Launch Week in Arkansas

This is a bit of a longer post but I hope that you will enjoy it. Our team from St. Louis joined 10 CCC staff from AR, LA and TX to help launch campuses in the state of Arkansas last week. Our efforts were concentrated on five campuses--the University of Arkansas Little Rock, University of Arkansas Pine Pluff, Univeristy of Central Arkansas, Arkansas State University at Beebe, and Arkansas Tech. We head out to these launch weeks not knowing what to expect and have the great privilege of seeing God work in mighty ways.

This is part of our on-going vision to launch movements of students and community volunteers who will help put the gospel within arm's reach of every college student on an annual basis. Our excitement to initiate this launch week was enhanced by a great staff couple, Doug and Becca Phillips, who will be moving from Houston to Little Rock to start a CCC staff team who will follow up our efforts last week.

Start with this video if you want. It is a great recap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKw-ixzons&feature=email#

Here are a few of the stories from the Launch Week:

From ASUB--The context is important--this is a community college where one of the majors literally is John Deere Mechanics. Our table from which we would meet students was in the free speech area which was strategically placed outside (in 40 degree weather) out of the primary walkways of campus. Our team also reported that the pizza that the school served was "the worst pizza ever known to man." They wanted me to include that in my report!

In two days, our group met about 100 students through distribution of Freshman Survival Kits and other surveys. It was through one of these surveys that Stefan and Beth met Travis, an ASUB student on Monday. On Tuesday, Stefan met with him to encourage Travis to start a small group at ASUB and to give him some training. Remarkably, Stefan boldly asked Travis to start the small group on the next day (Wednesday)!

Travis agreed and sent this email at the end of the week. I have not edited the email at all.

Stefan

"It was amazing. wednesday we had 7 people show up, friday we had 10, and 3 went to both, so a total of 15 for the first week. i meant to call you today and tell you how it went, but things got kinda busy. i have 4 or 5 people who can't do the wednesday/friday thing so we might be starting a 3rd on thursday. the BCM here at ASUB is praying for the CCC, and hoping that it will be a hit. please keep praying that God will give me the right words to say and that i have the wisdom to help as He sees fit. i talked to cassie today, and we may start tag-teaming it, i think that may work better. and thank you so much for coming to our campus.i didn't tell you this, but i prayed sunday night that God would do something to help me get closer to Him, and the very next morning i was with some friends at some distant part of the campus i've never been before when someone handed me that flier to the lunch meeting. I probably would have never even saw it if it weren't for that...now God is all I can think about, and it amazing. so thank you."

You'll meet Rachel from the University of Central Arkansas on the video, so I will just let you watch that amazing story of God working in her heart at precisely the same time He was working in our hearts to go to campus. If I can't get the video to load, let me just give you a brief version. She went to Moody, but felt God calling her to come back to school at her home in central Arkansas. It was a big decision made by prayer and fasting. Just last week, she was driving around her campus praying for her fellow students. God brought to mind a story that she had heard of CCC's founder, Bill Bright, weeping over cards of people who had indicated an interest on a particular campus where CCC did not have enough resources to adequetely follow them up. Then, the very next week CCC shows up with people saying, "Let's trust God to reach this campus!" She was thrilled and God's timing was perfect as always!

Another other fun story was running into a "Campus Crusade for Christ" group at UCA. Seriously, we had no idea. Apparently, they didn't realize that Campus Crusade was already a national ministry to college students. Several years back, some UCA students organized an outreach event that now draws about 1,000 college students. After listening to this explanation of "Campus Crusade for Christ," Tim Dorsch explained our heart to launch movements of students who follow Jesus. It sounds like a budding partnership is forming with "Campus Crusade for Christ!"

At the University of Arkansas--Little Rock, we met Danielle. Danielle started her college career in Fayetteville where there is a vibrant CCC group. She grew in that environment and was disappointed to learn that CCC didn't have a group at UALR. So, when we showed up--her excitement level was HIGH! She offered to join us for our prayer times and wanted to get the paperwork done so we could become a recognized student group.

At the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, staff members Justin and Doug met Bruce--a track athlete and a punt returner and wide receiver on the football team. (BTW, Bruce was his conference's Newcomer of the Year in 2007!) Justin and Doug shared the gospel and encouraged Bruce during their time on campus. Justin explained to Bruce how much others need to hear about Jesus and pointed to Bruce's influence on the football and track teams. Justin said, "Bruce looked me in the eye and said that he was going to trust God to give him the opportunity to share the gospel with ever person on his track team this semester."

I was encouraged by the minister (Steven) at the Baptist Collegiate Ministries noon lunch on Wednesday. He said, "No one has the brains to change a man’s heart--that is God's work." He is exactly right. We look forward to working in cooperation with other believers like Steven as we trust God to build disciples on campuses around the world.

We will see what fruit is still remaining 6-12 months from now, but this was an exceptional week!