017, and Raydon and Kim — who today share one daughter — began serving multiple Indiana campuses in Terre Haute and Bloomington before moving to Winston-Salem.

U.S. Missions associate Shyla Gilbert and U.S. Missions career associate Kristin Jenson serve alongside Raydon and Kim. They hope to become a team of 12, yet together the existing four plunge forward, laying hold of every opportunity and already seeing miraculous changes taking place.

A BREAKTHROUGH

Typically, Haskins shares, far fewer men are willing to attend Chi Alpha’s meetings and events, and even fewer are open to Christ. Yet in the last year, more than at any other time, they have seen an openness — which Haskins describes as a breakthrough — among young men.

Elijah Ellis is one such man. Changed and refined by God over the years of his acquaintance with Raydon and Kim, he is now the first male president of WSSU’s Chi Alpha.

“A world that used to be gray started to become more colorful when Jesus began healing me,” Ellis says.

Aqui Thompson, another influential man, agrees. “I grew up in church, but when I was a sophomore, I joined Chi Alpha. That’s when I started to see radical love; that’s when I started to see what a Christian community is supposed to look like and what fellowship is.”

“I first met Aqui when we were handing out water bottles on campus,” Haskins says. “He dodged us almost all year. But now he’s grown into a man of God. He’s shy, but he loves Jesus in a way that is a model for other men. When he gives his word he’ll be somewhere, he shows up. When he invites men on campus to come to meetings, it makes a difference.”

Haskins shares that it is a natural tendency of men they work with not to trust pastors, so he takes seriously his own responsibility to maintain a constant and trustworthy presence. Coupled with faithful discipleship and the help of the Holy Spirit, his endeavors are paying off.

FRESH KNOWLEDGE

“The three campuses on which we serve are all very different. There are different perceptions, expectations and interactions,” Kim says.

WSSU is an HBCU (historically black college and university), Wake Forest is a private research university, and Salem College is a private women’s liberal arts college that predates the U.S. Constitution. On each campus, Chi Alpha groups differ in size and approach to best suit the needs of students present there.

At WSSU and other HBCUs, Christianity is sometimes viewed as a “white man’s belief system that was used to oppress our ancestors,” Haskins says. Some cults prey on this belief, quietly coming onto campus and blending in among the students to recruit. “We are always having to work through that stuff.”

Kim shares that, in this difficult situation, unexpected and beautiful voices have arisen — Christ-following international students arriving from Africa. She says, “These African students come and tell the American students, ‘Christianity predates colonialism. I was not manipulated.’ Students are then being able to see the fullness of who Jesus is outside of their own worlds.”

At Salem College, Kim continues, about half the international students come from various parts of Africa. “They have taken spiritual ownership of their campus, always ready to pray, speak deeply about Scripture, and to welcome in new students.”

“WE NEED A MOVE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”

On each campus and among each group, Raydon, Kim, Shyla, Kristin and their team of student leaders work to form relationships and special traditions, including with campus administration and staff.

“We hear people out,” Haskins says. “We make ourselves available and visible for people to come talk to us as pastors, not just for those connected to Chi Alpha, but for the whole campus.”

The team hosts back-to-school cookouts at the Winston-Salem Chi Alpha ministry center, and an annual “Father Heart of God” seminar aimed at teaching attendees to move into deeper relationship with God and their identities in Christ.

“And at Salem College we do a mug party at the beginning of the year,” Kim says. “We receive donated mugs — the more bizarre the better! We bring non-alcoholic beverages to put in the mugs and just visit. Even administration loves it. We begin building relationships in the earliest weeks of school.”

Even as they establish these good things and feel the Holy Spirit breathing new life and change, Raydon and Kim continue to pray and dream. They share of the profoundly influential North Carolina School of the Arts, within walking distance of the ministry center and Salem College but completely without Chi Alpha presence due to lack of staff.

Haskins says, “We need staff. The ministry center needs updates, and we need to raise support. Most importantly, our students need to be able to understand the gospel and to be able to share it. We want our students to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walking in His giftings as they witness to others. We need a move of the Holy Spirit.”