This morning at my home church, Johnson Ferry Baptist in Marietta, our pastor talked about "mountaintop experiences". We talked about the first 10 verses of Chapter 9 in the Book of Mark when Jesus takes 3 of his disciples on top of a mountain where they see him transform and glow a brighter than white color as Jesus is encouraged by Moses and Elijah. But the essence of the message today was that Jesus gives us this mountain top experiences to give us hope and courage as we come back down off of the "mountain". I was so grateful for God giving me that message as I am coming back from a "mountain top experience" in New York on my mission trip.
One of the parts of the trip that really made an impact on me were the days that we went on to campus to share. I could seriously talk to hours about these 2 days alone, but to spare you the strain of staring at the computer for that long, I'll recap.
The first day, we were broken into groups of 6, 2 guys and 4 girls, with maps of the subway system and stars marking college campuses around the city but no names to specify which campus the star marked. The New York Metro team with Crusade decided to call this game Amazing GRace, a spin off the Amazing Race (haha Get it? It took me a minute...) My group of 6 attempted to get on to 3 campuses before we were successful before finding where the students were. Since these colleges and universities are mixed into the city, you have to have an ID to even get into any of the buildings on campus. We were tired, wet, and frustrated by the time that we got to NYU! A sophomore at Georgia, Michelle Taylor and myself decided to fit in time to talk to one girl on NYU's campus.
But the next day is what really made an impact on my heart. After the day of the Amazing GRace, the Metro team assigned us campuses that they had had success getting on to. We were given a packet of 50 pictures along with questions. If you've heard me talk about my mission trip to DC last Spring Break, than I have probably talked about "Soularium". It never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to open up if you just ask about them--people love to talk about themselves. We would explain that we were working with a ministry and that we were students from Georgia that were on campus for the day and we were doing a survey to find out more about the spiritual climate on their campus. The Metro team would enter the results, but the main purpose in this survey was to get conversations started that would prayerfully be pointed to a conversation about our beliefs and their salvation.
Our group of 6 went to Medgar Evars College, a historically black college outside of Brooklyn. Needless to say, we stuck out quite a bit!! haha But thank goodness, some of the first people we ran into were some of the leaders of their Campus Crusade group!! We met them and we asked how they knew that we were with Crusade....but it was kind of obvious with a clump of 6 white kids walking around. It helped that we could start any conversation with people laughing by saying "We don't go to school here, can you tell?" Most everyone we said that to got a little
chuckle from that! The students with Crusade pointed us to where students might be and that they would be praying for our time on campus (they had been told that we were coming ahead of time, so that was super helpful!) The first and third conversations that Michelle and I had with students were discouraging to say the least. The first guy talked about how he completely discounted the Bible and the all of the stories were exaggerated "fairy tales" that man had made up to make us feel like we had a purpose in our lives. The third girl talked a lot about her "spirituality"....Michelle and I talked later about how being spiritual is a very "in" word these days. It was apparent that this girl built herself up in being spiritual, not religious and she took pride in seeing herself as having "completed her journey of spirituality". It breaks my heart that people can find so much faith in themselves when we are so sinful and flawed.Andrew and Tyron were the two conversations that Michelle and I left encouraged though. With both of them, we talked about religion versus relationship and how God desires to have a relationship with you. We talked a lot about the different ways of viewing God--a Father, a friend, how He romances us, and so many more--but through all of those, He is consitant and that He is love. I wish I could describe each of these conversations in full detail, but we left each Andrew and Tyron "Knowing God Personally" tracts (I have mixed feelings towards tracts, but I really felt like they served their purpose in these situations when Michelle and I didn't have time to explain salvation or the words that they needed to hear and think over after we left.) Please be praying for both Andrew and Tyron!!
And one final funny story that happened while we were at Medgar Evars was awkward at the time, but hilarious to laugh at later...So, Michelle and I were talking to Andrew and this other guy comes up and starts muttering. My initial thought was that he knew Andrew. But then he says something that sounded like "I have a question." Michelle and I both thought that this was great, thinking that he overheard our conversation with Andrew and had a question about our faith--sadly, we were mistaken. Other kid, never caught his name, turns around and leaves after we tried to ask him what his question was. A couple of minutes later, the same guy comes back, says he has a question again. He looks at me and says: "My friend over there likes you and wants to know how long you'll be here for."
Me: "Excuse me?"
Michelle: "Oh, we're on our Spring Break, so just until Friday."
Random guy: "Uhhhhhh, well......he really likes you. He's just shy. So if I gave you his phone number, would you call him?"
Me: "I'm sorry, what?"
Random guy: "Ya know, he just likes you. Thinks you're pretty and all. So would you call him?"
Me: "No, I'm not really looking for anything like that right now....no relationship or anything."
Random guy: "No, no. He just wants to be your friend. That's right, um, just your friend. So you're only staying until Friday? You couldn't stay longer."
Michelle: "We're kind of in the middle of something. I'm really sorry, she's not interested. But have a good day!"
Talk about awkward interruption in the middle of sharing the Gospel....hilarious to think about later and to tell everyone after the fact. I have definitely never been hit on by a random guy while sharing my faith before--and hope to never encounter that again! Notice that he said that his "friend" (I saw no friend near by) liked me, not thought I was pretty, cute, whatever word you choose when hitting on someone, but liked me...even though we'd never talked before. We all just thought the best part was that we were all pretty sure that we had experienced a conversation similar to that in middle school...Oh middle school. lol
Apart from random guy, the whole experience on Medgar Evars really encouraged me to have conversations asking questions like I did during Soularium with my friends. Sharing my faith with others on this trip reminded me how little I do that when I am on campus or with friends at school and how easy it was; knowing that all of the good that was said had nothing to do with me, but was wholly the Holy Spirit speaking through me. I encourage each of you, and myself, in asking questions of your friends that can help direct the conversation towards Christ and his love.
Keep checking, because like I said in my last post, I hope to blog once a day so I can tell you as much as possible about my trip!! :)
1 comment:
haha...wish I could have been there to experience the whole random guy hitting on you...sounds awkward and hilarious! lol
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