I can honestly say that I am not the same person I was just 2 months ago. God has been doing so much craziness in my life lately it has been a sprint to keep up with it all. This all started when I went on a trip to Florida for my spring break. I went to a conference called Big Break. It was a Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) conference and we were there to learn how to share our faith and start spiritual conversations. This was a crazy experience, and even though I am not the biggest fan of contact style evangelism, I learned so much and gained so much confidence. There were a few things that happened on this trip that really stood out to me. One is that it really broke my heart for the lost. Some of our group would go out at night on the streets of panama city beach and just walk around, seeing what opportunities God brought our way. Sometimes we didn't encounter much, but often we were giving the chance to just love on people, and occasionally have a conversation. These night time happenings really opened my eyes to how much we as humanity need God, and how we often try to fill his place in our lives with things that will never fully satisfy us. I remember after an extremely crazy night I went back and just prayed to God that he would use me, that he would put me to work to help others get to know him, and that he would show me the area and way he wants me to do this.
Now here is the thing about all this... God ANSWERS prayers :)
One of the first doubts that came over me was that I didn't have enough knowledge to help people. I wasn't raised in the church, and have only very recently accepted Jesus as the savior of my life. The very last night of the trip a group of us went down to the hot tub and were talking about the amazing things that we have witnessed that week. I also began talking about how all of this was to somebody who didn't grow up in the church. Eventually I asked a question that had been bugging me for a while. During many of the talks at the conference the speaker mentioned Paul. I had no clue who this guy was, and he was brought up so often. I ended up asking the blunt question "Who the heck is Paul by the way? Is he a big deal or something" Ha. The look on their faces were priceless. My friend Will and Nate just kinda looked at me for a while until Will said.. "Yeah, he's a pretty big deal" Matt's response was also interesting when he said "You mean nobody has told you?" But it was true. I had been to a few women's bible studies at tech, but most of them were at a pretty deep level and assumed that you knew most of the basic information. I never quite understood what was being talked about, and it wasn't long before I had stopped going. This is when the idea was proposed for a beginners' bible study. A study that would go back to the basics, it would be targeted toward new believers, or even those who are just seeking. Right away Will had the feeling that God may want him to lead this bible study, but asked time to pray about it. There were also a lot of logistical things that had to happen for this to be an official Cru bible study. We had to go through leadership and get it approved, find a location and time, and probably what we saw as the biggest challenge, finding people who would want to attend besides me. The next day we had a 24 hour van trip back to the U.P of Michigan, and I think that trip really sealed the deal that this is something that we were going to do! We were discussing how new believers when we started talking about the old "Sunday school" bible stories. When they found out that these were something I hadn't heard before, we did something awesome. Hey, we were going to be stuck in this van for 24 hours, lets actually read them! Pretty much the whole van got out bibles and we read aloud stories like Daniel and the lion's den, David and Goliath and many others! It was so awesome and time just flew by. Before we knew it we had been reading for around 5 hours straight. I was getting super excited because I had never heard these stories before, and they were getting excited too, suggesting what good ones to read next and enjoying hearing them again for it had been a while. I also read Acts, and learned more about Paul and where he fit into everything. By the time it had gotten dark and we put the bibles away Will told me that this bible study was going to happen, and that he would lead it even if I was the only person that showed up. We were on. It was awesome. I asked God to use me for something, and suddenly the next day I am helping start a bible study!?! woah, so cool :) I think only God can use somebody's lack of knowledge about him for his glory.
So what happened when we got back to Michigan? Well we got approval from Cru leadership to start this bible study! We actually had a lot of people who were interested in leading it. Will became the official leader and we picked the name "Fledglings of Faith" based on Isaiah 40:29-31.
One of my biggest fears was that we wouldn't be able to find people interested in coming, but God handled that! We actually had a new face every single week, and at one point 8 people. The awesome thing was that these new faces were not a part of Cru. We had even more interested, but time conflicts came up a lot in the last 5 weeks of school. Classes are over now and people are heading home, but this is definitely continuing next year. I would have never thought in a million years that I would be co-leading a bible study, but hey, I asked God to use me and look at what he has been doing :) so cool!
So like I said, these last few months have been absolutely crazy and God has been doing so much. In addition to the bible study, there had been amazing conversations almost every single night, including conversations with people who wanted to learn more about having a personal relationship with God! I have learned so much from an information standpoint, and have also grown much more in my relationship as well. It's been an awesome ride, and i'm not getting off anytime soon :)
So yep, that's what has been going on in my life and why I haven't gotten around to posting. Now that the summer is here I am planning on taking some time to really focus on my health and fitness. :) So more posts are coming!
~ With love,
Sarah
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