Plans and Purpose

Megan & I on a chilly evening
in August

      “I’ve been thinking more about service projects and volunteering,”  Megan said to me over coffee one afternoon in February. “I’m thinking about the Chi Alpha missions trip to Slovakia and the Czech Republic this summer.”
     “Really?”  I replied, quite surprised. 

Megan, a junior Math Education major, had been coming to Pursuit faithfully every Tuesday night since the fall semester, but she usually left as soon as the meeting was over, making few connections with other students.  I had started meeting with her regularly in October, encouraging her in faith and the fine art of juggling classes, friends, and her relationship with God.  A bright girl, she was driven in her studies, and spiritual things seemed on the side of her busy life.  That’s why I was so excited when she first told me she was interested in the missions trip. I began talking her through some logistics of the trip—fundraising, cross-cultural experiences, the dynamics of living and working in a team of 15 students for 3 weeks, etc.  In the process, I also discovered she had never even flown before.  It was all going to be quite new!

Megan & Bianca
working hard and getting dirty at a faith-based
drug rehabilitation center in the Czech Republic
(June 2010)

A hike in August was the first time I had a chance to ask Megan about her missions trip experience.  She said it really changed her life and gave her a whole new perspective of the world.  While she still plans to teach in rural Montana, serving God as a role model that can “be there” for high school students others may overlook, she now recognizes that God could call her to live and work elsewhere, and she’s open to His leading.  “I always thought that Montana was the only place I could call home.  Now I see that any place can be home.” 

More immediate impacts from the trip have been a renewed passion in her love for Christ and deeper relationships with other Christians. This semester she is co-leading a Chi Alpha small group, and she’s helped initiate and lead connection events with other girls.  Above all, I’ve noticed a shift in her from a life centered around her own plans to one centered around love for God and people around her.

I love that Chi Alpha can be in the middle of the university experience—helping students discover who they are, who God is, and the role and purpose God has for them.  Chi Alpha gives them an expanded world-view from God’s perspective.  In discipling these students, I get to see their growth up close, but all who pray for and give to my work here are partners in this ministry.  Thank you!


Prayer Request:  for this year’s upcoming missions trips (Spring Break and Summer 2011), that God will call more students to radical trust in Him & that they’ll get to see Him work through them in powerful ways.

Chi Alpha Team to Slovakia/Czech Republic
(May-June 2010)

Momentum

Jackie and I right after her baptism

  

“I personally accepted Jesus as my lord and savior almost two years ago… despite that, I have not felt that my life has really changed… God convicted me a couple weeks ago.  He made me realize that I have been trying to do things on my own and not depending on him.  I want to be baptized because I haven’t done it before, and cause Jesus said to do it, and maybe if I do this it will serve as a symbol that I am now an official member of God’s family.”

When I met with Jackie, a student new to Chi Alpha this semester, to talk about why she wanted to be baptized, she had no answer to the question, “What is different in your life since you became a Christian?”  Hearing this testimony a few days later, right before she was baptized in the river next to the University campus, I was thrilled to get a glimpse of God connecting the dots in her mind as she came to understand that the power to follow Christ comes from God instead of her own effort.  I pray that this realization is a turning point and she soon sees new spiritual fruit and transformation in her life.  

Josh & Kyle 

I’m sitting in the Chi Alpha office of our Student Center, overhearing the strumming of guitar chords in the background as students pray.  A few minutes ago, I closed out the last Pancakes‘n Prayer meeting of the year.  Most of the students who had attended left for their last day of classes, and I moved to the office to do some paperwork.   Kyle, one of the handful of students who stayed in the main room, grabbed a guitar and suggested those left pray a little longer.  So now they are praying for their friends’ needs, for each others’ finals, for God’s glory to be seen on campus, etc.  It’s a beautiful sound.

I wrote this note in May to help me remember the momentum we felt in Chi Alpha through the end of the Spring semester.  The last Tuesday of classes, we had our final Pursuit worship meeting, followed by baptism and after-party, and the whole evening felt like a celebration.  At our planning meeting for fall semester outreaches, student leaders brainstormed fresh ideas to raise awareness about Chi Alpha and present the Gospel to their peers.  Some of these leaders were also planning new ways to unite Christians in the different campus ministries to better reach the nearly 15,000 students at UM.  In Chi Alpha, we strive to be “a community of worship and mission.”  It’s been exciting to watch students catch this  vision.  I look forward to seeing how God uses them in the next year!

hanging out at the Student Center

Leadership and Influence

Cheesy grins and Apples to Apples with two students of influence: Jazzy, me, Rachael






One of our goals in Chi Alpha is to raise up young leaders who are able to reach others with the love of Christ. We challenge and encourage them in leadership as students in the hope that they will not only reach their classmates, but that in the process they’ll also discover the joy of seeing God at work through them and learn how to be people of influence wherever God places them after graduation.

The process can start simply. Rachael is a freshman and a future student leader who got involved with Chi Alpha last fall. This semester she invited her roommate to our weekly worship meeting, Pursuit. This roommate is an international student from a Southeast Asian religious background. She is a spiritual seeker and has become an integral part of our Chi Alpha community this semester. Please join us in praying that the Holy Spirit continues to pursue this beautiful young lady.

Alaina, a sophomore that I have been mentoring this year, is another emerging leader. Seeing that many students with meal plans often had money left at the end each week that they were wasting on junk food, she set up boxes in the dorms for students to donate non-perishable food instead. Every Friday, she arranges for the food to be delivered to the Missoula Food Bank. Alaina always wants people to know that God called her to do this project, and that it is her love for God that is at the center of her heart for community service.

Faith has served for nearly two years as the student president of ADSUM, a group that advocates for disabled students. As a young woman with physical limitations of her own, she feels God has placed her in a unique position to show His love and care for people that many overlook. She recently shared at Pursuit how two years of Chi Alpha student leadership helped prepare her for this position.

As we enter the month of April, we as Chi Alpha staff are being particularly intentional about recruiting and training new student leaders. Please pray that God will guide us to students eager to grow in Jesus and make Him known, on campus and around the world. Many thanks!

UM Chi Alpha Ski Retreat, February 2010

A Good Weekend’s Work

At Flathead Lake
above: Lindsey catches the ball.
left: Alyssa, Faith and Kiira.



Elevation Weekend—a day and night at Flathead Lake, in early September, building community among students and staff. Spiritual family is the “rue” of Chi Alpha, the basis of love, trust and support that make spiritual growth possible through the challenges of the school year.









on the Mini-Mission trip in Plains, MT
left: Brit in the community wood yard
below: splitting logs before they can be stacked






Mini-Mission Trip to Plains—helping cut, load and deliver wood to needy folks in a rural community two hours from Missoula, working alongside members of a local church. For some students, the weekend is their first missions trip, a first taste of service for the sake of the Kingdom.

















At Fall Retreat
left: UM and MSU-Northern Chi Alphans playing Cranium. above: UM Chi Alphans at Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park.

Fall “Go Deep” Retreat—Chi Alpha groups from four campuses gather in Hungry Horse, Montana for the weekend. Three sessions of teaching, prayer times, and long sets of worship all encourage students to encounter God. But there’s still time for a bonfire, consumption of junk food, late (all?) night games and a hike in Glacier National Park.

God has been doing some good work in students during these weekends. Just one example: Alyssa, a freshman, dove into community at Elevation Weekend and got involved in the weekly Chi Alpha activities. At the Saturday evening service of Fall Retreat, she shared how she has been noticing the lonely people on campus, feeling a burden for them to know Jesus. That night she was convicted to set aside the fear of rejection and start acting more in faith to reach out to these students. Please pray for her as she steps into the missional life in this way. I’m excited to see how God uses her!


Praise and Prayer

• Praise for deep times of connection with God and each other at weekend events.

• Praise that Chi Alpha students’ desire to share Christ with other students is growing.

• Prayer that students touched and convicted at Fall Retreat will continue to grow in faith and move forward with new commitments.

Big Sky Expeditions '09

Big Sky '09 team with Curt and Sara Hobbs, missionaries to Krakow, Poland

“If you died tonight, what would you tell God if He asked you why He should let you into heaven?” “I don’t know. I’ve never thought of that before…”

A month ago today the Big Sky Expeditions ‘09 team was finishing up its missions trip in Poland and Slovakia. What did we do? We led conversational English classes for students ages 6-18 in schools. We conducted interviews and evangelistic surveys, asking Poles and Slovaks their thoughts on spiritual topics, such as the question above. We listened as they shared what they would like to ask a spiritual adviser. We shared the gospel in park outreaches in Slovakia. We prayed with some to receive Christ as their Savior and others to receive healing. We encouraged and challenged Polish teens at a youth convention with testimonies, music and dramas. Some of my favorite moments as a leader were seeing “light bulbs” go on in the students on our team. Before we did surveys, Shani expressed that she was not looking forward to them, having seen similar outreaches done in a way that felt judgmental and inappropriate. I encouraged her to keep an open mind and let God lead her. A few hours later, she was deep in conversations with people she met through the surveys. Through these she was able to plant seeds of truth and share the gospel. Afterwards, she even said it had been fun! Thank you for praying for our trip. And thank you so much for the financial gifts that made it possible for me to help lead this team. Finally, if you would like to read more about my 8-day solo trip after the Big Sky team left, see the post “všetko v poriadku” on my blog leaves...

Bóg błogosławi was! (God bless you!)

Ashli sharing her testimony at a park outreach, Lenka translating






team performing drama, "Running the Race" (1 Cor. 9:24-27), at Poland Youth Convention





Shani (center) with a few of the Slovak girls she interviewed




Prayer Requests

• for the Poles and Slovaks we met and prayed with, that God would continue speaking to them and that they would seek to know Him
• for the beginning of semester outreaches here at UM in August, that God would connect us with new students
  

twms2

In my last newsletter, I asked for prayer about the World Missions Summit 2, a convention I was planning to attend December 28-January 2. Here are a few testimonies of how I saw God at work, before, during and after the event.

In early December, the Summit team (above) visited homes as Singing Christmas Cards. Quite a few Chi Alpha students joined us, and we all had a lot of fun. We sang carols and gave out homemade cookies then asked the recipients to send us to another home by making a donation for our trip. Students also raised funds by sending friends and family members invitations to a Pretend Tea Party. The invitation included an appeal to support the student’s discovery of God’s missional heart at twms2. The response was special provision far beyond what we had expected. One students’ entire trip was covered by her fundraising efforts. After the Summit, she slipped me a check of her own, this one to pay another student’s hotel expenses. It was great to see selfless generosity become contagious!

With the lowest gas prices in years, we drove 2000 miles from Missoula, MT to Cincinnati, OH in our Chi Alpha minivan (below) without incident. At the Summit, we experienced powerful times of worship and teaching, and took part in interactive exhibits of missionary activity around the world. It was intense. One missionary challenged us with the phrase, “Don’t be a afraid to cry,” by which he meant don’t be afraid to speak the Gospel, whether or not it is popular to do so. Each of the UM students responded to the Summit by committing to “Give a year and pray about a lifetime” of missions.

After the last session, our group took a few minutes to discuss what God had laid on our hearts during the week. Scott, the UM Chi Alpha Director, asked the students how the Summit would affect their lives in the short-term. Each shared the conviction that they had been negligent in sharing Christ with people they have seen daily at UM. As a group, we left Cincinnati with a renewed sense of urgency to make the gospel known among our classmates, coworkers, neighbors and friends.

Since then, Kiira has become more vocal about her faith and is inviting classmates to Chi Alpha events left and right. Clay has taken risks to act on the Holy Spirit’s leading, giving him opportunities to talk and pray with other students on campus. Laura is finding more ways to stand up for her faith among her coworkers in the Army Reserves, and God is putting her in places of influence and leadership in that community. Ashli is learning how to be a witness in the challenging environment of an athletic team. She will also be going on her first overseas missions trip to Poland and Slovakia this May. It has been an exciting semester, but I believe this is just the beginning— the “first fruits”— of the Summit’s influence. Thanks so much for your prayers. Someday we’ll know what part you have played in the harvest.


Prayer Requests

♦Please pray that the fire of evangelism kindled in students’ hearts is not quenched by stress or busyness, but instead keeps spreading and growing.

♦Please pray for Big Sky Expeditions ’09 to Poland and Slovakia, May 19-June 4. I’ll co-lead a team of 9 students with 2 other Chi Alpha staff. Pray for our fundraising, unity in our team, and safety in our travels. Pray that God softens and prepares the hearts of the Poles and Slovaks we will meet. Pray that we will proclaim the Good News with boldness. Finally, pray that I have wisdom and courage in leadership. Thanks!

November Newsletter

New Year, New Students

On this year’s Move-In Day—the Saturday before classes started in August—we attached flyers with our website and information about our weekly Pursuit meeting to water bottles and hangers. We set up tables with “Free Water” signs at the dorm parking lots and handed out 21 cases of water. A couple guys grabbed stacks of hangers and walked through the halls of the dorms, sharing about Chi Alpha as they went.

Jazzy, a freshman from central Montana, was one student we met that day. Walking outside her dorm on Move-In Day, Jazzy met two Chi Alpha students at a “Free Water” table, and they invited her to come to Pursuit. She was one of a handful of new students at the first meeting of the year.

The second Saturday after the beginning of classes, Chi Alpha sponsored a trip to Flathead Lake, about an hour and a half from Missoula, for a day of fun in the sun. We road tripped there in a school bus packed with students,including Leah, another freshman that Jazzy had brought with her.

Since this trip, both of these girls have dived in to Chi Alpha, getting involved in small groups and showing interest in leadership and missions opportunities. In a recent conversation I had with Jazzy, she expressed her desire to “be a tree” as described in Psalm 1, instead of being swayed by other people and circumstances as she was before coming to Chi Alpha. It is exciting to see her and Leah going deeper in Christ, and I look forward to what God will do in and through them in the future.



the World Missions Summit
(December 28—January 2)

I am helping lead a group to this conference in Cincinnati, OH. The event, with over 400 missionaries and 6,000 participants, is meant to help students discover the missional heart of God and their place in His plan, whether as “goers” or as “senders.” To help offset the cost (about $500 per person), we are working on all sorts of fundraisers, including Singing Christmas Cards, a Make Believe Tea Party, and possibly a benefit concert with a local Christian band. My hope is that the experience of fundraising will grow the faith of each student involved. For myself, missions and world traveling are still heavy on my heart. I am praying that God uses the Summit to direct me into whatever He has next for me. Thanks for joining with me in these prayers!

Praise and Prayer
♦Praise for about 20 new students invloved with Chi Alpha this semester. It’s a privilege to speak into their lives and watch them grow in God.
♦Pray for wisdom in discipling students in relationships and leadership.
♦Pray that students would continue to grow in their desire to reach out to their campus and see their classmates come to know Christ.