The heart behind the mission: Global impact week from the woman behind it, Crystalyn Wyatt
Trinity Adams, Staff Writer
Global impact week has just completed its 22 years as a campus-wide missions event. For the past two years, Crystalyn Wyatt has been the woman in charge of orchestrating this event. Wyatt serves as the assistant director for the Institute for Global Leadership.
Global impact week was started by Allen McWhite, professor in the department of intercultural studies, in 2001. Since then, the mission behind global impact week has been to expose students to God’s call to impact the nations. Wyatt said that what she wants to focus on during this week is showing the students of NGU that God loves all, and He is calling them to show others his love despite differences.
Wyatt said her vision for global impact week is “That it only continues to grow. My goal is for more and more international students to be a part of the week and make the events happen.”
Wyatt wants future global impact weeks to be more student-led. She believes that there are many students who have a heart for missions and she wants those students to be able to use global impact week as a launching point for their mission work.
Wyatt worked to curate the vendors and speakers for the past two years, most of which she has personal connections to. She has personally worked with or has close friends who have partnered with many of the vendors. Vendors that are new to NGU are ones that Wyatt has researched and prayed about the partnership. There are also some vendors who have been partners with NGU’s global impact week since it first started. She hopes to continue supporting their work.
The speakers from the past two years that Wyatt has orchestrated have been people who have had a great impact on her life. Last year’s speaker, Chesed Dent, poured into Wyatt as a mentor and sparked her love and passion for missions.
“She was a professor of mine at Liberty and had a huge part in my story, my relationship with the Lord and me even caring what the Lord is doing around the world in the first place,” she said.
This year’s speaker, Jaime Saint, was a leader on Wyatt’s first overseas mission trip. She recalls not knowing about his story but admired his work and how he was able to pour into her during the trip.
When it comes to future global impact weeks, Wyatt wants to keep choosing speakers who have had a significant impact on her life.
She said, “Just looking back on how I got to where I am today, where I did live overseas because of these people, and I want to continue to have a part in what God is doing in the world because these people showed me God’s heart.”
Wyatt wants to ensure that as many cultures are represented as possible. She also wants to help equip students for local mission work as well.
“We are all believers, and we are supposed to be believers where our feet fall,” Wyatt said. “I think that missionaries are just transported believers.”
She wants students to remember that the United States is part of the nation just as much as Zambia is. There is work to be done here and all around the world.
Photo provided by the NGU Media Team. More photos can be found on their Instagram @ngu_productions.
