Multiplied

Happy fall y'all!! This semester has been flying by, but I'm trying to slow down and take in the day to day moments I get to be part of with so many sweet people. The picture above is from Fall Camp which we had at the beginning of October. We had around 70 students show up and that's a pretty big deal to us. You might think that's unimpressive or numbers don't mean anything ~ and don't get me wrong, if only 5 students came to camp we would've been over the moon excited and that would've been successful to us. But being at a junior college means our ministry has very high turnover. Students join for a year, maybe lead for a year, but typically transfer after 1 or 2 years. COVID, for many obvious reasons, plus our turnover rate, really meant we were dwindling coming into this school year.

In August, our leader team (picture above) consisted of our team of 10 campus pastors and 13 students. We had a handful of returning students that didn't join our leader team this year who are vital members of community - maybe 3 or 4. So from 16/17 students on August 23th, we increased to 70 students interested in spending a weekend together on October 9th!! AND there are many students who have been showing up to other things that couldn't make it that weekend. On top of that, we are still growing and some of the cores (small groups) I get to hear about on a weekly basis are constantly getting new people. Dare I say our community is quickly approaching 6 time the students we started with - possibly beyond that at this point - all in the span of 2 months!

I'm genuinely blown away by the hard work our students have put in simply to invite classmates and friends into community and then the response we have had to that. God has taken an unimpressive little group of people and faithfully used their efforts to multiply. How cool that you and I get to be part of this little corner of the kingdom?!

Every Tuesday, we host Tuesday Hang on campus simply to give people a space to spend time together on campus. Occasionally we have discussion questions posted and facilitate some deeper conversations, but oftentimes, we show up to give people something to do while they wait in between classes. In the picture above, some of our students are teaching new friends how to play one of my personal favorites - Dutch Blitz.

Above is a picture of me with a student, Sofia. We met during the first week of classes and she quickly expressed to me that she was looking for friends so we became friends! She also told me that she wants to know what is in scripture and wants to read it because she believes she'll learn a lot about life from it, but she's never read from one or been told much about it. So we got her a Bible and this last week we sat down and read through Genesis 1 together. I was so moved by her awe and fresh eyes reading something I've heard so many times that I've accidentally memorized it. I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing, honestly. But I get to explore with her as she dives into this new interest. I really admire her willingness to ask hard questions and her desire to learn. She might not even realize some of her questions are hard - she just thinks of a question and has no shame at all to ask! I love getting to know her and am so thankful for our friendship and I couldn't help but share about her with you all.

To leave you with some laughs, here's our funny picture from camp. I hope you're all doing well and I'm saying a prayer as I write this. I know October and the turn of seasons can be a hard time for people, so know that I'm thinking of you and if you need to talk or want to catch up, I'd love to chat.

Thank you for making it possible for me to get to know these students and spend time with them!!

With love,

Jacy