springing up

Isaiah 43:19 continues to come to mind as I consider what God is doing in my life and on campus this season:

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.

My emergence from a period of trial by fire and by flood has resulted in a kind of freedom that I did not imagine possible. I feel free to embrace my identity as a dearly beloved child of God. I feel free to fully invest my heart and my energy into replanting One Voice. I feel free to hope and pray towards its future as a thriving conversion community at Wash U. I feel free to run with the Spirit's leading.

What's a girl to do with all of this freedom?

I find myself giving thanks. I know that what I am experiencing is the direct result of the healing that Jesus has been doing in my life and in my ministry over the past couple of years. As I read through my old journal entries I find that many of my words form a collective crying out to be healed. So, it would appear, this freedom is no accident. It is an answer to prayer. My response is to thank my Healer.

I walk on campus these days aware that I am experiencing the goodness of God. There are many at Wash U who have yet to experience such authentic goodness. There are many who have yet to hear of Him. I get to partner with my students to make Him known.

This sounds like the beginning of a great story.

restoration

March is just around the corner and with it comes the arrival of something in addition to spring: the CityLights St. Louis Urban Project.

I love getting to tell students the story of my first CityLights experience and how God used it to further my desire to learn what it means to seek justice and to love mercy. That was eight years ago! This year I'm particularly excited because we have at least one non-Christian signed up for join us for the week and I am working on recruiting a few more participants in the next week or so.

The strength of the CityLights experience is that students get to live and serve in community, living out the Gospel in an urban context even as they are invited to dream about what it means to follow Jesus in their neighborhoods on campus. It's a breeding ground for catalytic moments and transformation.

I'm really excited to see how God uses the project this March to further the work that He's doing in the lives of the students who will be participating. It's going to be a wonderfully challenging week!

open

Friday afternoon I received a text message from a freshman international student. I hadn't seen her in awhile. She studied the Bible with a couple of other students in one of our GIGs at the end of the last semester. Her text message asked if I wanted to meet her for dinner. I jumped at the opportunity.

In the midst of eating and catching up I asked her if she wanted to continue to explore more about Jesus. She said that she is really curious and she wants to keep learning about the possibility that God exists and that He cares about us.

I know where I'll be on Friday afternoons: studying Mark's Gospel with this student and one of her close friends. Praise God for open doors and the chance to discover where He's been at work!

lost

,

I am a fan of the show Lost. Tomorrow night is the premiere of the show's sixth and final season. As I was coming up with a list of creative ways to gather students on campus and maybe meet some new ones, hosting a Lost premiere party was at the top of my list. A couple of One Voice students, who shall remain nameless, were not sold on the idea and one even said, albeit in a somewhat jocular manner, "No one is going to come to your party because no one here likes that show. It's soooooo dumb!"

Remaining undeterred in the face of criticism is something I am getting better at and so I ignored the dissenting views.

Fast forward to this past Friday. As one of the One Voice seniors and I are visiting freshmen and bringing them homemade chocolate chip cookies we intentionally go to meet a student who has been emailing us and trying to get connected with our fellowship. As we talked about the coming week she mentions apologetically that she will not be able to come to our prayer gathering on Tuesday night because several of her friends from the dorm are planning on watching the Lost premiere together. The timing was impeccable.

"Hey! That's what we were planning on doing, too! Could we bring our premiere party to your dorm?" I asked.

She agreed and so that is what we will be up to on Tuesday night.

Now that was a fun lead to follow.