Onward and Outward

As we march into March (I'm funny I know), our ministry is gearing up for a season of witness to our campus. Every year as we get past the spring break, the visibility we have on campus goes way up, and that is due to what we have going on. Easter is less than a month away, and as such, the amount we are talking about our Lord is on the rise. The build up to Easter is not the only thing going on this month, so here is more of what we experienced in March.

The month was relatively business as usual for the first week. Like I mentioned last month, we were still dealing with the theft and vandalism of our advertising signs, but that has largely subsided over the course of the month. It was still a bit of a stressor, but with great gladness I can say we haven't dealt with a theft since the students went on break! I pray this trend continues! 

Into the next week, we geared up for our first SICM fundraiser! SICM is the student institute of campus ministry, which takes place up in Bellingham, WA. This obviously isn't the easiest thing to afford (especially with the cost of airfare right now, so for some of the students we mobilize our ministry to help them raise the funds. Our first fundraiser was for two students who both needed about half of the cost covered! We were luckily able to raise $1092 for them, which covers a little more than that for both of them! It was a wonderful showing of generosity from our students! One of the beneficiaries of this fundraiser is a student named Changhee. Changhee is from Korea, and due to the rules there around mandatory military service, he is a bit older than most of the other undergraduates around him. He got involved with our ministry at the start of the year, and has been such a mature and sweet presence in his small group. We are really excited for him to go on this trip and for him to get equipped with more tools for leading in our ministry!

The big thing this month was our Spring Outreach Week. When we got back from spring break, we had some students from Western Washington University fly down to help us with an outreach initiative on our campus. This itself is cool fruit that has come from us attending SICM in their back yard, and developing a relationship with the ministry (CCF) that exists up there. Everyday that first week back, we were on campus from 10-3 meeting students and asking questions. We had all of our days linked around the theme of God being a healer. We had awesome participation from the student body, and were able to meet and get a bunch of new people plugged in, even this late in the school year! This is a huge encouragement as this same week last year was not nearly as successful. Praise God that it looks like the COVID culture is still leaving our campus! 

(Outreach crew from Tuesday who asked people how they see themselves)

(Outreach on Wednesday)

(Kelse and I on a hike during Spring Break)