Our Evergreen Valley College team has had a tough road this summer. Despite their best efforts, the campus at EVC just doesn't have enough summer school students to get anything going. This is one of those little facts that would've been important to know when we were planning this thing out. Oops. Anyway, we're calling an audible and sending them to San Jose City College instead.The San Jose State University team is finding things a bit smoother than EVC, but there aren't that many students taking summer school on this campus, either. This school normally has an enrollment of over 25k students, but apparently none of them take summer school. Okay, that's an exaggeration. There are tons of incoming freshmen here for orientation, but we just haven't figured out a way to get in on that. We're going to evaluate at the end of the week.
Things are going off like gangbusters at DeAnza College, though. There is so much going on over there that I can hardly believe that this is the Bay Area...the soil is supposed to be hard here, no? While I normally have no problems stealing other people's stories, I'll just refer you to Aaron Truong's blog so you can read it from his perspective (look for his entries in July). Aaron is a Project student and part of the DeAnza team. God is using that team in some really incredible ways. Even though Aaron is young in his faith (we're talking became-a-Christian-in-April kind of young), he's full of boldness and has some great stories...even though he's a punk kid sometimes. Aaron, if you read this, know that I mean that in the best, big-brother kind of way. :)
Carita, Gordon, and I went to City College with the team this week. The three of us set up a prayer table while the rest of the team did the Graffiti board thing. The problem was that we had a sign about the size of a CD jewel case and NOBODY was bothering to stop and read our pathetic excuse for a sign, much less ask for prayer. Overwhelmed by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, our little trio strikes out in different directions with the intention of giving away the Acts of Love pins.I see this Hispanic girl sitting under a tree. I approach her and ask if she's interested in hearing about this new campaign that we're doing. She agrees, tells me her name is Elizabeth. I tell her about the campaign, she responds positively to it and says she'll do something "loving" today. I fish for something to say and just throw out that the idea is to do something nice to someone you don't normally love on...meaning that your boyfriend or sister doesn't count. She's kinda surprised by this and asks, "Do people really go for this?". Apparently, she has trouble with the concept of people being able to actually love someone they just met. So we talk a bit more and I start to wonder how to end this conversation, as she seems to be less and less interested. After a moment of Napoleon-Dynamite-awkward silence, I tell her that it was nice talking to her and say my goodbye.
As I'm walking away, I am confronted with the realization that I was actually quite lame in how I handled that. So I go back to her and ask her if she knows that, even though she doesn't believe that people can love their enemies as themselves, this is in fact the very thing that Jesus did by dying on the Cross for her? Her face goes from annoyance to genuine curiosity in a matter of moments. I share the 4 Laws with her and she, in turn, shares at various points the reason why she's sitting under a tree today. Turns out that she's a single mom, recovering alcoholic, and that she was doing her Alcoholics Anonymous homework and trying to write down her thoughts about God. I asked if she minded showing me what she had so far and she shows me a blank sheet of paper. She laughs and tells me that it is hard for her to have specific thoughts on God because He's so distant. At the end, I point her to the prayer on the back and ask her if she'd like to pray that prayer. She did and prayed silently for forgiveness of her sins and thanked Christ for His work on the Cross.
Here's what else struck me (besides that fact that she placed her faith in Christ) about that: This is the type of student that would never be able to go to our meetings, retreats, and summer projects. I come from a "Big Movement" background and I know that you don't build big movements with single moms who are recovering alcoholics. In the paradigm that I'm used to, I can say objectively that while she has tremendous value to God (her value was worth His Son, afterall), she does not have that much value to my movement. Gosh, Dennis, when you put it that way you actually make it sound bad. Whatever. I think God can and does use big movements to impact people (my own life is a testimony to that), but Elizabeth doesn't fit that grid. But can she still be a light to her community, to her friends and family? If she were to be empowered and released, could she impact people and places even on the City College campus that I'd never get to? You bet and I pray that she does.
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