Cameron Justis: Using Martial Arts to Spread the Gospel
Photos provided by Rampage student photographer Nathan LePere and by story subject Cameron Justis.
Bluefield University sophomore Cameron Justis is combining his skills in martial arts with his desire to serve the Lord through unique missions to spread the Gospel in foreign countries.
A native of Bluefield, West Virginia, and a 2020 homeschool graduate, Justis is majoring in business at BU. He received an Academic Excellence Award his freshman year and has been named to the Presidents List for students who earn at least a 3.9 grade point average during a semester.
Outside of the classroom he plays guitar for his home church, the BU worship team, and for BU Home worship services. Justis is also a fourth degree black belt and master instructor in martial arts, a status he earned on October 13, which included the presentation of his certificate from the president of the Taekwondo Moo Duk Kwan.
Justis began his martial arts career at the age of nine and has been active in the art for 12 years. He received his First Dan status when he was 12 years, Second Dan at age 14, Third Dan status at age 17, and Fourth Dan status at age 21. He has also won first place in the Forms Division of the last six tournaments in which he has competed. All of that training and competition he recently used to serve on mission in Xenacoj, Guatemala.
“The goal of the trip was to teach the local people Tang Soo Do, start a dojang there, and place Christian teachers in the school for more opportunities for people to hear the Gospel,” Justis said.
Tang Soo Do is a Korean martial art tracing its lineage back more than 2,000 years that focuses mainly on unarmed techniques and self-defense, and a dojang is a place where people go to train in Korean martial arts. Placing Christian teachers in these training facilities, Justis said, is a unique way to spread the Gospel.
“This method of serving has opened the eyes for most people I have talked to,” Justis said. “Most had never thought of doing missions like this, and it starts the wheel of creativity for new types of missions or adds legitimacy to peoples’ different ideas for serving Christ.”
Justis said the work he and the other missionaries did helped bring unity to believers in Xenacoj, like the unity he said Jesus described in the Gospel of John.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. — John 17:22-23
“We saw — for the first time — five separate churches coming together under one purpose: to share the Gospel of Jesus,” Justis said.
After just two days of working with people in the dojang, Justis said 15 people were saved and hundreds of hungry children were fed. He said that serving in this way had a significant impact on him and actually “challenged” him by leaving the comfort of his hometown to go overseas with a foreign language to learn. However, he added that as a result he has grown spiritually from the experience.
“This was a life changing experience for me,” Justis said. “Not only to see the poverty and struggles that people go through, but it opened my eyes to the possibilities of what can be done here in the United States and internationally. I never thought I would have a direct impact on sharing the Gospel with people from a different country and language. This experience showed me that if you submit to the will of God, he will use you in ways you could never imagine.”
