God Moves off Campus into Our Families

       My pastor once remarked how much he enjoyed seeing the Kingdom of God breaking in to the world. He would read articles and see it and he would also see it as he partnered with God. I think we too agree that it is awesome seeing the Kingdom break in. Our focus is on the college campus but God's focus extends from the campus and beyond. I have been blessed to see God’s work through the lives of students as they get transformed and soon after their families start to get touched. There are at least 3 families that are being touched by Jesus and have tangible markers of God's hand moving within them.



Sy

         Remember the promise of Sy’s story from the newsletter that many of you just received (I only had 60)? I don’t know the whole of it but I do know that after Sy became a believer at our fall ’11 Soul Food fall evangelism conference, his parents started to get touched. Sy told me that after he became a believer he started to have conversations about Jesus with his mom who was from a Catholic background. In the midst of these conversations, her husband and Sy’s dad left the family to move up to the desert for reasons I don’t fully remember. I am learning how high a value is placed on family within the filipino culture and so when Sy’s dad left the family this was probably a tragedy and maybe even a deep betrayal. In the midst of this Sy’s mom started to attend a local church and found a renewed relationship with Jesus. She was so inspired by God’s heart that she and Sy decided to go after the wayward father. They traveled all the way up to the hi desert from Oceanside and invited him to come back. Whatever happened, there must have had some powerful love involved because he didn’t just come back but started to go to church and decided to follow Jesus too.

           Another student who I’ll call Mack also is seeing changes in his family after he came to faith. I had been hearing about a lot of things happening in his family but I would like to share a few of them along with a moment that paints a picture of what is happening in his family. This guy loves to listen to people and show them love through that, Christian or not. He told me that after visiting his brother and talking to his friends, his brother started to pick up the bible and began to read it. His sister has attended several functions with intervarsity including the bible study Mack and I lead. She has been in tears and eager for Jesus each time. Finally, he told me of the extremely odd and rare event that happened with his dad. His dad attended church with his mom and it wasn’t Christmas or Easter! (I was told this was big J) Mack told me of one moment that signified a change in his family. When he went up to thanksgiving with his family, he noted the changes going on with their level of communication. He said that they were having deep conversations and there was a sense of true love among them. Come on Lord!

My Family Christmas '11

          Sy and Mack’s families aren’t the only ones getting touched by God. I saw my little brother Mike and the fruit of the prayer over his life. I now can tell that Jesus is his source, even when crazy difficulties are happening around him. Both my brothers are dads now and I am so blessed as I see them loving their children and I see a lot of elements of God’s love. Finally, my rolling stone dad who has been getting touched by Jesus is finally starting to go after God and His word. He just told me recently he has been going to church for the past 3 weeks and even hit a Wednesday night service. I can’t describe to you but it has been a long journey of my dad moving from being so lost and broken and wandering to being found as he places his hope in Jesus.

            I hope this encourages you as it does me. God’s work starts to affect the spheres we have influence in if we’ll yield to His heart and His guidance and if we’ll persevere in loving those around us. I also hope you see what I am seeing; our work together doesn’t just stay on the college campuses. May the only one who can bless you and your families. Remember, God is able to do more than you can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20).

5 Reasons for Us to Be on Campus

1)    I believe God wants to be known and one of my passions is to see Him be known. As I was on campus this fall, one student said this: “God was trying to kill me.” Its amazing how skewed the perspective of God can be. I think God’s character is one of the Enemy’s gravest deceptions.

2    2)  As I was sitting waiting for one of our students, a random   student came up and started to chat. During our conversation he proceeded to pull out a mason jar filled with marijuana, rolled   up a joint, and preceded to smoke it at our table while we  learned about each other’s background. I invited him to large group and weeks later he actually came!

      3)    While our staff was on a prayer walk at a sorority house near SDSU, a loud bang occurred. Something had hit the house, we began to pray again not knowing what was going on and soon after another thump happened as what seemed to be a water balloon hit a truck on  the street near us. We realized soon  enough someone was launching water filled condoms (instead of balloons) from across the street. Were they aiming at the sorority house, the  truck near us, or maybe us?

      4)    As I was trying to help the students grow in their prayer life, we began as a community to write down our prayer requests to see what God would do. We were in dire need for a full time faculty member to become our advisor or else our campus access would be limited. So, we set a time (not trying to rub a lamp or anything) and asked God to give us an advisor by Sept. 30^th. Several weeks after we wrote down our prayer request, God provided a faculty advisor in a miraculous way! Even better than the actual provision is that our students began to see the living God respond to their prayers. We have been seeing more and more of our prayers answered and I believe God is doing things like this to build our faith as a community. Thank You LORD!

5)    During the Bible study I lead on campus we met so many people who came to explore the question: “who is Jesus”? One guy who I was trying to get connected with us all semester finally came to one of these Bible studies. After seeing that through Jesus he could see and understand who God is, he said “this is what I needed to hear today”. This student is a Christian, at least in name, and is going through a lot. Shortly after this study his dad passed away from liver failure. Please pray for him and his fam.

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.

Summer Study Healings

The students have been conducting bible studies by themselves at a local park near Mesa College all summer long. I finally was able to attend one in June. I had just come back from our staff regional retreat that hosted over 100 IV staff workers from all over central and southern California (oh and UNLV too). We had been discussing and seeking personal revival in our own lives and trying to then also see revival take place on our campuses. So when I came back, I was expecting God to move.

The students were doing a worship session instead of their typical bible studies and later we prayed for the wounded and sick. There were around 10 people there; many Christians, some were nominal and/or seekers, and there were others that I didn’t even know their spiritual background. One student had a knee that was swollen and in a soft cast, one student had a bad back who could feel the pain in their back and had trouble moving, and another with a hurt thumb (from playing too many video games…college students). We felt led and took a risk to invite the Living God to encounter these people. We started praying for the smaller injuries first. I shared some things I have learned about healing and a personal testimony of my own healing. Then, as a community, we prayed for the thumb. We prayed twice and not much happened. We thanked God for His love anyways and went on to another student with a bad back. Two people from our group prayed for him (one I have known to be a confirmed seeker). We asked God to heal our bro’s back. This student was visibly struck by the touch of God on him. His back was healed and better, you could see in his eyes that he encountered His loving Father!! This student was so stoked as he tested it and he even prayed for the student with a bad knee that needed surgery. We prayed several times and God didn’t heal the knee, but we thanked Him for His love anyways. During this time, the person whose thumb we had prayed for confessed that her thumb felt better. We took a risk and God totally touched our community.

Thank you for all of your prayers and asking God’s name and character to be lifted up in our midst. Thank you for asking for the authority of the Kingdom to be released. Thank you Papa!

Encountering God through Intercession

During the year, I led a prayer meeting centered upon praying through the Lord’s Prayer (Mathew 6:9-13). It was about 4 weeks long and great stuff happened. I wanted to share one testimony that happened during the course of those meetings.

We were centering our prayer around asking God to let His Kingdom come and His will to be done on earth (and Mesa!) as it is in heaven when a student came up. We had just asked God to touch student’s hearts and bring them to turn back to Him when Matt (name is changed to protect his identity) came where we were praying on the campus in front of the LRC.  I had known Matt only in passing having met him during one of our “on-tempo” meetings (our weekly large group gathering where about 20 students typically gathered). He proceeded to tell me that he had just found out that he was going to be a father from a relationship that he wasn’t even part of anymore. I was a bit thrown off and didn’t know whether he was a Christian even or not. I found out some more details and saw that this guy was a bit beat up as he was trying to figure out what to do.

As you should already know, I was facing the same choices that this guy was now facing about 7 years prior. Here he was going through his choices. He wasn’t with the girl any more, should he get back with her, is it even his kid, should he marry her, should he go through with having the child at all, and who knows what else (this is a list and may not be very accurate by the way). I was trying to figure out what to do and even was reminding this guy that he has responsibilities now. I felt a bit hypocritical but at the same time, I knew there is still a right thing to do even if I hadn’t quite figured it out back during my time. I actually shared with him about my journey and tried to encourage him to do and seek out the right thing.

I had a feeling this guy wasn’t really walking with God much, but could see that God was interacting with him and even using me. It was a crazy, but great place to be. He was openly confessing that God felt distant and He couldn’t hear from him. It wasn’t long before he mentioned a hip-hop song that he felt was coming to his mind lately that related to what we were talking about. What he said reminded me of this: “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and for the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul” Mark 8:35-36? So, before we knew it “on-tempo” was going to start. Before it started, I knew this guy was getting tugged on by Jesus and I wanted him to get touched. I challenged him to come to our group to hear from God and he decided to attend the talk. Amazingly, the very message we were learning from that night was from Mark 8 and consisted of the passage with those very verses we had just been discussing. At the end of the gathering I went to him and made sure to emphasize that it seemed God had been speaking to him.

It was amazing to see God pursue and bring broken students to Himself and even use another broken (but mending) person as His instrument. I have to say that I didn’t see any change or response come from Matt in responding to God that night. Yet, I do now.  Later I was stoked to find out that he was and is intentionally pursuing a relationship with his son and his ex-girlfriend. Matt didn’t run away or deny his child but is pursuing what seemed to be the right thing. I am proud of him.

Please join with me in asking for his heart to be completely soft to Jesus and following Him. Please pray for Him to find God’s will. Please pray for him to give his life up in the name of following Jesus.

Redemptive Identification

Another story of God’s name being lifted high in a student’s life. This one also happened at mark camp at the beginning of April.

One of our Mesa College students came from a tough background and he was at the camp. During Mark camp, our students intensely study a section of Mark’s gospel with the chapter, verses, and titles removed from the text (or other scriptures too depending on what track they are on). After we were done studying about the parable of the old and new wineskin, the students were challenged by our Mesa/City volunteer staff by her asking them to write old identity labels on a name tag, names or labels they felt defined by in the past. On another name tag, they were to place new identity labels that they felt God had for them. As is the best way I think to lead (by example), us staffers also participated in the challenge.

I was challenged to share my own old tough identity labels by this same student who had a rough background. I saw him put on his name tag f**k up, faggot, and drug addict (what a hard list). In my own mind, I was only considering putting one of my labels that was super hard for me until I saw his bravery. After seeing his, I put mine on which read: “fag. I felt liberated by what Jesus had done for me in taking me from hiding from hard pieces of my past and allowing me more freedom and I was thankful for the bravery of this guy.

Later that day we were hiking up a mountain on the island and when we reached the top, Jesus did some cool stuff. When we reached the top of the climb (a good climb indeed) and were hanging out, I noticed what I perceived as trash to be blowing in the wind. I asked the students if they could pick it up. One student responded (it was this brave student who had written down the names for himself aforementioned). He  said it was his. He picked it up and we went on our way to our destination, Avalon.

The next day or so, I ran into the same student. He was blessed and as he shared what happened to him with that trash he picked up on the mountain, I was stoked on the small and powerful acts of God. He shared with me that what was blowing around in the wind that day was his name tag with the labels of f**k up, faggot, and drug addict. Then he shared with me that his new wineskin labels had still stayed with him. This name tag had the names “king and priest” and “son of the Most High”. I was stoked as the symbolism of that moment struck his heart. His old names were crumpled and blowing in the wind no longer stuck to him, while his new identity was formed from the things that God is claiming over him. His heart and mine were touched.

Thank you Jesus for new identity!