University of Missouri-St. Louis is a new chapter “plant”, but in our very first week on campus, 2 students made 1st-time decisions for Christ. Drake University also celebrated one student’s conversion, and a big evangelistic night at Central College in Iowa resulted in 14 students giving their lives to Christ for the 1st time! The stories are encouraging, so read on…
*From IV staff Chioma Chukwu (U of Missouri-St. Louis): “…I was SO close to going home because I was tired and it was Friday, but for some reason I started prayer walking again by myself. So glad I stayed. I ended up just getting on one of the shuttle buses to see what happened. Turns out there was a girl on there that I met last year with Jordan when we were doing some evangelism at UMSL. We shared our stories with her, but she said she was still searching last year and wasn’t ready to say yes to any kind of religion. The shuttle was going to the grocery store, so I walked and talked with her as she told me the abusive relationship she just got out of and the loneliness she was having now that her boyfriend had moved out. I asked her what role she felt God had played in this process and she realized that He protected her and gave her strength to get out of the relationship. She had been asking God that if He was real, would He give her strength through the process and He did.
“We talked at the store, split up to do grocery shopping and I was silently asking God to save her throughout that hour. I went back to her house and hung out with her and she told me more about her journey with God. She said she felt lost and confused but wanted to take the next step with God and commit her life to following Him and Jesus being her personal savior. I told her that it takes a simple prayer of just asking Him and inviting Him in because I think she thought there is this official process that she hasn’t “got down” or something. So we prayed together and she said she felt peace like she had not felt in a long time. She started crying when I prayed “Jesus, I pray that she would know that you accept and love her the way she is and no one will ever love her the way that You do.” A lot of people had treated her badly in the last year, and Jesus knew and wanted her to know that she was cherished by Him and His love would carry her through all things. She will also be attending our bible studies on Thursdays to grow in her walk with Christ.”
*From IV staff Amy Schoepf (Drake U): “Hey everyone. We have our first conversion of the year at Drake! YAY! Take a minute to shout or do a little dance or something… So Courtney had been a little bit involved in InterVarsity last Spring—and stayed in touch with some students over the summer. She had connected quite a bit with Atalie—who, if you remember—became a Christian last year. Long story short, Courtney, Atalie, and some other IV girls were over at my house Friday night. We were just hanging out and talking and I don’t know what got into me—I just looked at Courtney and blurted out “When are you going to commit your life to Jesus?”
“She began to cry (woops!) and share about the things that were holding her back. Atalie jumped in and started sharing her testimony and telling Courtney she just needed to “go for it.” Courtney agreed and then Atalie and I led her in prayer to commit her life to Jesus. I could literally see Courtney’s body react to giving her life to Jesus…her physical posture was relief. It was awesome. Then we prayed for her to be “sent” to her friends. Courtney has 3 friends who come to IV stuff with her and they are all culture Christians—probably very little if any relationship with Jesus. She was so excited and I asked her to share her testimony this Wednesday night at our weekly service! :) Pray for her.
“I drove Atalie home later and she was SO EXCITED! She said…”So Amy, that was my first?!! That’s the first person I got to see get saved!” And then explained that she “wanted to do it again!” Haha….ooooh I love it.”
*From Area Director Jon Hietbrink (Central College): “The night got off to a great start, and I felt good about how my talk was going as I headed toward the call. I had planned on inviting people to stand who identified with the younger son (irreligious, shady past, etc.) and the older son (cultural “christians”, pseudo-religious, etc.), and then I had about 15 student leaders/staff ready to follow-up immediately with whoever stood, thinking that maybe 5 or 10 folks might stand (not exactly “more than you could ask or imagine”, huh?!)
To my shock, when I made the call, about 30 people stood up, and instantly, I assumed I just hadn’t made it clear that it was a call for people to “follow Jesus for the first time”…I was later proved wrong! I asked everyone to come up to the front so I could pray for them (while the follow-up folks surrounded them), and then I invited them to break off into pairs/threes to talk about what God was doing and what decisions they had made. Here’s a sampling of the reports from the student leaders…
- Rick — Sort of knows a little about Church but stopped going in high school and has lived with no regard for Jesus since. Wants to follow Jesus but is scared that he wont be able to overcome temptations and not fall away.
- Karen — She said that she has never really been religious and doesn’t know a whole lot about Christianity/following Jesus, but she has been coming to the Calm and Nine and keeps just feeling like its right and keeps getting chills all the time when she’s there :)
- Amelia— She also has never been religious and did mention that she feels like she understands the younger son because she has done things in her past she isn’t proud of. She did however talk about her love for doing service work and helping people, and we talked about how she can continue to do those things and share Jesus’ love with people through it.
- Mia — This was something she was wanting for a while. She’s been looking to talk to someone about this for a while and it was for her tonight. Her legs were shaking the whole night pretty much, and she stood up and they stopped. I feel like I really didn’t say much but God was already doing stuff. She grew up Catholic and has struggled a lot with earning salvation and has come to the realization while here (she transferred) that coming to events and doing church doesn’t result in satisfaction/salvation. I talked with her how it is by grace we are saved- she’s said the prayer before, so we did not do it again- and that it is a gift we can’t earn. She seemed pretty excited about it all. She went for a walk afterwards to just “think.”
There’s more where those came from, but at the end of the day, I think about 14 folks gave their lives to Jesus for the first time and another 10 recommitted their lives to Jesus; 2 more folks said they wanted to explore more in GIGs!
It was unbelievable. I was driving to Iowa City this morning and crying like a baby thinking about how good our God is that he steps into students’ lives like this, and that he gives us the chance to be a part of it.”
