First day on campus!

Hello my devoted readers!! So, yesterday was our first day on the college campuses! Our team split up on four different campuses in BA: College of Agriculture, Law, Science, and Architecture! They split the students up into teams and assigned each one to one of the campuses for the entire summer! I'm on the agriculture campus with all of the horses, ducks, cats, dogs, chickens, and, yes, LLAMAS!! The STINT team members (5 recent college graduates who commited to live in BA and work on spreading Campus Crusade on BA campuses for 14 months; they have been in BA since September 2007) and the Crusade staff that came with us rotate which campus they go to every day.

Yesterday was a nerve-racking day since it was our first day to use a survey that starts with general questions about a college student's life and ends with spiritual questions to lead into sharing the Gospel! I was nervous because we had to go up to random strangers who most likely do not speak our language! But God was faithful, of course, and led me and the girl I was with to a fluent English speaker, Nilda, and her non-English-speaking friend, Georgelina (Hor-heh-lee-nah)! So, we started doing the survey with Nilda and she told us that she was REALLY interested in spiritual topics and told us she had grown up in the Catholic church, but was still very confused. To make a long story short, she ended up telling us,"To be honest, I've gone to church all of my life and have heard many priests preach, but I have never understood WHY Jesus had to die and HOW His death cleanses us from our sins!" Well, of course, the girl I was with and I were just about shaking with excitement! I got to sit there and summarize the Knowing God Personally booklet (the tract that Campus Crusade uses) in my own words, trying to clearly explain the entire story from when God created a perfect world, to the fall of man, to Christ's coming, to His death and resurrection, and how all of that applies to us! It was so exciting! Nilda was so attentive and was just soaking it all in the whole time! When I was finished, she just looked at me and said, "I have asked so many Catholic ministers and priests that question, and they have never explained it to me like you just have. I get it now!" We were beaming!! She then said, "Now please translate all of that into Spanish because I really want my friend to know that too!" How cool!! We tried the best we could, but we didn't do too well, so we left a Spanish/English Knowing God Personally booklet with them for her friend to look at!

We planned to meet them at the same spot, same time today, but it was cold and rainy today (for the first time since we got here!) so they weren't out there. Please pray that my friend Maggie and I will be able to meet and talk with those girls more!

Thank you so much for all of your prayers! I know they are being answered every day!!