Welcome to the Asbury Family
by Robert Mitchell
Aleena Polanco snaps a group selfie with her fellow Asbury University students (clockwise from left) Kristina Samuel, Julian Sanchez Aguilar, Lillian Satterlee, Sydney Liskey, and Paige Liskey at a Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) Bible study featuring art. (Courtesy of Major Paul Cain)
The Salvation Army Student Fellowship at Asbury University helps students adjust to college and grow in their faith.
The word “family” comes up a lot when anyone is asked to describe the Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky.
The two-story Moulton Memorial Salvation Army Student Center across the street from campus, where the SASF meets, is affectionately known as the “campus living room.” It’s not uncommon to find students lounging, studying, and fellowshipping throughout the day between classes.
If the SASF is a family, the “grandparents” are leaders Majors Paul and Alma Cain, who arrived on campus in 2019. The “kids” are the SASF members, mostly Salvationists, who attend this college named after the great Methodist circuit rider Francis Asbury. Last year, there were 54. That number is expected to grow.
The Salvation Army has a tremendous presence and long history at Asbury, which has trained countless Salvationists and future officers since the 1920s. Former General Paul Rader was once Asbury’s president. Commissioner Andrew S. Miller, a former national commander, had his holy experience at the university.
The Salvation Army Student Center opened in 1983 as a gift to Asbury from The Salvation Army. It’s open to all students on campus, not just Salvationists. Students come to watch movies, enjoy board games, play Ping-Pong, shoot pool, compete in yard games like cornhole, and do puzzles.
“It’s a place just for students to hang out,” Major Paul says. “It’s a place for relaxation and community. We’re blessed we get to minister to them.”
They’re in good hands
Major Alma calls the daily interaction with the students a huge blessing and a unique ministry.
“The opportunity to pour into them for the four years they are here is something you don’t have with corps people because you don’t see them all the time,” she says. “We see these students every day.”
Major Alma gladly embraces the role of grandparent and mentor for the students.
“We’re a safety net for parents who drop their kids at college and then leave,” she says. “The parents know that there’s still a connection to a familiar place. Many of the students are Salvationists, though not all, and it’s a place they can go and it’s not an unknown to them like most of the campus.”
The SASF, which began in the late 1940s, includes students from not only Asbury University but also Asbury Seminary and the University of Kentucky in nearby Lexington. The students meet for Bible study and prayer every Tuesday and also plan fellowship events such as trips to a local pumpkin patch or apple orchard.
The Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) at an outdoor Bible study (from left): Liam Probasco, Andrew Johnson, Sydney Liskey, Paige Liskey, Shayann Oxley, Abby Woodard, and Julian Sanchez Aguilar. Enjoying ice cream and fellowship (from left): SASF students Paige Liskey, Hannah Hansen, and Julian Sanchez Aguilar with Majors Alma and Paul Cain, who lead the campus ministry.
(Courtesy of Major Paul Cain)
Major Paul says the Cains also provide transportation to nearby corps in Lexington, Danville, and Frankfort on Sunday and sometimes during the week for music and youth programs. Sometimes they drive students to divisional events.
“We make sure the students stay connected to the local corps,” he says. “We know one day they’re going to graduate, but we want them to continue on their Salvation Army journey. One of our goals is to keep them connected to The Salvation Army.”
The SASF also meets every Sunday night for dinner, worship, fellowship, and sometimes a service project.
Doers of the Word
The SASF students also take part in six different music and arts groups—a brass band, praise band, Songster brigade, timbrel brigade, dance troupe, and drama troupe.
They rehearse throughout the week and have visited various Salvation Army locations in the United States like Detroit and Washington, D.C.
Every year, the SASF also sponsors a missions trip, often during spring break. Recent trips were to Philadelphia; Camden, New Jersey; and the Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The SASF also allows Salvation Army summer camps from around the country to visit and recruit for staff.
“It’s a busy place,” Major Paul says.
The students are here to go to school above all, and campus ministry must be taken in that context, but part of their academic life is creating friendships and relationships.
“For the Salvation Army students, it’s very special that there are so many Salvation Army students here,” he says. “Many of them may never have gone to school with other Salvation Army students. They have a shared experience like this that is really precious for them.”
SASF students say the fellowship has helped them adjust to college life and deeply impacted their spiritual lives.
Home away from home
Aleena Polanco, a junior from Minneapolis, Minnesota, majoring in pastoral ministries, visited Asbury for a weekend while still in high school. The Cains were intentional about checking in on her for the next few years and made a definite impression on her that they cared.
“When I arrived at Asbury, I was just welcomed with open arms into the fellowship,” Polanco says. “Those people became like my family when my family was 13 hours away. It made my transition to college that much easier.”
The Cains took her to church, brought her medicine when she was sick, and offered advice on life’s problems as she grew into adulthood. Polanco didn’t grow up in The Salvation Army, but she became fully immersed in the culture at Asbury.
Aleena Polanco (left) and Sydney Liskey are two of the more active members of the Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) at Asbury University. Polanco, who did not grow up in The Salvation Army, now aspires to become an officer. Liskey will be the SASF chaplain in the new school year.
(Courtesy of Major Paul Cain)
“There’s a culture of love and a celebration of our denomination,” she says. “Our church culture echoes through everything we do. As a future officer now, that shapes the way I love my church.”
Polanco, who grew up with self-esteem issues, says she had a shallow and selfish definition of love before attending Asbury. But even as she made mistakes and grew in her faith, the Cains and her peers loved her. She learned that “true Christlike love is sacrificial” and about others.
“They still loved me and persisted to love me,” she says. “That was such a huge lesson, and it has completely transformed the way I love other people. You’ll find a lot of that love at Asbury and at the center. That’s truly the culture of our community.”
Double the fun
Twin sisters Sydney and Paige Liskey showed up at Asbury as freshmen on their 18th birthday.
Paige, now a junior majoring in youth ministry, attended two weekend visits at Asbury and says the SASF was why she ultimately chose the college.
“It gave me a feeling of community and a feeling of home,” she says. “To be able to go to school with about 40 Salvationists was really cool.”
Paige spent her summer leading a Hands On missions trip to the Dominican Republic. She says the Word of God permeates everything at the SASF, and she learned to have a deeper relationship with Christ.
“I found some of my best friends there,” she says. “We do Bible studies all the time, and there’s people there you get to have really deep conversations with. I’m constantly late for stuff because I’m in there talking about Jesus.
“It was a great way to find people who hold me accountable and just lift me up in prayer. If I need prayer, I am covered.”
Paige Liskey, a junior majoring in youth ministry, meets youngsters during a youth rally at the General’s Congress in June 2026 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Paige spent the bulk of her summer leading a Hands On missions trip to the Dominican Republic. She attends Asbury along with her twin sister, Sydney. (Photo/Austin Wideman)
For Sydney, a junior majoring in social work, the SASF provided an on-campus support system that has allowed her room both to fail and to grow.
“The SASF center has literally changed my time at Asbury,” she says. “It gave me a space of community, to find friends and accountability too. I was learning how to be an adult for the first time. It gave me people and it gave me space.”
Different styles, one body
Sydney, who spent her summer at a Salvation Army camp in California, has grown in her faith to the point she is the incoming SASF chaplain for 2026–27.
“I feel like I went to Asbury and my faith just kind of exploded,” she says. “There were so many new possibilities, so many questions to be asked, and answers from classes and chapels. I was able to refine that in a safe space and go to people who love Jesus and love me and just help shape me as I grow.”
Julian Sanchez Aguilar, a sophomore from the Chelsea/East Boston Corps, majoring in music performance (tuba), tells a similar story. He says the SASF provides “a fellowship experience that can’t be experienced in any other place” on campus.
Julian Sanchez Aguilar, a sophomore from the Chelsea/East Boston Corps majoring in music performance, especially enjoys the Sunday night worship with the Salvation Army Student Fellowship. He hopes to be a divisional music director someday. (Photo/Josh Lyle)
“You meet Salvationists your age from all over the world,” he says. “Seeing how other people culturally worship the Lord and their ways of approaching worship was a huge eye-opener.”
The Sunday night worship services, which are open to the entire campus, “show that we’re more than a thrift store” and raise awareness about The Salvation Army, Aguilar says.
“We already had a big presence on campus, but I thought it was an awesome way for people to come in and see who The Salvation Army is,” he says.
Big goals ahead
Aguilar, who hopes to be a divisional music director someday, says his heart was hard when he first arrived at Asbury. He felt he was merely going through the motions and not taking his faith seriously enough.
“The SASF showed me the importance of setting up spiritual disciplines,” he says. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. My life spiritually and in general has become so much better. The spiritual disciplines and embracing them has just been awesome.”
Hannah Hansen, a senior from Vestal, New York, and a psychology major, comes from rich Salvation Army stock. Her parents and grandparents were officers, and she appreciated having a Salvation Army presence 12 hours from home.
“It was really important for me to have that Salvation Army community on campus,” she says. Having another group of students with similar experiences and backgrounds made her feel more comfortable and more connected.
Hansen is the SASF’s incoming president for the 2026–27 school year. She would like to get the group involved in more service projects that benefit not only The Salvation Army but the city of Wilmore. She also hopes to collaborate with some of the missions groups on campus.
Hannah Hansen, a senior from Vestal, New York, majoring in psychology, comes from a family steeped in Salvation Army history. She is the Salvation Army Student Fellowship’s incoming president for the 2026–27 school year. (Photo/Josh Lyle)
“The SASF is such a spiritually vibrant place,” she says. “Everybody there is just 110 percent in it for the Lord. That has inspired me to go deeper in my own faith journey and pushed me to do things I wouldn’t have otherwise done in the name of spreading the Word of Jesus.”
They’re setting records
This all happens against the backdrop of the Asbury outpouring, a 16-day revival that drew national attention in 2023. The students who were freshmen during that event just graduated in the spring. Major Paul says the event changed the campus.
“It transformed so many things,” he says. “One of the biggest differences is that talking about spiritual events is very normalized now. It wasn’t like it wasn’t normal before, but it’s just so much easier now to talk to students and in general talk about spiritual things. That shared experience of the outpouring broke down a lot of barriers they might have had prior to that.”
Meanwhile, while many universities around the country have seen dwindling enrollment, Asbury is setting records. Many credit the outpouring for the jump. The university surpassed 2,000 total enrolled students in 2024–25, the largest headcount in the school’s 134-year history.
“The number of worship bands on campus has doubled,” Major Paul says. “There’s been such a demand from the students for spiritual things.”
This is the final school year for the Cains, who are retiring. They spent most of their career as corps officers and never thought they would end up at Asbury, which is an appointment from The Salvation Army’s National Headquarters.
“I like to joke with people that when I signed up to be an officer, all I wanted to do was teach Sunday school, preach, and pitch kickball,” Major Paul says. “Guess what? That’s what I get to do now.”
About the Author: Robert Mitchell
