"Mandatory floor meeting tonight."
"Informational session tonight."
"Large group worship... tonight."
'Nuff said. And I thought high school was busy... phew.
One week ago... a week ago today I was moving into my dorm. Strange how it was only one week ago, yet a world ago. Moving in concluded a chapter of my life and opened a whole new one-- one that I'm so excited to see what God decides to write.
The first couple of days on campus were extremely overwhelming. We had sessions and meetings left and right... and when we weren't at those, there were social activities galore. The problem wasn't finding something to do, it was choosing WHAT to do. I did many of the activities with my roommates (Tyler and Chrissy, for future reference). It was a nice eye-opening to the campus and to college life, but quite frankly, I wasn't making friends... I was simply making acquaintances. Now, if you know me at all, you know that this aggravates me. I hate acquaintances. I can't wait to turn acquaintances into deep friendships. I love that.
Saturday night two girls wandered into our room. Their names? Allison and Sarah. They were so open and friendly. Wait, perhaps friendly isn't the right word... they were truly loving. It didn't take fifteen minutes of conversation for me to wonder if they were Christians. Sure enough, as they stood up to leave they invited us to a Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) house party. Since they had been such enjoyable company and we didn't have anything better to do, the three of us decided to go.
This house party was odd. The people were odd. Sarah and Allison didn't ditch us upon arrival. They made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable. Everyone was eager to start conversations and build relationships. Joy and love were abundant. I loved it. Every second of it. Every once in a while
Anyway, during this party I got into a certain conversation with Sarah and a girl named Mary. It was phenomenal. I wanted to talk to them for hours. We discussed the importance of evangelism and allowing Christianity to become a driving force in our lives. It was so encouraging. I wasn't expecting to find Christians this passionate at U of I. Don't ask me why, but for some reason, this caught me off-guard. But I guess off-guard was a good place to start...
Sunday morning I went to church with Sarah and enjoyed it. It was a good day. I was so excited for classes to start. My nerd side was taking over as I found myself getting giddy thinking about classes starting. My roommates probably thought I was insane. That night the three of us really bonded and stayed up talking until 3:00 am. This conversation was hard for me to have... Thoughts raced through my head and I had a hard time thinking on my feet. Our bonding conversation was the typical guy conversation. As we talked I kept trying to figure out how to talk about the opposite sex with non-christians. This became difficult for me to process. I kept trying to think of ways to bring in my morals and my values, yet still seem human to them. It was a great conversation, though.
Monday. Ohhh, classes. It was so great. Though I only had two classes this day, I loved them. I'll take a break here and post my classes to avoid confusion...
-The City and Human Rights
- Arabic
- Introduction to international health policy
- Global studies seminar
- Language arts and sciences seminar
Simply put, I love my classes.
Arabic has been incredible. I am falling more and more in love with the language and seriously dream of a time when I'll be able to achieve fluency. Ahhhh :)
My international health policy has been the most... challenging? Not because of the work load, but because of the content. I've had two classes so far, and all she's done (clearly a secular humanist feminist) is throw out depressing statistics. I've acquired a significant amount of head knowledge regarding all the poverty I've seen first-hand. For example, more than 1.2 billion people globally live on less than $1/day. Shocking. $17 billion are spent annually on pet food in the USA and Europe alone. Disgusting. The Millennial Development Goals targeted for 2015 will not be accomplished. Depressing.
I'm not going to lie. It's been quite overwhelming to hear 2 hours of depressing facts. I get back after that class and just pray. Jesus, remind me that you're bigger than this brokenness. Your blood is enough for them too... Our professor is quite cynical about us being solutions. She doesn't believe much can be done about poverty and misery. Why, though? What is her reason? Because countries aren't willing to give the money required. Oh, if only she could see that Jesus is the only real solution to our depravity...
I mentioned earlier that I've gotten involved with Cru. It really has been an encouragement for me... I've met and discussed with passionate Christians, determined to leave the world different. They are on fire for God... willing to allow God to burn through them. Its so beautiful. I've loved their meetings. Today I went to a meeting for freshmen and sophomores. It was fantastic. I was 20 minutes late, like a true latin, and I really wish I had made it a priority to be there on time. Pat, the speaker, urged us to dream big dreams for this campus. He asked us to envision what it would look like for us to truly believe that "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Are our lives lived in such a way that we point others towards Jesus? Do we encourage others to love him? Are we passionately and intimately in love with Christ?
AHHHH. It was so great :) On the way home I talked with a girl named Jackie, a sophomore. We talked about theology. It was refreshing.
Oh, and tonight there was a giant capture the flag game going on... I began talking to an intern for Cru. She asked me one short question: "What do you love about Colombia?" Haha. The answer wasn't quite as short as the question. Wow. I believe that there is a strong movement in Colombia... the Holy Spirit is moving and lives are being transformed. Broken people experience the love of Christ in such a real, tangible way. I watched a video by Aaron Gillespie. He spoke of an encounter with God in Africa while experiencing an African church service. The people there worship God for one reason: they worship him because he IS. That's it. He exists and that's enough. I want to experience this kind of worship... this awe of who God is.
[[Its in the darkness where Christ's love shines brightest]]
"Informational session tonight."
"Large group worship... tonight."
'Nuff said. And I thought high school was busy... phew.
One week ago... a week ago today I was moving into my dorm. Strange how it was only one week ago, yet a world ago. Moving in concluded a chapter of my life and opened a whole new one-- one that I'm so excited to see what God decides to write.
The first couple of days on campus were extremely overwhelming. We had sessions and meetings left and right... and when we weren't at those, there were social activities galore. The problem wasn't finding something to do, it was choosing WHAT to do. I did many of the activities with my roommates (Tyler and Chrissy, for future reference). It was a nice eye-opening to the campus and to college life, but quite frankly, I wasn't making friends... I was simply making acquaintances. Now, if you know me at all, you know that this aggravates me. I hate acquaintances. I can't wait to turn acquaintances into deep friendships. I love that.
Saturday night two girls wandered into our room. Their names? Allison and Sarah. They were so open and friendly. Wait, perhaps friendly isn't the right word... they were truly loving. It didn't take fifteen minutes of conversation for me to wonder if they were Christians. Sure enough, as they stood up to leave they invited us to a Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) house party. Since they had been such enjoyable company and we didn't have anything better to do, the three of us decided to go.
This house party was odd. The people were odd. Sarah and Allison didn't ditch us upon arrival. They made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable. Everyone was eager to start conversations and build relationships. Joy and love were abundant. I loved it. Every second of it. Every once in a while
Anyway, during this party I got into a certain conversation with Sarah and a girl named Mary. It was phenomenal. I wanted to talk to them for hours. We discussed the importance of evangelism and allowing Christianity to become a driving force in our lives. It was so encouraging. I wasn't expecting to find Christians this passionate at U of I. Don't ask me why, but for some reason, this caught me off-guard. But I guess off-guard was a good place to start...
Sunday morning I went to church with Sarah and enjoyed it. It was a good day. I was so excited for classes to start. My nerd side was taking over as I found myself getting giddy thinking about classes starting. My roommates probably thought I was insane. That night the three of us really bonded and stayed up talking until 3:00 am. This conversation was hard for me to have... Thoughts raced through my head and I had a hard time thinking on my feet. Our bonding conversation was the typical guy conversation. As we talked I kept trying to figure out how to talk about the opposite sex with non-christians. This became difficult for me to process. I kept trying to think of ways to bring in my morals and my values, yet still seem human to them. It was a great conversation, though.
Monday. Ohhh, classes. It was so great. Though I only had two classes this day, I loved them. I'll take a break here and post my classes to avoid confusion...
-The City and Human Rights
- Arabic
- Introduction to international health policy
- Global studies seminar
- Language arts and sciences seminar
Simply put, I love my classes.
Arabic has been incredible. I am falling more and more in love with the language and seriously dream of a time when I'll be able to achieve fluency. Ahhhh :)
My international health policy has been the most... challenging? Not because of the work load, but because of the content. I've had two classes so far, and all she's done (clearly a secular humanist feminist) is throw out depressing statistics. I've acquired a significant amount of head knowledge regarding all the poverty I've seen first-hand. For example, more than 1.2 billion people globally live on less than $1/day. Shocking. $17 billion are spent annually on pet food in the USA and Europe alone. Disgusting. The Millennial Development Goals targeted for 2015 will not be accomplished. Depressing.
I'm not going to lie. It's been quite overwhelming to hear 2 hours of depressing facts. I get back after that class and just pray. Jesus, remind me that you're bigger than this brokenness. Your blood is enough for them too... Our professor is quite cynical about us being solutions. She doesn't believe much can be done about poverty and misery. Why, though? What is her reason? Because countries aren't willing to give the money required. Oh, if only she could see that Jesus is the only real solution to our depravity...
I mentioned earlier that I've gotten involved with Cru. It really has been an encouragement for me... I've met and discussed with passionate Christians, determined to leave the world different. They are on fire for God... willing to allow God to burn through them. Its so beautiful. I've loved their meetings. Today I went to a meeting for freshmen and sophomores. It was fantastic. I was 20 minutes late, like a true latin, and I really wish I had made it a priority to be there on time. Pat, the speaker, urged us to dream big dreams for this campus. He asked us to envision what it would look like for us to truly believe that "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Are our lives lived in such a way that we point others towards Jesus? Do we encourage others to love him? Are we passionately and intimately in love with Christ?
AHHHH. It was so great :) On the way home I talked with a girl named Jackie, a sophomore. We talked about theology. It was refreshing.
Oh, and tonight there was a giant capture the flag game going on... I began talking to an intern for Cru. She asked me one short question: "What do you love about Colombia?" Haha. The answer wasn't quite as short as the question. Wow. I believe that there is a strong movement in Colombia... the Holy Spirit is moving and lives are being transformed. Broken people experience the love of Christ in such a real, tangible way. I watched a video by Aaron Gillespie. He spoke of an encounter with God in Africa while experiencing an African church service. The people there worship God for one reason: they worship him because he IS. That's it. He exists and that's enough. I want to experience this kind of worship... this awe of who God is.
[[Its in the darkness where Christ's love shines brightest]]
