Sorry for such a long time between posts, been incredibly busy these past few weeks.
Most of what has been going on the past few weekends has been personal things such as working for people, helping my girlfriend's family move, school work, etc. And during the weeks it's been on campus meeting with students, doing school work, and working.
As you've noticed, I've mentioned working, I've been doing work around a PSU alums house lately to generate some more funds. Things go well until I have to pay for gas, then it turns into, "Well there went that money." But luckily gas prices are going down (I even saw them for $2.95 today).
The big news is that this past weekend we (5 from Penn State's campus ministry and me) went to Columbus for the International Conference on Missions (ICOM). Many of you who may be reading this probably ran into me at some point there. Unfortunately no one from our campus wanted to go, or couldn't, but one student from Penn State did and it was nice having someone my own age to periodically wonder around with. Even better than that was KCU students came including my girlfriend who I hardly get to see, and I also got to see my old room mate from college which was great since I haven't seen him in over a year.
While at ICOM I got to learn a lot about fundraising, going deeper with God, fasting, prayer, campus ministry, myself, and God's plan for me. I went there with the intention of finding out what God wants me to do after my year of the beard is up, but God didn't let me in on that secret. But he did let me know what he wanted me to focus on: International students.
Pitt has roughly 35,000, over 28,000 of which go to main campus with 8% of those being international students. That's about 2,200 students. And God has laid it on my heart this past weekend to care for them. Take the gospel? Yes. But more than that. I want them to know that as an American, I am happy that they are here. That they are valued. That they actually matter and are not just another number. It's easy to get lost in a crowd of 28,000. It's easy to get lost in a crowd of 1,000. I don't want these students to get lost, and neither does God.
The University of Iowa put out an article about international students, stating that 80% never set foot in an American home. I'm sure many of you are far from campuses, or never have contact with one, or maybe "It's just not my calling." Fine, that's for you to decide. As for me, God has laid it on my heart to care for these students. My goal for this one week before I leave to go back for Thanksgiving is to befriend one student who has no place to go for the holiday, and bring them with me. I would have a higher goal, but then it would be a really cramped 3 hour drive in my truck.
During my time leading up to deciding if I was going to be heading into campus ministry or not I sat down and prayed about it, talking to God, listening to God, and reading his word. One thing that stuck with me was the great commission, to make disciples of all nations. In those verses so many want to focus on the word "Go," but through research for classes and by fellow classmates I've learned that "go" is not the primary verb in the Great Commission. It's make. I went from family and home to a new city, and I'm here to make disciples of all nations. I have a great opportunity to do this, with the nations coming to me. That was the deciding factor to bring me to where I'm at today.
During the summer I went to a campus ministers retreat and put together some goals for the year. One of those goals: Increase CSF by 50%. Well we're at about 10 right now, maybe 15. So that's 5-8 students. I wanted to drop that percentage down but then looking over my writing I saw that I absentmindedly wrote from someones lesson "Don't limit God." That's one of those look up and go "Fiiiiiiiiiine" moments.
And here I am, 5 months here and haven't had any growth. God has kicked me into gear this past weekend, and I'm ready to go.
So I ask that you keep my in your prayers as I embark in this next journey within a journey.
As always I'm thankful for your support, prayers, or even thoughts. I'll be putting together a news letter in the coming days, if you would be interested in receiving a copy, drop a line to me some how, leave a comment, email me, facebook, whatever, and give me your address.
