My colleague, Wayne Barnard, IJM Director of Student Ministries, shares a little bit about IJM Student Ministries and one of the students with whom he’s been working over the last couple of years…
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“The vision for IJM Student Ministries is to engage students in a personal and corporate journey toward greater discipleship in God’s heart for justice. We want to paint a picture of what can be. Today’s students are passionate about justice and they long for deeper engagement that leads to a lifestyle of righteousness and justice.

As president of the IJM Campus Chapter at the College of William and Mary, Nik Belanger learned the meaning of justice. His passion was increasingly grounded in his understanding, ultimately leading to additional leadership as co-facilitator of the campus chapter of the Virginia Organizing Project, a nonpartisan grassroots organization that seeks to battle injustice by giving people the means with which they can improve their quality of life. Together with his involvement with Circle K International, Safe Zone and tutoring individuals in his community, Nik’s life is reflective of his understanding that justice is all about human flourishing.

“International Justice Mission helped me realize that leadership is not about being the one in the limelight—true leadership seeks to build everyone up,” he said. “As an individual acting on my own, I can only accomplish so much, but real, meaningful change is made through people joining together as one.”

Nik has grasped the heart of IJM, to build bridges across society in order to accomplish together what can seldom be accomplished alone. In so doing, we realize that though the movement to fight against violent oppression throughout the world is often sparked by small cadres of like-minded visionaries, the battle will only be won when we galvanize entire communities to stand and to act with one voice.

“I’ve never wavered on my belief that people deserve justice and equality,” Belanger said. “It’s just a question of striving to live that out in my daily life.””