In Remembrance

It was two years ago that I found out my master teacher from Santa Maria High School Trishawna Quarles passed away in childbirth. She was a huge influence on me, who taught me a lot of how to relate to students, how to challenge and impact them, and how to never let circumstances dictate your life. Her death was one of the hardest to deal with and that came at such a difficult time in my own life as well.

My soul is feeling the grief again, remembering how I found out about her death, that she died in childbirth, bringing the son she prayed so hard to get into the world, and dying moments later. My soul is full of grief again for her loss in our lives. Even though I knew her for a short time, so much of what she did when I was her student teacher left a lasting impression on me.

Fish and Invitations

Here are two stories of how God has been moving at CSUN and in InterVarsity lately:

From our first MNF: (a post I put on Facebook)

"CSUN had our first large group meeting tonight and it was clear God is moving on our campus! 

We had no room to meet in so we met outside in the University Student Union. We handed out free root beer floats and had 70 people come! Most who came by came because we followed up with them and most of them were new! We did things a little different where instead of hour long talk we broke it up where we discussed things in small groups. We saw people bond together as a community and make friendships with people they just met. 

We made also 2 calls for response. We called people to make decisions of faith (first time/adult) and called students into mission. We had 4 people stand up to make decisions of faith (last year we had zero) and 15 people stand to go into mission on campus!

I spoke out of Luke 5 and I felt that passage was lived out in that moment. God asked me to go out into deeper waters for another catch after a year that felt like we came up with rather empty nets. I was overwhelmed with what God did and seeing his glory right there in front of me on campus. Several leaders were almost in tears, I was shaking by the end of the night because I just felt the Spirit was going crazy! We saw a sense of community after the first night unlike any others. Our leaders are pumped more than ever to keep reaching the campus after a night like this."

From our first dorm bible study that met on Wednesday: 

Last week our dorm study had only 2 people show up. And those two couldn't make it this week. 

So tonight Ryan and I took 2 freshmen who came and went inviting people in one of their dorms. We only went onto to floors but we ended up getting 6 contact cards. 4 couldn't come tonight but 3 dropped what they were doing and came to study right away (one was a friend visiting from UCI).

We ended up w a total of 11 people at study (including Ryan and I). It was great to see Freshmen take risks and invite strangers and it paid off.

Crazy things are happening here! 

Alive

Ok so this is the first month where I've probably gone a whole two weeks without blogging. I blame NSO. NSO is New Student Outreach - which in the InterVarsity world means no life for a staff worker.

But I swear I'm alive. Here is a small snapshot of what has kept my attention for the past two weeks.

• 267 contact cards (a record for IVMCF)
• 205 of them texted, emailed, or called
• 77 of them met with face to face
• 29 of them met with face to face at least 3 times
• 80 people at Monday Night Fellowship
• 5 bible studies
• 4 new believers
• 15 new students wanting to go into mission on campus
• Several new ministries on the horizon (transfer students, deaf studies, athletes) 
• 1 conference down, 1 to go 

God is moving here at CSUN and it is crazy all the things that have been happening. I'm excited to see where God is taking us. 

Choosing Joy

I wish I could compartmentalize my life better. I wish I could put stressful or difficult or painful things to the side for the moment and just be present. Just be present in something fun, not to check out or escape, but perhaps for just the moment put it to the side.

During pain, or stress, or difficulty, it's hard to chose joy. It's hard because it's not usually my first instinct.

I'm learning.