The past 2 years of my life have been an absolute roller coaster. Not your typical coaster that ends in 30 seconds and is a nonstop heart attack inducing good time. My roller coaster started with loops and then for a year it was all about patience. There were a few jumps here and there, but mostly pretty quiet. Then over the past semester it has been nothing but insanity. But now it's over. It's come to a close. It's a bittersweet feeling. I've posted about this in snippets before in previous blogs, but let me tell you the full story of Unite.
I have been the student president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for the past 2 years, and it has been one of the best experiences of my life so far. I owe so much of what I've done so far to the amazing friends I've made, the organization overall, and my advisor (and former coach). Two years ago I was sitting in Starbucks and I was writing in a random notebook I found. I was trying to organize my thoughts about what awesome things we could do at FCA over the coming year. I was thinking about doing some kind of collaborative service or something with another ministry, but I couldn't make it work in my head. After all, ministries don't mingle with one another. It'd be weird! We never really associate outside of our ministries so we definitely won't as ministries. Then God smacked me in the head with what would be the biggest undertaking of my life. He said to me "Why not? Why can't you work together? What is so wrong with that idea?" To which I thought and thought, and then decided that I have no idea. We're all Christians, we're all Christ-centered. Why can't we work together? Being a marine biology major, I often put things in science terms that I can understand. So I broke down our campus and its ministries like this:
In an ecosystem every organisms occupies a certain role, their niche. All of these organisms together make up a functioning, healthy ecosystem. This is how I viewed our ministries at Southern Miss. Each ministry was a different organism in our ecosystem. The Catholic Student Association caters to Catholic students, FCA to athletes, BSU to Baptists, Wesley Foundation to Methodists and so on. Each of these ministries exists to pour into the students on our campus that shares their beliefs. I get that. I have absolutely no problem with campus ministries. Like I said, I've been helping lead one for 2 years. What I thought needed to happen was that we needed to work together to reach our campus more effectively. If we unite to move forward for Christ and reach all of these students, then they can be funneled back into these ministries based on their beliefs! Each student could go to the group they feel the most comfortable so they could learn and grown in their faith with others just like them! It isn't a competition between ministries! So, after getting advice from some amazing people I moved on with the idea.
We have gone above and beyond what I thought we would accomplish with this. I formed a student council of student leadership from all of these ministries. We've helped each other, prayed for each other, and worked with each other. It's been amazing. However, this past semester is where we really got into what God laid on my heart in Starbucks that day. I wanted to show our campus that we could worship together and stand together united, hence the night of worship we did last night called Unite.
Again, if you've read some of my previous blogs you know we've encountered some difficulties along the way but we finally got there and had Unite last night. It was incredible. The worship was awe inspiring, the fellowship incredible, the receptiveness to the idea overall? I was absolutely floored. I had my doubts along the way (like I've said before, I get caught up in the planning pretty easily) but it finally happened. the most amazing thing to me personally was not the night itself or the people or anything like that. The most amazing thing to me was God. God laid this vision on my heart 2 years ago and He followed through. He guided me through all sorts of things to get to this point. To do what I needed to do in my mission field. He had a plan for me and He helped me accomplish it. I'm not sure if you've ever had this feeling before, where you know for a fact that what you just did is what God had been planning for you to do for so long. But let me tell you, it is the most amazing feeling ever. I've prayed to be used by God for something, anything ever since high school. Yesterday I knew that He had. There were several times where I felt like I was forcing the event for me rather than for God. I would pray for Him to show me that this was something HE wanted instead of what WE wanted. I was fully prepared to put this in the hands of the next generation if it wasn't time yet. To just cancel it and keep building up a base for others to come along and complete this vision. But God kept giving me signs that this is what He wanted and when He wanted it. And we obeyed.
We sang, we prayed, and we United. We got out there on the lawn we had picked as our venue and laid it all out for God. Someone came up to me afterward and told me that their Saudi Arabian friend who wasn't really into Christianity showed up and saw us worshipping. Apparently after he saw us worshipping and praying he told his friend that he wanted a Bible. I didn't need to hear anything else after that. I knew that this event was at least for him and that it was worth every hardship we faced so that, that exchange student would decide that he wanted to know about God. If for nothing else, Unite was about that Saudi Arabian student.
I am so thankful for the people who volunteered so much of their time to make this happen. For all the people who gave advice and support along the way. But I am just as thankful to God for letting me be a part of this vision. For laying it on my heart, and for letting me see it through to the end. My prayer is that this is just the beginning for Southern Miss. That in a couple years I'll come back and find that my entirely university has been radically changed by God. I think it's gonna happen sooner than we all think.
I hope everyone reading this is having an EXCELLENT day. I know I'm feeling pretty good.
