Epic Bay Area Project 2006 - End

July 22 - End of the Line

Well, the students (except for Kelvin, who apparently can't get enough of us) and staff are gone now. Carita and I leave tomorrow morning. As I reflect on what has transpired these last 5 weeks, I am amazed at how refreshed I personally feel. I've lead other Projects before and each time, at the very end, I distinctly recall feeling exhausted. It's a good kind of exhaustion that comes with knowing you ran hard and you crossed the finish line...but it's still exhaustion. Not this time...strange. Really must be a supernatural God-thing.

This has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me. I think that, at every turn, God met our Project in special ways. For all of the moments when I agonized PRIOR to Project over having a small team, I don't recall thinking that thought even once since this began. In fact, at our closing banquet last night, what came up over and over again is how perfectly balanced our Project was. As staff, we all were blown away by how open, teachable, and incredibly endearing each of the students were. To think, I was actually ready to cancel the Project in late May (even had an email typed out to let all of the staff know).

We didn't emphasize stats very prominently, mostly because we wanted the Project to maintain the idea that what we were about these last few weeks is meant to fit into a greater context of what God is doing here, through the SF Metro Ministry and others. If we aim to be organic in our methods, we also need to know that night always comes and even the farmer has to go to sleep and trust that his crops will still grow. Likewise for us as leave this place. We did track some things, though.

We ministered on 5 different campuses in the Bay Area. For our 4 weeks on campus, our team of 17 (not counting Angela, who stayed back to care for the kids, or Keoke, who didn't turn any stats in...:) had over 260 conversations with Gospel content. We had 130 separate conversations that included the "whole" Gospel up to the point where the listener decides one way or the other. We saw 13 students trust Christ. What about those tricky G3s? We saw 3 of them start up and, hopefully, laid the groundwork for more to come. While I'm not a huge "stats" guy, I can draw encouragement from knowing that these numbers back up what I have already been feeling, namely that God's faithful hand has guided us. We celebrate the stories and people behind the numbers (and even the ones the numbers don't reflect), but we also give thanks for what is measurable, too, and celebrate all of it together. Here, at the very end, Zechariah 4:10 seems really appropriate, for it says:

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin..."