Beginnings at YVCC

I wanted to share with you this report from Chad P. He is helping us begin a collegiate/young adult ministry in Yakima, WA. He is funded by your gifts through the Sylvia Wilson Mission Offering and through our partnership with Terrace Heights and Central WA Association. Please pray for Chad as he seeks to love the students at YVCC. Thanks as always for your prayers and support for collegiate ministry!!!!!!

COLLEGIATE MINISTRIES REPORT •Loving God •Following Jesus •Serving the Campus
Feb 2007 YVCC

Chad A Pumpelly

I. A story which highlights ministry this month: (one full page on your reporting month)

This month we began a study group in my home as an initial phase in developing a weekly on campus gathering point. To kick off this ministry, I invited YVCC students and young adults to a pizza party at First Baptist Church of Union Gap to talk about their needs and wants, their hopes and their dreams for a college ministry, to introduce myself, and to share my visions for college student and young adult ministries in the Yakima Valley.
Yakima has many bi-vocational pastors and pastor with undisclosed office hours. Networking with these pastors was more difficult than I had anticipated, but I was able to get advertising bulletins to nearly all the churches. Still, I wasn’t positive that the pastors had bought into the idea enough to promote the kick-off event at the level I hoped they would. I doubted that there would be much off a young adult turnout at the pizza party.
To my surprise 12 young adults attended the kick-off event. Some were not YVCC students and a couple were under the age 18 mark, which I use to define the younger limit for young adults. I encouraged the younger kids to be involved in their youth groups and told them I looked forward to seeing them in the future. I also let them stay for the pizza and the devotional I had planned for the night.
Then we got down to business. I was excited by the enthusiasm and interest that the student had. It was like they had been waiting for this kind of ministry. I will be working on get Yakima Valley Baptist College Ministries recognized as an official organization on campus this next quarter, but until then we plan to meet off campus. I volunteered my home to be the first gathering point. It is only 12 block off campus and it avoids playing favoritism with the local Baptist churches in the association. This choice makes my wife and kids happy, too, because it forces me to cleanup the whole house every Tuesday and bake cookies. (Cookie baking is a new skill for me, but I find that I am indeed able to follow the directions on the box).
Our first meeting for YV-BCM was Tuesday night, February the 13th. Eight young adult showed up to the house. I was so excited, because in the last college ministry plant I was apart of, I started with only two students and it took six weeks to grow from the two to three. I am not particularly great at math, but I believe eight students is roughly quadruple of two. I thank God for connecting me with several Christian students so early in this ministry. And I praise God for this enthusiastic start. Since then we have been adding about a student a week and had 14 young adults at our last meeting. I ask for continued prayers as we grow in numbers, that we will also grow in depth. I also pray that we will find favor with those we must collaborate with to become and official organization.

II. An evangelistic story: (one full page on your reporting month)

The nature of evangelism is always a little surprising to me. It is somewhat of a divine encounter. I do actually plan to share the gospel, but it doesn’t always work out the way I anticipated. Since we are a new ministry plant I have spent most of my time and energy developing relationships with Christians, so that there is base group to reach out to the lost with. Presently, there is only one strategic avenue for evangelism; I call it Huddle in the Hub. It is a time when we bring Christians and non-Christians together for lunch.
I believe that evangelism works best in the context of relationship. My current strategy, then, is to build relationships with non-Christians and look for avenues to share the gospel. I devised a plan to create a forum to foster such relationships. Every Friday the college students in our home study and I have lunch together in the Hub. The Hub is the student union. The office for student activities, a café, the bookstore, and the student cafeteria are all house in this building. It is the social center of YVCC. There is no agenda for Huddle in the Hub, we just get together and eat.
Usually the four Christian students that show up and I are out number by their un-churched friends and classmates that sit at tables with us. There are two guys that I had non-evangelistic conversations with for three consecutive weeks, Dylan, a Native American student who prides himself on having a “demented mind” and Dustin, a social butterfly who had no trouble getting to know me. I had planned to move our discussion the next week to spiritual things hoping that I would find an opportunity to share my faith. When I arrived at the campus, it was some what snowed out. None of my students were there, nor was Dustin. Dylan was the only one there. He greeted me, but was on his way out somewhere else. I ate alone that day, mildly discouraged, reminding myself to count conversations not conversions.
The next day, a Saturday, the sun was out. So my wife and I took my kids to a park near YVCC. I started throwing a Frisbee to my kids (2 and 5). They run it down and catch it or try to catch it. Immediately, I was swarmed by a couple more kids around the ages of mine. Their mother approached me and said, “I’m divorced and they don’t have a dad. They are real hungry for play time with a male figure.” I agreed to let them play with us. I threw the Frisbee over and over and the four kids continued chasing it down. Their mom, Julie, I learned was a non-traditional YVCC student. My ears perked up. I told Julie that I was starting a ministry plant to college students on her campus. I said that even though she was not the target recipient of such a ministry, she was still welcome to be apart of it. She declined and said that she didn’t want to be the only 40 year old there. I encourage her to visit one of our churches, and told her I was on staff with Terrace Heights Baptist, and that she was welcome anytime. She declined that offer, too. I reminded myself to count conversations, not conversions.
Julie’s daughter, Evelyn, goes to the same school as my daughter, so when I saw her there, I greeted her. “Hey Evelyn,” I said, “How cool that you and Anya are at the same school.” Evelyn replied, only as a child will do. “Hi,” she said, “My Mom listened to you preach on the computer.”
I’m not sure where the next step in Julie’s spiritual journey will take her, but I won’t underestimate the power of a casual, but genuine conversation at the park in the future. Julie had gone home, looked up our church website, and listened to my latest sermon which is posted there. I believe that is the first time I have shared the gospel message via the internet.