Your stories for the fall.....GIFTS each one!

You have so many great stories to tell I decided to upload just a few of them for your HOLIDAY enjoyment. These are great GIFTS of God's love and your Gift of love to God. It is about changed lives, hope, grace, patience, reconciliation, creativity, passion, etc. Thanks for all the stories and for these GIFTS to me and our NCM community! Happy Holidays.

COCC
Sometimes opportunities for evangelism pop-up when you least expect them. This was the case for one man that I got the opportunity to share Christ with this month. MP is the student activities director for the student government at COCC. His position puts him in the most direct contact with clubs on campus and students and I have had several opportunities to meet with him to discuss how we can best serve the campus and work effectively with the student government. One afternoon I popped into the student government office to see how his week was going. He was on his way to the Redmond Campus of COCC to put up some flyers and asked if I could help him. We got in the car and began the 20 minute journey north to Redmond. As we were driving he was asking me about club activities that we were planning and then started to ask some questions about denominations, which were really confusing in his mind. He had learned/heard things growing up but did not understand them and wanted clarification. After we had clarified some of the things that he did not understand (different types of Baptists, etc.) I asked him about his spiritual journey. He was raised Catholic, and by this I mean that his mom was Catholic so he called himself that too. Around 17 he started to questions Catholicism and went on a quest of sorts to decide what he believed and why. As of today, he believes in some sort of a God who he prays to and asks for forgiveness for the bad things he has done and asks that this figure make the world a better place. His concept of Jesus is that he is basically and enlightened prophet, but not God. The cool thing about Mike is that after articulating what he believed, he asked me to explain to him my beliefs and why I believed them. We had a long, good conversation about Christ, his sacrifice, and how that impacts all of us. I am praying that Mike will continue to explore who Christ is and give his life to Him.

One student that got a chance to hear the gospel this month was L. L is Vietnamese and was raised Buddhist. She became friends with R (one of the girls actively involved in NCM) and started coming to activities and small groups. She had a LOT of questions. In her culture, women adhere to the religion of their fathers or husbands. Since her father is Buddhist, so is she. Christ’s story really connected with her and she wanted to become a Christian, but did not want to dishonor her family. She told R that she wanted to marry a Christian man so she could convert. We explained that this is not the way that Christianity works, she must make a choice on her own. Over the next couple of weeks she began to understand. L seems very close to making a decision to follow Christ.

WSU
Meet with Activate every week to stay informed on world events, research in the sex traffic issue to present to group, trying to figure out how Activate can move Resonate towards global awareness and action; did Halloween Outreach on greek row to pass out hot chocolate and cookies, praying for opportunities to share Christ...

One of our villages has grown to about 35 people now because of that mentality. Last week we had four new people. One of them came with a girl named J who is really faithful to all that we do. The new girls name was K. Once the discussion began K was the first to talk. She shared about how she was having a rough semester, how she felt alone, depressed, and frustrated that her walk with God was disappearing. She said she went to Math class that morning just as she had every Wednesday and really wasn’t feeling that great about anything.

K then said the girl that had been sitting next to her all semester started a conversation with her after class. This girl was J. J told K that she went to a great church and welcoming small group and she wanted to invite her. K then began to cry because she went to church with J that week and really loved it and then came to small group as well. She said that everything changed for her because the girl that sits next to her in math class started a conversation and helped lead her back to a relationship with Christ.

K has not missed anything we have done since this story happened a couple weeks ago. K is my highlight this month. She went on to tell our village that if Christians don’t live intentionally then all of those people on campus that are just like her will have a really hard time finding their way back to God. She said there are many other out there struggling in life, feeling alone, and far from God and what they need is just an invite, a conversation, a friend.


LCC
This Month had its ups and its downs, but the highlight of this month had to be getting to know our core group. I was able to go to coffee with one of the students regularly. I was unsure of his salvation and so I used this avenue to witness to him. Come to find out he was a Christian after all, but due to certain circumstances he was just not involved with a church at the moment. I was able to get him connected with the local First Baptist Church and talk to him about pursuing Baptism. It seemed as though his last church did not invest much time in talking to him about baptism. This student is now one of the most involved core members of our group so far and will play a vital roll in helping our group grow. Please pray for him and all of the rest of our group as we are brand new to the school and are fighting to become even more established on campus.

One Highlight for this month was when we took three students to the catalyst conference. It impacted our students more than I thought it would. The three students that we basically dragged to the conference ended up loving it and became more motivated to be apart of NCM. One student made the decision that very weekend to stay at LCC and finish her degree there just so she could be involved with NCM. Until that moment she had been planning to attend school in Georgia. We have grown from three students to 8 students since the conference and grown closer together as a group. It has been awesome!

Clackamas
We participated in the New Student Experience (Orientation) Clubs Fair. Our table was next to Phi Theta Kappa’s table, and as a result I met L, who is their secretary this year. We conversed a little while we were there. During the second week of school, we held an info table on campus, and she stopped to chat, and then asked us if we would like to partner w/PTK for their Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Project. So we talked to our 3 student leaders (we had an “informal” leadership meeting, even though we didn’t call it that) and they agreed that this would be a good ministry/outreach opportunity for us. So we are planning to partner w/them, which is exciting.

Tacoma
Please pray for S and J who serve on student government at Tacoma Community College. Brittney and I had a chance to sit down with them as we talked about forming a club at TCC. J comes from a church background, but seems to be apart from that right now. He seemed to have great things to say about faith and Jesus, but has had bad experiences in the church. He and I talked about the message of Jesus and how our club desires to fulfill that and not some man-made agenda.
S is not a believer from what I gathered, but seems to have a tender heart. He is a father of two young children (which we bonded over) and a very helpful servant as we try to start at TCC. These are two guys that I am hoping to have future conversation and relationship with.
I didn’t have any other gospel presentations on campus this month.

YVCC
I like telling stories about evangelism, you know, where I took an opportunity to share the gospel. I noticed as I read over my year end report that each of my storied last year had focused on just that, me. My goal, then, was to empower my student leaders to share their faith. I taught them the Romans Road to Salvation. By teach, I mean I had them memorize it (Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:13). Secondly, I gave them each a sharing bible, which is a pocket bible that isn’t to threatening to pull out in conversation. Third, I have been coaching them on sharing their own faith stories. Still, they struggle to share. There is something weird about it. They can do it on the couch at my home with out an audience, but the campus brings with it some real intimidation. Seeing their hesitation reminds me of my own hesitation. Evangelism creates this strange fear response in us. I don’t know why, maybe it is a spiritual warfare thing, but it does.
Nonetheless, one of my students had a strange opportunity. She was visited by the Jehovah’s Witness. She turned the tables on them and shared her faith in Jesus and her belief that we weren’t supposed to wait around for some future kingdom event, but that Jesus was working in the now to bring justice to a hurting world. Then she told her story about God reaching out to her in her time of need. Later I talked with one of those Jehovah’s Witness folks and even though it hadn’t turned this person’s heart, she expressed her surprise in my college student. I hope that experiences like these will give my students confidence in the Spirit to share.

CBC
We have a group of students who are very eager to serve and enjoying being together. On the first day of school, we did a give-away to promote NCM. We gave away snacks and fliers publicizing NCM events for the first three weeks of school. Our seven member Student Leadership Team had agreed to assist with the give-away, but I also sent out an email to the list of students who had attended NCM the previous year. In addition to the Student Leadership Team members, about a dozen students showed up to assist with the give-away at different times through the morning. The second day of class we held our first 7 Spot worship service, which meets weekly on Tuesdays at 7:00 AM in the morning. We had 37 in attendance. Some of this could be attributed to the publicity of the give-away, but most were returning students who were eager to connect with God and their friends on campus.

WOU
I continue to speak of the same girl S that I met last year at our “Genocide Awareness Project”. It seems that God is opening doors with her left and right. I was walking to the post office today because my car died on the way to the fall retreat this weekend and afterwards I decided to walk downtown for a little while. I ran into sam on my way and we started chatting about life and her new ‘Mohawk’ hairdo. After a bit of small talk, she asked me if I still had her email address and she said that since we talked at the GAP that she felt like she had changed a lot and she really wanted have coffee with me sometime to talk. It was SO COOL! We talked for a bit longer and set a time to meet this week, she was very eager. Von has built a pretty solid relationship with a guy on campus named R and we just now found out that they are dating. Which is actually realy cool because they are both really open and seeking at the same time. It seems like an amazing opportunity. Pray that the Holy Spirit gives me the words to say and that our relationship ship begins to really blossom into a true friendship.

Portland
This has been an interesting new year for me in collegiate ministry. I have been praying with a few different people about the city center and what we need to do there to reach more young adults and collegians with the Gospel. After much prayer and thought we have launched maybe one of the most unsophisticated church launches we could possibly do. We launched the Gathering on Thursday nights on the Portland State Campus on Sept 13th with 7 people. We currently have 15 who have attended and we are having a great time. We are intentionally attempting to stay simple focusing on: Evangelism, Discipleship, Worship and Missions Mobilization. We are a part of the NW Contexture network which provides us additional encouragement and support. It is very exciting to see young professionals and college students excited about their faith and growing together to reach those who haven’t heard and don’t know Christ. I like the context in which we have planted this church, in that there is an honesty and freedom to share life together and encourage one another to become what God desires for us.

U of I
One example of a student leader “getting it” is L. April began meeting with her one-on-one last year and walked with her through some healing from some bad choices she had made in her first couple of years in college. As she continued to heal April talked to her about being a part of our leadership team this fall. We specifically asked her to be involved with the freshman ministry as we saw that she had a lot to teach from her own experience. As she has been involved thus far she has been an asset to the team and joy to watch as she gains new confidence in her self as a leader and is growing tremendously in her relationship with God...Another example of this is H. She was involved with summer missions this past summer in Orofino, Idaho and one of the major things she hoped to learn was how to share her faith more naturally. She started school really excited about meeting new people and sharing her faith, but it wasn’t until recently that she had a real opportunity. She was doing poorly in one of classes and her teacher suggested she find a study partner. After further discussion the professor offered to arrange for her to study with one of her classmates. H’s prayer was that she would be able to be a light to her peer. During their first meeting the young lady talked about a Bible study she was planning to attend, H asked her what group she was involved in and the girl had no idea. She said she was just curious and mentioned attending a Mormon group the week before. H realized she was searching and was able to share with her about her relationship with God and about NCM and Trinity Baptist Church. It was exciting listening to her story and knowing this is an answer to prayer, both for Heather and for the classmate

OSU
I was in a coffee shop last week and noticed a young lady (whom I had talked with previously but didn’t know anything about) working on her MySpace page. I started asking her questions about it and she wanted me to go to her site and tell her what I thought (since I was on my laptop as well). It was pretty clear after looking at her website what kind of stuff she was into, and a conversation about Jesus probably wasn’t one of them. I was shocked to know she actually knew stuff about real web-design and coding, so we started talking about building websites. I asked her to spend some time checking out the one I built for NCM, so she did. The next day when I saw her in the coffee shop, we had great conversation about the things on our site that talk about “what we value” and what we’re about. It’s kind of cool because we’ve tried hard to use cultural-specific language to convey the message of the Gospel and the lives of Christians, and it seemed to resonate with her. She wants to come to Universitas and even talk more about God. I thought it was interesting how that came from a website.

EWU
During the Clubs and Orgs fair (NeighborFest), the student president of HAL – the Humanist Action League – on campus visited our table. He knew one of the students from NCM who was manning the table, so he stopped to say hi and see what we were doing. We are doing a new ministry this year called “Steppin’ Out” where we go out and serve in the community on the first and third Saturday’s of each month. R, the HAL president, saw the poster for Steppin’ Out and said, “Wow. The reason I hate Christian groups is because they never DO anything. They just sit in a room and pray and think something’s going to happen.” He asked what we were going to do at our first Steppin’ Out, so I told him about the food distribution with the church, and he said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been wanting HAL to do!” So I said, “Well, you’re welcome to join us.” And they did! I called the church’s pastor and the man in charge of the ministry to make sure it was o.k. with him that I was inviting a group who were verbally opposed to Christianity, and we got the green light.

I met with R and K, another member of HAL, to make sure they were o.k. with going, knowing that it was explicitly a ministry of a church and that we may be praying with people. They assured me that they were good with that as long as they were not asked to pray or give away Christian literature. We made a plan that if they were asked about Christian literature, they could just direct the person to a member of NCM.

Saturday was awesome! We met at Eastern and caravanned to the church. We got to know one another as people as we worked together. The members of the church loved on all of us. We prayed together, holding hands in a big circle, and afterward the church members came across the circle and gave everyone hugs. While HAL didn’t hold the same beliefs that we do as Christians, they participated in this Christian ritual of hand holding and hugging. They loved being there and are planning on participating every Saturday at the church.

On the way home, three of HAL’s students rode back with me and another NCM student. The conversation turned to one girl’s recent experience at a church where she said that what the pastor had said was wrong, and she told him so after the service. One of the guys asked about what the pastor had said. The pastor had said that we are not supposed to love ourselves, and A. had told him, “That’s wrong.” Comments in the van included, “You’re supposed to love others as you love yourself.” “Didn’t Jesus say that?” and “I love others, but I hate myself.” It was such a great time to really listen and learn.
I have contacted one of the students, J, to invite him to meet for coffee and talk. He ended up being at the food distribution because his best friend was a member of HAL and invited him. He had seen our poster about Steppin’ Out and wanted to go, but didn’t realize until we were at the church that we were the group whose posters he had seen. He said a couple of things during the morning that communicated that he was really hurting. Please pray for me as I meet with J to listen

U of O and LCC
This year has started with a bang!!! We are very excited and see that God is on the verge of really doing something. We had a great leadership retreat this month, and felt like we hit the ground running and running in the right direction. On move-in day, we passed out 800 postcard flyers with granola bars stapled to them (Thank you resonate for the idea!) inviting students to our dodgeball event the first week of class, and to our freshmen bible study on “Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity” A book we are reading and going through this term. We also attended our campus’ large welcome back party and had a table out for NCM. We received a lot of raffle cards from freshmen, and were able to follow up with students who expressed interest on their raffle card. We had 50 students come to our dodgeball event on Thursday, and were able to have several good conversations with students inviting them to our ministry. On Sunday night we had 22 students come to my house for dinner including 2 non-believing students (American) and 2 International Students (who we believe are not yet believers too!). We have student leaders in place and they are beginning to make things happen. We are more student led than we ever have been, and It has been an exciting start.

UW
We did our second annual “Trick AND Treat” candy giveaway on campus, on Halloween. We set up a table outside one of the campus libraries. We gave full sized candy bars to students, but with a “catch” – they had to take two candy bars, but promise to give one away to somebody they don’t know. We had some flyers describing the process. The intention wasn’t necessarily evangelistic, but a lot of students asked why we were doing this, and what that represented to us. It was a particularly poignant time and place for us to be doing this project, which emphasized a spirit of generosity in the name of Jesus, because across the way from where we were set up, there were some boisterous street preachers yelling and holding large signs that read said things like “Repent or Burn in the Fires of Hell.” We didn’t believe that that was a helpful, relational way to share Jesus, and we were glad to be able to be in the same space with a more redemptive message. We gave out over 250 candy bars, which means that we talked to more than 125 students . . . and we had fun too – it was so funny to watch the facial expressions of students change from skepticism to disbelief to cautious to smiling/laughing.

We have transitioned the housing at the Purple Door from last year to this year. Previously, any student – Christian or not – could rent a room in the building, and there were no expectations of them being involved in NCM or anything we do. Now, we’ve taken over the tenant screening and placement, as a part of our launch of inter::mission. We were able to start inter::mission with several folks, but not enough to fill the whole building. So, when I got a call from a fellow UW campus minister seeking housing for an international student, I decided to check the possibility out.
Mara (not her real name) is an engineering student on an exchange program from Istanbul, Turkey. She is a cultural Muslim, but has a very open, inquisitive personality. When I described the kind of environment that she would be living in, she was comfortable living with a bunch of Christians, and interested in participating in things around the house. So, she moved in. A couple of days later, she actually referred another international student, from China, and she, too, has moved into the house.
As part of the inter::mission process, we have a weekly “family meal” together. Mara has been very interested in joining us, and being a part of things, but we’re in the middle of the Muslim month of Ramadan, which requires fasting until after sundown. She has come to dinner late a couple of times as a result, but this has been a really great opportunity for us to ask her about Ramadan, and how it is celebrated. Meanwhile, she is part of conversations where faith is very intentionally discussed as a part of our lifestyle.
On a more personal level, I was able to share with Mara that my parents were in Istanbul this summer. They were there to visit and work with a friend who is a coffee roaster there for our large International Corporation I told Mara that my parents had brought me some Turkish coffee, but I didn’t know how to make it. So one afternoon, she made me a small pot of coffee, and taught me how it’s done! She wasn’t able to drink it with me, because of Ramadan, but we’ve already made a plan to do it again.
Mara is experiencing Christian community first hand – through meals, card games, watching TV, studying, and even through sitting in on one of our inter::mission teach-ins. We looking forward to developing this friendship over the next weeks and months. I’m quite certain that as she hears us talk about Jesus – someone she’s familiar with from an Islamic perspective – we’ll have many opportunities to share more and have an impact.

CWU
There are so many wonderful things that happened this month. From Catalyst, where we had a great group of 14 go from here, to our annual Thanksgiving Potluck where we had a big group of 24 students including three visitors from Vancouver (Clark College) checking out Central, to a fun Star Wars three-night marathon and a great Christmas party, there are ample events to draw on for good stories. But the thing I want to share came out of our weekly Bible Study on Surviving people in your life.

After Bible Study had officially concluded, conversation with this student continued. She expressed how she almost didn’t come to the study that night because she knew she would have to think about her family situation, which she feels sucks. Over a half hour or hour, she was able to share with me (and partway through my wife Janelle too) how she really feels about her family dynamics. Why this was so outstanding to me was that it is a student who is so passionate about life and yet confessed to spending a lot of her time with others simply putting on a happy face and avoiding the difficult situations of life. Being able to be family to her and to offer Kleenex was really cool. This experience was a highlight for the month because it was a time when I feel we saw a true person willing to be vulnerable and to express herself without censoring herself or hiding her true self. Pretty cool.