"You're the God of this city..."

The Kingdom of God welcomed in two new family members yesterday.

PRAISE JESUS!!

So...I'll back-up. This week was our first week doing campus ministry. The staff split us into ministry teams of about four students and two leaders. Monday we were on our own to explore whatever college campus we wanted in the city just to get an idea of what campus life looks like on a typical NYC campus. We visited New York Institute of Technology and Columbia University, and tried to find out as much as we could about the colleges as far as what organizations are popular, what is important to students, central spots where students hang out, etc. through talking to people and doing some "decoding" surveys (like what I talked about in the previous post).

Yesterday was our first day on our "home" campuses--the campuses we were assigned to that each ministry team will focus on for the rest of the summer. My team was assigned City College, in the Upper West Side. It's a beautiful campus, and we were so encouraged to come across a lot of students around campus to talk to! Within our group, we split up into pairs, and my friend Julian was my ministry partner for the day. We set out armed with the Holy Spirit and a stack of surveys (de-coding surveys asking about student life as well as more spiritual-directed surveys called Quest surveys which asked questions about a person's spiritual beliefs). After talking with a student about student organizations and popular hang-out places on campus, Julian and I headed into the school cafeteria and decided to approach a student (I'll call him "Ben" for this blog) who was sitting quietly by himself enjoying a bagel lunch. We told him we were with a group from out of town in NYC for the summer and that we were trying to get an idea of students' spiritual beliefs on campus and asked if he'd have time to do a survey with us. We began going through the questions with him: when we asked him about his spiritual background, Ben said that his parents were Christians and had taken him to Sunday School as a kid, but he hadn't been to church since he'd been in college because he didn't have time. We then asked him what he believed happened after death, and he said he believed in a heaven and a hell. When we asked him where he thought he would go when he died, he replied that he hoped that he was going to heaven. We then asked him how he thought he'd be able to get to heaven, and he responded that he believed he could by leading a good life and doing the best he could. We then got to a question asking him to rate his desire to know God on a scale of one to ten--he said it was a seven. Julian then pulled out a Knowing God Personally booklet that we had, which explains the basics of the Gospel message. We showed it to Ben and asked him if we could read through it with him, and he agreed, so we shared the Gospel with him. At the end, I asked Ben what he thought it meant to know God personally after hearing what we'd just read, and he responded that it was through Christ dying on the cross. Julian then asked if he'd like to pray to receive Christ. When Ben answered that he would, Julian said he'd pray and Ben could pray silently. Aftewards we asked Ben if he'd be interested in getting together with other Christians to talk about God, so we got his contact information.

Would you please partner with us in interceding to the Father on Ben's behalf? Please pray that he would seek to grow in a relationship with God by reading the Bible and seeking out other Christians. Please pray that we would be able to follow-up with Ben to get to know him better and go through a short Bible study with him Campus Crusade does for new believers examining how to have a deeper relationship with Christ. Please pray that he would be able to share the love of Christ with others.

I am so blown away by the Lord's goodness in allowing us to witness Him working in someone's heart in such a powerful way right before our eyes. I know that every conversation may not end in seeing a new person become a follower of Christ, but it was so sweet to be able to witness that for the first time yesterday. When we met back with the rest of the campus track at the end of the day, another ministry team shared that they also had the privilege of leading a student to Christ. I can't remember his name right now, but please keep him in your prayers as well!

Wow. Only a few days into actual ministry and God is already blowing our minds with His power and grace.

Moving away from the ministry update to more frivolous things, here are a few fun highlights from the past several days:

Saturday evening: eating take-out from the famous Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn all together at a waterfront park in Brooklyn, then walking back to Manhatten over the Brooklyn Bridge surrounded by laughter and water and city lights

Sunday afternoon: I won the Wicked Lottery!! For certain broadway shows, they give away "lottery" tickets two hours before the show for front row seats for a really cheap rate. They gave away 13 seats, and my name was one of the one's called! The fun part was that we got to take someone with us, so my friend Ali got to go with me. I'd seen the show before in Atlanta and LOVED it, but experiencing it from the front row where I could have reached out and touched the actors at some points was FABULOUS!

Sunday night: hanging out with our whole group playing a couple intense games of Maufia. :)

Tuesday night: They split us up into small groups for the summer, and we had our first Bible study last night. We went to a really fun restaurant called Cowgirl in SoHo!

Wednesday night (tonight): The entire group went to the Mary Poppins broadway. Magical! My favorite part was when she glided in the air above the audience.

Thank you again, sweet family and friends, for all your prayers and for letting me share with you!!