What’s Next?!?!

It’s exciting but also challenging to figure out what God wants to do next on the campus. We are moving into a time of praying, visioning, and planning for the spring semester. I am working alongside the staff team and vision team (6 senior student leaders) to plan the next semester out within the next few weeks.

Please pray for:
- God’s vision and voice as we pray together
- Good partnership and communication with one another
- We would be able to better serve, challenge, and reach students on campus in our plans for next semester

“Love as a Lifestyle”

What is true love? How would you define love? What does love look like? What kind of things do you love? Is love eternal?

Some of these questions may be easy for you to answer, some may be hard, and others may take some time to think of the perfect answer. On Thursday Oct.8 we set out to ask Sonoma State students these questions. As we asked students to write on a heart their answer, we were able to ask them more and more of these questions.

I met Andrea within the first 10 minutes I was out there. She was quick to want to answer our question and took some time to think about it. As we sat there together while she wrote on her heart I began talking about how I would define love. Jesus is love and Jesus is an example of someone who can love eternally. She had grown up Catholic but was interested in talking more about Jesus’ character and how he loved others. Please pray for Andrea as we try to meet to talk more about how Jesus can impact her life now.

During the evening some of these questions were answered by Kevin Finkbiner, associate pastor at a local church and IVCF staff alum. Students heard about Jesus’ love and how Jesus loves each student in the room. It was amazing to see so many new students engaging with Jesus! Including a student I met that evening, Esteban who now wants to start going to a bible study.

Please praise God with us for what happened during the day:

•Over 30 people prayed from 9am-9pm

•We talked to over 160 people about true love

•We gave out 400 flyers for the evening event

•Over 200 students attended Thurs. night

•5 people raised their hand and another 5 responded on card saying they were making a first time commitment to follow Jesus

•All 10 people are already being followed up with by our student follow-up team

Please be praying for:

•Continual follow up with the students that said yes to Jesus for the first time

•For our student leaders to keep taking risks

•That bible studies would continue to reach out to their dorm community

•That I would be able to keep connecting with Andrea and Esteban

Bible Study Outreach

From Oct.4-7 during the evenings, we had all the bible studies come together and play games, eat food, and meet new students in the dorm communities. On Thursday Oct.8 we were putting on a big outreach and spent that week meeting and inviting new students to come out. I was able to attend the outreach happening on Wednesday night that we held in the upper classroom dorm community. Over 30 students came out including some new faces- Amanda, TK, Jeff, Jake, Matt, and Ken.



Amanda saw a bunch of people out in the quad and came to find out what was going on. She walked right up and started fitting in. She was talking, playing games, laughing, and getting to know other students in the area. This was not something she had anticipated on that evening but was so glad she came over to see what was going on. At the end of the night, she gave her phone number to the bible study leader and wanted to get involved with everything they were doing! Praise God that Amanda was able to connect with some Christians in her community.

As we were setting up for the outreach there were 5 guys playing football in the quad we were in. After some time one of the IVCF leaders went out to invite them over to hang out with us. When they finished playing football they did come over to drink some root beer (we played root beer pong) and eat cookies. During that time we got into some great spiritual conversations with all of them. Matt even asked us, “Is it hard being a Christian in this area?”

The conversations continued on for awhile and at the end of the night they had planned on coming to our outreach talk the following night on Thursday. Although they did not come to the outreach on Thursday they did tell us that they play football every night out there. We are planning to go out again to play football and get a chance to talk more. Please pray that we would continue to have good spiritual conversations with TK, Jeff, Jake, Matt, and Ken.

Priscilla and Ali

Priscilla, a sophomore, came to our BBQ during the second week of school. She started going to a bible study and came to Nexus on Thursday night. On Oct.1 Priscilla brought a friend, Ali. Ali came to Nexus because one of her class assignments was to go somewhere that she would feel uncomfortable at. She felt like going to Nexus would be a place that she would feel most uncomfortable. Although Ali did feel uncomfortable during the night she still said, “I really connected to what the speaker was saying and wanted to respond.” She didn’t respond that night but responded by coming back the next week, Oct. 8. Not because she had to for a class assignment but because she wanted to come back!

Please pray for Ali as she starts meeting with Heather (senior student leader on the vision team) and Priscilla to talk more about God in a GIG (Group Investigating God)!!!

Life Celebrations!!!

There has been a lot of joy and excitement going on with ministry at Sonoma State. There have also been some things to celebrate in our personal life. Matthew and I on Oct. 6 celebrated our 2^nd wedding anniversary! We had a fabulous time getting away to San Francisco for a couple of days. On Oct. 14 we welcomed our little nephew, Caleb Edward, into the world. My sister Rebekah and her husband Daniel had their first baby. We were also excited to sign another one year lease at our apartment complex in Rohnert Park. It is good to be close to campus, friends, and have a place to host others. Thank you for all of your support, not only in the work God is doing on campus at Sonoma State, but also in our lives!