CCO Campus Ministry

Home / Transformed Lives / Kate DeVan

Kate DeVan

devan_kate-2.jpg“I feel incredibly blessed by the CCO’s ministry and Erica’s heart for seniors,” says Kate DeVan, who graduated from Penn State University in December of 2008. “Looking back, I think the CCO had a very large impact on my last year of college and even my first few months in the workplace.”

Kate did not connect to the CCO’s ministry until the spring of her junior year, when she met CCO staff member Erica Young Reitz. Kate had made a commitment to Christ during her freshman year, and started attending Calvary Baptist Church, where Erica was on staff. But it wasn’t until Kate decided to participate in Calvary’s EXIT program that she got to know Erica better.

“Calvary’s EXIT program helps to prepare college seniors for life after graduation, and because I was graduating in December, I started the program during the spring semester of that same year,” says Kate. “Through my last year of college, I met with Erica on several occasions to better prepare for the transition out of college and into the workplace.”

A journalism and women’s studies major, Kate was convinced that she wasn’t being called to full-time vocational ministry, but she still wanted her Christian faith to be at the center of her work.

“Through the EXIT program, I was prepared to live out my faith in conjunction with my job,” Kate says. “Having a program like EXIT made me aware of the issues I’d face after graduation and provided me with the resources of several other students preparing to graduate, as well as a team of adults, including Erica, who were willing to guide our graduation journey.

“Had I not been prepared for life after graduation, I think the transition would have been a lot rockier and my relationship with the Lord would have suffered. Through EXIT, I learned the importance of finding a good church soon after arriving in a city. Although it isn’t an easy process, the first weekend I moved to DC, I was starting to look at churches. Erica had put me in contact with several CCO colleagues in the area who were willing to guide me and invited me to the churches they were affiliated with.”

Kate is now attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where she was baptized in April 2009 as part of the membership process. Upon becoming a member in May, she joined a small-group Bible study.

“I’ve been able to get to know several families and young women in the church and met with them on a regular basis,” Kate says. “In August, I made the move to Capitol Hill to live with five other single women in the church. I am looking forward to getting more involved in the community and building relationships with our neighbors. I am passionate about sharing my faith in the context of relationships. Although I have not yet had the opportunity to share the Gospel explicitly with any of my coworkers, I have engaged in several spiritual conversations with them.”

Through her position as an assistant account executive at a public relations firm, Kate continues to apply the lessons she learned through the CCO’s ministry, particularly through the EXIT program and conversations with Erica.

“I can see the clear influence the CCO has on my life today,” she says. “The CCO core values directly relate to the EXIT program that Erica developed at Penn State. While the CCO loves college students, they also love the professionals that college students will become. Through encouraging me to continue to pursue faithfulness and celebrate what God is doing in this stage of my life, I am a joyful and blessed woman of the Lord. I praise God for providing me with the resources of EXIT and the chance to get to know Erica and be blessed by her heart for college students.”