This past thursday my team and I threw together a last minute first-year student outreach. We bought some prizes and gifts for the students and set up a giant Jenga game in the middle of a popular part of campus. To be honest, I was feeling pessimistic about this outreach because we had not done much planning or preparation and had no idea who would even show up. We just prayed that God would bring the right people to meet us.. that His hand would be over our outreach
and would provide us with opportunities to glorify Him that day.
Well God showed up. Its amazing what a ridiculous-looking game of Giant Jenga can do to bring a crowd of people together! At times there would be 50 students gathered around to watch all the blocks come tumbling down. We invited students to join in on the game (which was the whole point of us playing it) and there was much fun had by all. I personally was able to have some really good conversations with women standing around... I'll tell you one quick story:
One girl came and sat just about as close to me as you could possibly be.. which was a little odd because there were PLENTY of other seats on the large bench in the area. I knew that God placed her next to me for a reason, so I talked with her. Its amazing how easy it is to get into spiritual conversation-- All I had to do was ask her what she studied and when she reciprocated the question I answered that I'm not actually a student. She then asked me why I was here and what student life is all about and BAM! It's as simple as telling her we're a Christian group on campus, and we want to get to know Griffith students and what they think about Christian things... "I'm interested, what's been your experience with Christianity?"
She was FULL of questions! I found out that she calls herself "orthodox", which meant that she's been baptized as a baby and thats about it. She never goes to church and believes that there is a God out there. Long story short... She stayed and was engaged in deep conversation for over 2 hours!! I look forward to meeting up with her soon and being able to answer more of her questions. I think we're going to go through a 6-week "Christianity Explained" course to get into who Jesus is and WHY He is the central figure of the Christian faith.
Here's some more photos of "Giant Jenga". The guys especially got really into it :)
It was such an encouraging day and my team and I were completely in awe of God... that He used our last-minute outreach for His glory. He showed us that we had NO control over who would show up or how "well" it would go, and that all we have to do is take steps of faith and leave the results up to Him.
Praise God!!
"You of little faith...why do you doubt?" -Jesus (Matthew 14:31)
