Hi friends! It's hard to believe that college is pretty much over for me. The last four years have gone by so fast and have been some of the greatest years of my life!
Coming to college I thought I had the whole Christian life figured out. I went to church, believed in God, and was always known as the "good Christian girl." God wasn't satisfied with me being just that though. Thankfully! Starting with my first painful break up at the beginning of college, Jesus began to break me, mold me, and pursue my heart. I was desperately lost and searching for something more in my life. In walks a girl, I will call her Dawn, into my life. (Ironic that this Dawn was the beginning of my new life in Christ as dawn is the beginning of the day). What a pairing we were; a friendship definitely from God! So much alike it was scary at times! Through this friendship I was shown what a true relationship with Jesus looked like. I learned that my worth was in God, not earthly men and that God's love for me was incomprehensible! What joy I was finding in my Lord!
Dawn was just the beginning of many, many friendships with others in The Navigators, who showed me what it meant to be a brother or sister in Christ. The Navigators quickly became my community of believers in Manhattan. I was in a freshman Bible study with other freshman girls and went to NAVnites every week. I started reading my Bible on a semi-regular basis and learned a lot about Jesus. Then, in the middle of my sophomore year, God decided to shake my world again. The leaders of the then Navigators decided that their vision was aligning more with a ministry called Student Mobilization, so they were going to start a ministry on campus for them. So what did this mean for all of us?
This could be an entire new post, which bits may come out later, but heres the shorthand version. We had to chose: to follow the leaders to this new ministry or be one of the students who tried to rebuild The Navigators on campus with the help of staff from another campus. After prayer and a lot of discussion, I was the only girl from my Bible study and one of the few in my group of friends who decided to continue with the "new" NAVS. This was a difficult decision for me because if you know me, I don't like to do things alone. One of the deciding factors of this decision, however, was that I felt a calling to, as an upper classman, start to take a leadership role and become a Bible study leader myself, which was a non-existent opportunity if I stayed with the leaders. I still remember the first meeting of the "new" NAVS: a few gathered in a small room in our union, two guys and their acoustic guitars; worship started and in flooded people! When we expected maybe 15-20 people, we had about 100! It was a great, overwhelming feeling that maybe, just maybe, we could survive on campus in our ministry!
Fast forward a lot of growth of me and the ministry, a lot of traveling of staff, and a lot of emotions (also part of the long version of the story) to today. I've been co-leading a Bible study of AMAZING girls for two years. For real, they are wonderful and bring a lot of joy to my life. I'm sure you will hear a lot about them over the next year. We now have full time staff who started this year and they are great as well! Our ministry has grown to be a community of grace and a great place for fellowship. Seriously, I love this group of people!
As many of you know I am now going on staff with The Navigators next year. So why am I going on staff, besides the fact that these people are great?! What brought me to this point? Good questions! I honestly had never been "an EdgeCorps" type of person. I never thought it was for me, until...I was sitting in a senior breakfast at one of our conferences last semester and God put a brochure in front of me and told me "Check this out. What are you doing next year?" (Through many painful experiences, I have learned that when God speaks I should probably obey). So, for the next several months I prayed about applying and I attended a conference specifically about this opportunity, all the while without mentioning it to many people. This conference was an emotional roller coaster because I heard God calling me to this opportunity, but I knew that my parentals would be less than enthused about me not using my degree for a year. At one point during the weekend, a staff member I was having a conversation with point blank told me "we need someone like you." Really, God?! Okay, okay I'll apply.
Throughout the entire application process (which happened to be about a 25 page application when finished), I kept my parents updated on what I was doing and prayed that God would work in their hearts. The conversations that came in those months were some of the greatest spiritual conversations I have had with them, and God definitely has changed their hearts to become supportive of my decision to go on staff with The Navigators. Praise Jesus!!
That is the how, so back to the why. I was a Resident Assistant in the residence halls on campus for two years. During those two years I encountered a lot of brokenness in the students: addictions, abuse, severe homesickness, depression, cutting, suicidal thoughts, and pregnancy just to name a few. Because of my job, I was unable to truly reach these students to show them who could give them a new life and hope.So without a title of having to befriend them, I want to be able to hang out with these people, love them for who they are, and show them the hope and love that comes in knowing Jesus! A verse that God has shown me, in the last month especially, is Isaiah 42: 6-7:
"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."
This is why I want to be on staff with The Navigators. To show this campus that Jesus loves them deeper than we can ever fathom. You should also check out the song "God of this City" by Chris Tomlin. It's a good motivational song for the next year!
In closing, (I know, finally!), I am creating this blog in order to keep people updated on my journey this next year as I encounter the students on campus, encounter the Spirit, and encounter opposing forces Face2Face. I am excited to see where Jesus takes me and the people I will meet and I fully trust that he will provide for me everything I need for next year!!
P.S. Ask me about how you can pray or support me for next year. And thank you for reading this incredibly looooong blog post. I will try to keep them shorter from now on. Congrats if you made it all the way through!
