We had 48 staff and students attend!!!
For 28 hours students were invited to walk in the shoes of people in Santa Rosa that are poor and homeless. Throughout the weekend different students lead the group through service opportunities, experiential simulations, scripture, and next steps. There was an overwhelming response of humility, eyes opening, hearts breaking, and a much needed response to, "Go and do likewise." Just like Jesus talks about in the story of the Samaritan, these students learned more about what it means to be a neighbor. Already students have returned to the areas where they met homeless men and women to continue building their relationships. Students are praying more specifically because they know the specific needs of those in Santa Rosa. And students have been sharing their experience and testimony with their friends who did not go. As we talked about from studying Isaiah 58, we want to be people that make this a lifestyle choice not just one day out of the year.

Pray for these students to continue to open their eyes and allow their hearts to break for God's children. Would they continue to respond in both word and deed. Take a look at some pictures from the weekend of students both participating and fully leading the whole weekend!

Incarnational Community

Part of IVCF's purpose is to advance on the campus as witnessing communities. We have been talking with students about what this can look like. As the student leadership team prayed and visioned during winter break I asked them how they wanted to define themselves as a witnessing community. They want to mark themselves as a community that goes out to the campus and does not wait for students to come to IVCF. As one student said, "The new in is going out." This semester has been figuring out what it looks like to be an Incarnational Community! There have been numerous ways that students have been trying to do this on campus.

James and the Free Lunch Campaign

• James, one of our seniors, started an evangelistic outreach called the Free Lunch Campaign. Students and staff offer to buy any interested student lunch in exchange for one spiritual conversation. The intent is not on-the-spot conversion, but the beginning of a relationship and a good conversation about Jesus and the gospel.
• I participated the first week and within minutes we sat down to have lunch with Johnnie, a "nominal Christian" and a Muslim student named Rasheed. Since then, I have been able to have great conversations with Rasheed and introduce him to other Middle Eastern students. He was so excited to speak his native language, Arabic, for the very first time on campus when I introduced him to some men from Saudia Arabia.
• Pray that I would continue to know how to talk with and share the gospel of Jesus to a Muslim student.
  

Kayla (pictured on the left) and the Free Thinkers

• Recently a Free Thinkers (read "atheist") Club was started at SSU. When Kayla, one of our juniors, saw this on the social networking site Facebook, she contacted the club's founder and asked if he was interesting in talking about the Lord. He agreed and now the club meets weekly with her and another IV student to wrestle through their questions.

Jeremiah, the Praying CSA

• Jeremiah is a community service advisor in charge of one of the upperclassmen dorms. In addition to his regular duties of shutting down parties and mediating roommate disputes, he has begun to organize weekly prayer walks in his dorm area. Every Friday, students gather lift up their peers to the Lord. That is caring for the dorm!

Conversation Partners with International Students

• Many students and staff have been regularly meeting with International students to help them with their English. Very quickly though the conversations have moved to talking about faith. Pray that students would be able to communicate their faith across cultural barriers.

TACO Night! (Talking About Christ Openly)

• What better way to engage students in talking about Jesus then over a good dinner?! That's exactly what a group of students did! Taylor (sophomore leader), Chelsea (junior leader), and Jessica (senior leader) have started gathering students who have questions about Jesus and want to talk openly with others about it in a non-threatening setting. (Taylor and Chelsea pictured to the left)
  
• The first TACO night there were 6 non-Christians there who had questions, thoughts, and were open to studying the Bible! Pray that these conversations would continue even outside TACO night and that they would invite their friends to the next one!
  

Stepping Into Spring

We started this spring semester by getting the word out about IVCF on campus and about the slave trade going on related to chocolate. 70% of the chocolate made is by slaves! We had a petition for students to sign that would encourage food venues on campus to only sell Free Trade chocolate. We had samples of the chocolate for students to taste as well. This gave us an opportunity to talk longer with students about their own faith background, but it also showed students that God cares about the oppressed. And that we as Christians are not going to just stand by and watch, but are on the front end to bringing about change!

As we were tabling a few students walked by saying, "I can't believe it's the Christians that are talking about this stuff!" Pray that IVCF students would continue to step out on campus and fight against the injustices of our world.