Preparing to leave

I leave in 23 days! I cannot believe it! Our team last week had our CCP (Cross Cultural Project) retreat in order to prepare us for the 8 week summer opportunity we have been given. Our team consists of 11 girls and 9 guys. We all have spent the summer together in the past during the Orlando Project where we were trained and equipped on how to share the gospel. This summer our team will be going to Johannesburg, South Africa teaming up with another Campus Outreach (CO Johannesburg) and sharing the sweet news of the Gospel with students on the campus of Witswatersrand (if you don't want a mouthful you can call it Wits). Be praying that our team is able to be well prepared and able to grow closer in the midst of a gracious environment.

Our CCP team

On the other hand my Junior year at Indiana State is coming to a close (despite the overwhelming amount of work). Never-the-less God will not rest until He has seen me conformed to the image of his son (Romans 8:29). This week God has fed me with the promise that He does not love me because I am lovable (my sin has hidden his face from me Isaiah 59:2) He loves me THOUGH I am unlovable (through his Son's death I am counted as clean). One of the clearest portrayals of this picture is something I read in 2 Samuel 9:7-8 as David is showing kindness to Mophibosheth (don't ask me to pronounce that) only through Jonathan's work even though a cripple would never eat at the same table of a king in David's time. His only response is humility; he cannot be prideful for he did not do anything nor did he even deserve to be near the king. God is truly gracious!

Finally, I want to share with you a student I have been trying to share the gospel with. Joey is a freshman who is about a foot shorter than I and half my weight. We most frequently talk when he and I are playing basketball. Yesterday Joey and I got on a conversation on why he has been going to 858 (our weekly meeting) even though he is an agnostic. He simply explained that he enjoyed the people and it was something to do. I continued to ask about his life and then circled back around to the gospel in order to ask what his opinions were of the talks about 858 (up until then the majority of the talks were evangelically based). He told me that he doesn't really like to talk about "politics" and so we left it there. Please pray that God puts a drive in his heart that He will ask me to tell him the Gospel (not that I am ashamed but in order that his ears will be opened). I trust that you will cling to Ephesians 3:20 with me as we pray for him.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or do

 according to the power at work within us"

Ephesians 3:20