At the Beginning
The beginning of the year is always the most hectic. As many of you may have experienced, an unusual phenomenon happens on college campuses at the beginning of each school year. Everyone is open to new relationships, new experiences, and interrupting their schedules to find community. For some reason, the atmosphere encourages students to build new friendships, regardless of what year they are. And we take advantage of this opportunity. From sunup to way past sundown, we're out meeting new people, putting on events to invite students to. Life rarely is a steady stream of work and play/free time. God designed the seasons so that there is a season to plant, a season to harvest, but also a season to wait. As Ecclesiastes says, for everything there is a season. Well, this season is the season to plant, and we ask our students as well as ourselves to work hard. There is time to rest later, but for now, it's time to plant seeds. I've been able to meet any students eager to join Christian community, but I've also had the opportunity to meet students who are interested in learning more about Jesus. One Hindu student is very devout in his religion, but also very intrigued to learn more about Jesus and the similarities and differences. Who knows what God will do there? I also met another Hindu student who happened to be a childhood friend of a Hindu student I've been studying the Bible with already! The beauty of simply being open to talk to anyone is finding those random connections. I saw many non-Christians who had come to our events come check out our Friday Night Fellowship service, which is a much more church-like event. There was such a hum of energy because they had heard so much about it from our students who invited them to come check it out. I'm excited to see what the fruit of this labor will be. We're still in the beginning phases of the year, we're still working hard to make these relationships stick and dive deep into friendship. But we're already praying for God to do what only he can do, change hearts and minds and draw people to him.
Cores
Please pray for our cores which start this week. These small groups are one of the main entry points into many non-Christians coming to know Jesus. Our large group fellowship often draws in the disciples, those looking to mature in their faith, and those seriously seeking truth. Our small groups draw in those people as well as those who have only the smallest inkling of interest in Jesus, sometimes they have none and are simply seeking belonging and acceptance! Our student core facilitators do such a great job at loving like Jesus and welcoming in the most surprising of people into their lives. Please pray for these groups to start well, that they would bond together, and that Jesus would shine through the love they show one another!
Thank You!
Thank you so much for all you do to support this mission here! I'm so exhausted, but so excited to see what God is doing. There's not a second I want to miss to see what he's doing. Pray for energy for all our staff and students as we continue the marathon set before us. Thank you guys so much, we couldn't do it without your support or prayers!
