Outreach, Roger Hershey, Adoption, and the Week to Come

This past Saturday night, I was able to participate in my first outreach as an entire project. All 90 of us or so, in our college t-shirts, hit the boardwalk with the intentions of sharing our faith in conversations with random people that we meet. Usually when I share my faith I get really nervous and kind of dread going out, but so far this project I've been out three times, and each time I have found myself really getting joy from these conversations. This particular outreach, the conversations were not that great, but I found myself excited to have the opportunity to share the love of Jesus that has changed my life so much. This has been an answer to prayer for sure, so if you could pray that I would continue to get joy from this and have a desire to share my faith.

Today, we had the awesome privilege to hear Roger Hershey speak twice and also get to spend some time with him. Before church, he talked about being a world Christian no matter what our occupation is or what we do with our life. After church, we all went to play beach volleyball, and the Hersh came with us. Not a big deal. He was actually really good. This is a guy in his 60's playing with a bunch of college students, and he totally held his own. Then at night, he spoke again on discerning God's will. This was really awesome. My roommate and I have processed through a lot of this stuff throughout this past quarter, and it was awesome to hear Biblical confirmation of a lot of the conclusions that we also thought were Biblical.

Right before the Hershinator spoke, we were "adopted" by families in the church that we attend while on project. Basically, this is where the family takes a couple of students on project out for dinner or does laundry. It is really nice of these families to do this and kind of welcome us into the community. Most people have a couple of "brothers" and "sisters" from project, so that they can do everything with the family together. I, on the other hand, am an only child. Yeah. My adopted "father's" name is Arnie, and he is a single man in his 70's probably. He actually is a really awesome guy and we had a nice conversation. I just envision getting dinner with him once a week kind of awkward. But he offered to do all of my laundry for me. I think that will make it all worth it.

This coming week, all of the quarter students have orientation during the day since this is our first full week. During the nights though, our schedule will be pretty consistent for the rest of the trip. Here is what it looks like:

Monday - Large Group Meeting
Tuesday - "Date Night With Jesus" (basically a quiet time for a couple of hours)
Wednesday - Action Group (Bible study with three other guys)
Thursday - Large Group Meeting
Friday - Free Night
Saturday - Outreach (like the one we had last night)
Sunday - Varied

I'm really excited to have structure for this coming week. Being able to do whatever I want this past week was really fun, and it offered a lot of opportunities to hang out with people, but I love structure. I love knowing what's coming next.

I think it will be an awesome week.

Please pray:
- That I won't be anxious or worried about being accepted, but continue to strive for growth in my relationship with Christ and peace to allow the rest to follow.
- That we will see people put their faith in Christ and that He will change hearts
- For opportunities to develop relationships at McDonald's

And please let me know if I can be praying for you in anyway! I really appreciate you all taking the time to read this and pray for me. I honestly believe that it is making a huge difference/