South San Diego Area

                The South San Diego Area is very important for you all to learn about as it is at the core of our new structure and vision for Mesa and San Diego State and more schools in the vicinity. Since it is a bit of an information overload, I just want to make you all aware that Mesa is now part of the South San Diego Intervarsity. In order to understand more of what this means I just wanted to introduce to you the basic structure, our vision, and what this means for our team (you and me).

                The structure of South San Diego InterVaristy (SSD IV) consists of the combination of many schools centered in one area, namely San Diego State University (SDSU). SDSU is what we call our hub. Other schools such as mesa are kind of satellites. What we want to do is bring community colleges, like Mesa, into collaboration with a bigger 4 year university, State. At this point it is just Mesa and State that are part of SSD IV, but we have desire to reach other local community colleges like City, Southwestern, and Grossmont where we’ve calculated there are over 100,000 students.

You might be wondering how this looks on a weekly basis. Well, what will happen is that we will have small groups on Mesa (we currently have 4 community groups and 1 prayer meeting) but our large group is held at Faith Presbyterian right next to SDSU. Our last 3 large groups have been pretty big with on the order of 80 students from both campuses joining us for the evening (come check one out sometime).

This SSD IV structure doesn’t change my role very much. I still have my focus at Mesa College as of now where I invest in our leaders there to reach out to those students taking classes at Mesa College. I look forward to sharing more with you regarding the specifics of my role but that will have to wait for some quality time with ya. In terms of broadening my influence, there is a potential that our team will now also have a greater influence as I am also able to interact with State students. Though they are not my primary responsibility, the overall unity of our area is a primary responsibility. Ive already had some great interactions with students at state.

What we are about as an area is best captured in our vision and it is the last thing I will leave you with. Our vision for South San Diego InterVarsity is that “we are a multi-ethnic witnessing community transformed by Jesus reaching every campus culture.” I get more and more excited about the structures God is putting in place to accomplish great things, even dreams of reaching some very tough to reach campus cultures. Praise the Lord! If you want to hear more, I would love to chat with you.

Getting Personal

Since, one of my values is that we do ministry together you’ll find that I like to give you insight into my personal journey as I am walking in my felt God-given direction. So this entry is meant to update you on some of my battles and lessons learned through the experience. May you uncover something for your lives as you read.

Have you ever had a moment where you just felt overwhelmed and then you were given more? I had one of those moments recently. When I was feeling overloaded already, even more tasks came down the line and I didn’t have any idea how I was going to do them (yeah, I think I was being a bit dramatic). I honestly had a moment where resentment was starting to build in me. At that moment, I believe God just showed up and reminded me of some things.

He reminded me that if I wasn’t the only staff at Mesa and in so many new roles with so many other new things, I wouldn’t have a chance to grow as fast. I had this moment where I remembered Joseph’s faith. From being in slavery, he started to rise in every place God put him into leadership and at a life defining moment after he saw the prophetic dreams over his life unfold he saw God’s plan in a fuller form over his life. Joseph confidently shared with his repentant brothers who had sold him into slavery, “you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen 50:20). Joseph saw the Lord’s good plan over his life for the good of his people but at the expense of a lot of years of turmoil, suffering, and even slavery. He saw that though all the things he had been through were tough, the Lord was using them for good. Like Joseph, I’ll admit my own situations are definitely not as extreme, I began to consider all the responsibilities and challenges I have been given as a staff worker as a blessing despite the intensity of my circumstances. These were blessings that God was using to stretch me quickly. What once was a heavy, anxiety-ridden feeling, turned into mental clarity. Praise the Lord! I realized then that I wouldn’t grow fast if these responsibilities weren’t mine. I started praising the Lord for the challenges and responsibilities as I started to believe God for good things through them, including faster growth into my destiny and the ultimate desire of my life, to be with Him and see His Kingdom come.

Are any of you going through trials that you are frustrated with and tempted to complain about because they’re tough? I think that the Lord is going to use them to grow you for the greater good, but will you see it that way? Will you thank Him? Check out what Paul said,

 “Not only [do we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God], but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3-5).

I’ll acknowledge that this is not an easy lifestyle, but I guess God didn’t call us into greater things to stay where we are at. He just wants to show us more of Himself. He is sovereign and completely good. God help us and may we grow in praising the Lord for His sovereign plan that leads us into hard fought growth.