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A New Openness
Something is different this year. We are hearing more statements like this from a first-year student at a welcome week yard games party: “In high school, religion wasn’t important to me. But in this last year with Covid and everything, I’ve gotten really into theology and learning about God online and with YouTube videos. Now I’m looking to really grow my faith in college.”
At a home football tailgate, where we gave out 1000 free hot dogs, a student asked one of our staff, “Are you a Christian group? Cool! I set goals for the year for a class I’m in, and one of my goals is to grow more spiritually.”
God is using this new openness, along with our staff and student-leaders’ faithfulness, to lead to life-changing decisions. 15 students have indicated decisions for Christ in these first few weeks!
Of course not every student responds positively. We still often hear “I’m not interested,” and “I’m too busy.” But God is drawing many students to himself, and many are beginning to walk with Him right now at the beginning of their time in college.
A couple weeks ago, we started our Monday afternoon outreach time with prayer, reflecting on Ezekiel 36:26:
“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Later that afternoon, Cru intern Hope met with a new student. The student said she pursued spiritual things in high school but did not know clearly what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus. Hope shared the gospel with the student, and she prayed, deciding to place her faith in Christ!
When Hope came and told the rest of us staff about the student’s decision, we realized that God was having some fun answering our prayers from earlier because the student’s name was Diamond! He was changing a student’s heart of stone (like that of a diamond!) into a heart of flesh. He is putting a new Spirit within many students this school year. Thank you for the part you play in this work of God!
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