Coming into university there was no 'Christian' club in place, and so I wondered if I would ever meet friends or other Christians at the school. During orientation I met Jon and instantly knew that he loved Jesus. We became friends after that and as our friendship grew, so did my faith in Jesus and my walk with God. In May of 2014 my best friend gave her heart to Jesus and I know that that was only because of my not giving up on my faith or getting lost in university, but rather because I had met Jonathan and got plugged into another church with young adults on fire for God.
So over these last two years of school, a lot has happened. In first year, I was only involved with the pen-pal program and I didn't get involved in anything else really that happened on campus. This year however, was different. This year, Jon and I and our friends Cece and David who had just come into first year at Trent, all decided that we would start a Christian club for our campus. We started this a little late in the game, with no experience, so this entire school year was essentially a trial run for us. And it could not have been more successful, for the time we had to plan and prepare. This year, our group grew from just four (technically five) members, to over 40 members. We knew that there was an urgent need for a group on our campus for fellow believers to come together. and we knew that we wanted to be a light on our campus, not just by preaching about Jesus, but by serving our school and showing love through our everyday interactions with our fellow students.
For the first semester of this 2014-15 year, we held a movie night. I am sure that a lot of you heard about this event through social media, as we created YouTube videos and advertisements on all the outlets that were accessible to us. Our movie night showcased the film GOD'S NOT DEAD. First of all, I just have to say how incredible it is to live in a country where we can watch movies like this, and second of all, how wonderful it is to have a university who allows us to show movies like this on our campus. We are also so blessed to go to a school that is so open and welcoming to people with different beliefs. This movie night was a huge success (for our first ever event!!), as we had about 30 people show up. However, with this event we did decide to invite people from outside of our campus such as our friends and family, so we noticed that a lot of the people that came were not actually from Trent. But, the following week, we held a mini event called Coffee&Cookies (C&C). At that event, we had about 15 people come in for an hour to play games and enjoy a snack. It was so nice to connect with those people, because they were all from our actual school and we were able to provide them with a stress-free, pressure-free environment right before exams.
Then for this past semester, we planned an event called Triple G: God, Games & Guacamole. This event was for our school alone with just a few other students from Durham / UOIT. Triple G was a such a hit! At this event, we had a guest speaker come in, a good friend of the OCC (Oshawa Community Church) family, Nate Harper. Our event was a campus wide scavenger hunt that included not only items to collect but activities to do. Everyone really loved it and it was sweet to see students interacting with other students they hadn't even met before. After the scavenger hunt, Nate gave us a word about doubting and faith and the role that Jesus has on it all. It was such a good message, that I believe a lot of the students needed to hear. After Nate spoke, we then had a ton of food (pizza, nachos w/ guacamole etc & donuts) and we all played a bunch of board games. At Triple G we had again 30 people there but 90% of them were from our school!
It has been such a wonderful experience being on this team of people who are passionate about people and reaching those who are lost in our school. On Valentine's Day week we also had a booth where we gave away goodie bags with chocolate & candy in them, along with a slip of paper that had a verse on them {We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19}. We also held mini prayer sessions once a week for the entire second semester where, the two girls (Cecilia&I) led one week starting with an ice breaker game, and the two boys (Jon&David) led the following week.
For myself, this year leading with DOC has taught me that not everything is about me and that when you put God first and at the centre of all you do, then He will bless your efforts. Something that is absolutely incredible about how God will use you if you are willing to answer the call is, after one of our events, a friend of ours got saved. We knew there was a calling by God for us to start this group, and so our DOC team prays intentionally before every event and at all our planning meetings and prayer sessions for God to use us and work through us so that things like this can happen. Our hope and prayer is to see a revival in our school of lost people coming to know the Lord. After our Triple G event and the message that was shared, our friend Nash decided that he wanted to come to our youth/young adult night at OCC the following day. Then, while he was there, HE GAVE HIS HEART TO JESUS. Man, I just cannot express how exciting it is when things like this happen, we rejoice and all of heaven rejoices. God is just so darn good, lemme tell ya.
So yeah, it has been so incredible to be a part of a group that God is using on our campus. God has been stretching me, molding me and revealing things to me (and I know to the others as well) through this whole process of being an executive for a club and a leader in my school. I cannot wait to see what He does with us and through us next year.
With Him at the centre, we are ready for anything.
in omnia paratus
