How the Co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ Came to Know Jesus, and the Fascinating Way the Ministry was Birthed

Mark Ellis : Jan 8, 2016
God Reports

"I decided Bill had become a religious fanatic and that somehow he must be rescued from this fanaticism. At the same time, Bill was beginning to think that perhaps I was not a Christian. He knew he could not marry me until there was a change in my spiritual life."

(So Cal)—Vonette Zachary grew up thinking she was a Christian, she maintained high moral standards for herself in college, but there was one thing she lacked—a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. (Photo via God Reports)

The eldest of four children, she grew up in a happy, quintessentially American home in Coweta, Oklahoma.

Her church background motivated her to strive for goodness and moral purity. But in college, her confidence in Christianity faltered and she began to question her faith.

"My prayers seemed shallow and ineffective. In high school, my major interest centered on church-related activities, but in those early days of college, Bible reading was meaningless. Doubts came, and I was not faithful in church attendance," she wrote later.

One day after her freshman year in college, she received a letter from a former classmate from her hometown in Oklahoma, Bill Bright. "I remembered him from our school days and was impressed by a speech I had heard him deliver when I was in the seventh grade."

Bill was establishing himself in business in California, and his stationery read "Bright's California Confections." Vonette read the letter several times before she shared it with her father.

When her father read it, he said, "Well, our hometown boy has gone away and made good. Now he's going to come home for his bride."

Surprisingly, she decided not to respond to his letter! "I decided I would not allow William R. Bright to think I was thrilled to hear from him, so I ignored the letter."

A forgotten letter

Months went by and she resumed her college classes. But as she cleaned out a desk drawer one day she rediscovered the letter...

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