Category: Student Testimonies

I just received an email from Chad Hart­nell, an alum­nus of our min­istry back in Spring­field, who had some very kind words for us. With his per­mis­sion, I share them here:

Con­grat­u­la­tions on the new addi­tion to your fam­i­ly! Melanie and I have enjoyed receiv­ing newslet­ters detail­ing what the Lord is doing on the Stan­ford cam­pus. How excit­ing! I had and have absolute­ly no doubt that the Lord is using you and Paula to accom­plish great things for His king­dom! I also want­ed to under­score how much your and Joe’s lead­er­ship is impact­ing my life right now.

We are blessed to be a part of a won­der­ful church in Tam­pa. Mel and I recent­ly returned from lead­ing a mis­sions trip to South Africa for near­ly three weeks. Melanie admin­is­trat­ed peo­ple’s finances, orga­nized the details, and was the point per­son for the team. She def­i­nite­ly has the spir­i­tu­al gift of admin­is­tra­tion. She did an impec­ca­ble job! Our expe­ri­ence in Chi Alpha mis­sions was the mod­el we used in team prepa­ra­tion. We had 10 peo­ple on our team who ranged from the 20’s to the 60’s. We were all over the gen­er­a­tional map, but we con­nect­ed with each oth­er and with the South Africans in a pow­er­ful way. Thanks to what we expe­ri­enced in Chi Alpha, we were able to lead a mis­sions trip that not only trans­formed peo­ple’s par­a­digm about mis­sions, but also laid a strong foun­da­tion for the church’s mis­sion vision for the future.

I still have the five-fold phi­los­o­phy tat­tooed on my fore­head. In fact, I am observ­ing that many church­es have a dif­fi­cult time keep­ing a bal­ance among all five areas. Lead­er­ship gets excit­ed about one area and for­gets about the oth­er four until peo­ple start feel­ing a void. I know that sea­sons exist that change the bal­ance, but I am still learn­ing what that looks like. “Bal­ance” is prob­a­bly one of the most dif­fi­cult issues in life because it con­stant­ly changes. I think it is eas­i­er to achieve, how­ev­er, if you know what it is you need to bal­ance. Thanks to you and Joe, I know that a church (as well as a cam­pus min­istry) must be found­ed on worship,discipleship, fel­low­ship, prayer, and wit­ness. I just real­ized yes­ter­day why we had the struc­ture in place for Spring Lead­er­ship Retreat. We were plan­ning activ­i­ties around our five-fold phi­los­o­phy to bal­ance our growth in each area. The light came on a lit­tle late, but it makes com­plete sense now. What a great struc­ture!

I put this up not only for the sake of my van­i­ty (although there’s prob­a­bly a lit­tle of that), but also to rein­force the mes­sage I keep repeat­ing: col­lege min­istry is strate­gic min­istry. What we do in these few years with stu­dents shapes the rest of their lives.

To all of those who pray with us and sup­port us finan­cial­ly, I say thank you. And I also say: your part­ner­ship bears fruit both now and for years to come.

One of our alum­ni (Netha­neel Flake) post­ed this to a group dis­cus­sion list and I thought some of you might find it inter­est­ing. To give you con­text, Nate was a lin­guis­tics major who set off for the Ori­ent upon grad­u­at­ing. He had no def­i­nite plans except to prac­tice his lan­guage skills.

For those of you who know me and might be won­der­ing, I’d just like to let you all know what I’ve been up to in the last month.

So, it turns out that after spend­ing a week in Chi­na (Xia­men) mak­ing friends and find­ing a uni­ver­si­ty to spend a semes­ter, I had to return to my Aun­t’s house in Hong Kong to apply for a Chi­nese stu­dent visa. But, while in Hong Kong, I found out my class­mate from my YWAM dis­ci­ple­ship train­ing school in France was in Tai­wan with his Los Ange­les church. They were in des­per­ate need of a trans­la­tor and helper in their sum­mer Eng­lish camp, and I was in des­per­ate need of a place to spend a month, so I came on down. I’ve had such a great expe­ri­ence among these Tai­wanese Chris­tians that I have decid­ed to study here instead of China…also, I need make a bit of dough on the side to pay my bills, and frankly, teach­ing Eng­lish in Chi­na is like work­ing for peanuts.

I feel a lot more at home here at this church than I do at Stan­ford. Peo­ple seem much more coop­er­a­tive than com­pet­i­tive, and work­ing with the kids here has been much more reward­ing than Bayshore (that may be because while at Bayshore I learned a few things about deal­ing with kids from the first day you meet them). I’m real­ly hop­ing I can find ways to have an impact on the kids here of all ages, both in Eng­lish class­es and hope­ful­ly also on pub­lic bas­ket­ball courts. We’ll see what actu­al­ly hap­pens.

I’m very very aware of God’s work in my life right now. All I was hop­ing for dur­ing this six month win­dow was a few friends and if pos­si­ble, con­tact with a church. Now I find myself com­plete­ly immersed in both. Being sur­round­ed by pure-heart­ed Chris­tians with healthy life goals (as opposed to the self-con­cern­ing over­achiev­ing one I’ve devel­oped over the years) has already begun to have its effect on me. I’m excit­ed to know that I will be spend­ing the next 6 months liv­ing in a room at the church/pastor’s house and earn­ing mon­ey by tutor­ing most­ly young adults that I already know and like.

All I have to do is get all the visa paper­work for the uni­ver­si­ty fin­ished by tues­day, fly to Hong Kong, get the new visa, hang out with my friends in Xia­men and then come back here in ear­ly sep­tem­ber (if I come back ear­li­er, my visa will expire before the six months is up).

So, when you think of me, pray that with such a com­pli­cat­ed plan every­thing will fall into place. My biggest fear/lack of faith–going broke–appears to be tak­en care of. Instead of hav­ing to beg peo­ple to help me find a job or let me be their tutor, every­one has come to me and asked. A cou­ple high school stu­dents gath­ered enough of their friends togeth­er and orga­nized their sched­ules so that I can reach my min­i­mum mon­e­tary require­ments teach­ing one Eng­lish class, twice a week.

Well, that’s it. I just want­ed to stay in touch. Write me back when you get a chance, but if you don’t I under­stand. We’re all too busy for our own good, aren’t we?

Your Broth­er in Christ,

–Nate

Get­ting this email was cool for two rea­sons.

1) It was good to hear from Nate.

2) It remind­ed me of our vision all over again. When we touch the cam­pus, we touch the world.

Check it out: our very own Chi Alpha pres­i­dent, Luis Tru­jil­lo, is in the Stan­ford Dai­ly for help­ing to con­struct a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter for abused teens and oth­ers in Guatemala: Class designs facil­i­ty for Guatemalan town.

A Stan­ford archi­tec­ture class is play­ing a vital role in the con­struc­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter and school in Amati­t­lan, Guatemala. Design­ing all aspects of the project — from dor­mi­to­ries to a church and retreat cen­ter — these stu­dents will show their work at a pro­fes­sion­al pre­sen­ta­tion to poten­tial clients and con­trib­u­tors on Mon­day.

The Guatemalan facil­i­ty will be a cam­pus for the Cen­ter for the Restora­tion of Women and the Social­ly Dis­re­gard­ed, also referred to as the CEREM project, after the Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion spon­sor­ing its devel­op­ment. The cen­ter will act as a res­i­den­tial cen­ter and school for home­less chil­dren and for­mer pros­ti­tutes, as well as a church and place of retreat.

…

“One of the amaz­ing things about CEREM is the peo­ple who start­ed it,” said Luis Tru­jil­lo, anoth­er teach­ing assis­tant who is also act­ing as the client rep­re­sen­ta­tive respon­si­ble for com­mu­ni­cat­ing the facility’s needs to stu­dent design­ers. “They have real­ly chal­lenged me to give all that I have. You don’t do this because you feel sor­ry for these peo­ple, but rather you do it out of love for them and the poten­tial that you see in them.”

Luis has actu­al­ly been the key play­er in this thing from start to fin­ish. He’s got a mar­gin­al role in the arti­cle, but Luis is the guy who set the ball in motion, hooked CEREM up with the Stan­ford class, and has gen­er­al­ly been push­ing to make it hap­pen!

Way to go, Luis! We’re proud of you: get­ting a Stan­ford class to design a Chris­t­ian min­istry cen­ter is an awe­some way to lever­age the gifts and oppor­tu­ni­ties God has giv­en you.

UPDATE: there’s anoth­er arti­cle on the Stan­ford web­site that cov­ers the project from a slight­ly dif­fer­ent angle. It also gives Luis a lit­tle more promi­nence (well-deserved, I might add).

“We
are in a real strug­gle for eter­nal souls, and you are liv­ing on the most
fer­tile mis­sion field in the world; the col­lege cam­pus.” I vivid­ly remem­ber
these words from Glen’s ser­mon. They often echo in my heart as the home­work
piles and the semes­ter drones on. This is just one of the many per­spec­tives
I have learned from Glen and Paula.

I came to SMS as a sopho­more, trans­fer­ring from a school
out of state with­out know­ing a sin­gle per­son. In des­per­a­tion I tried to
plug into a min­istry and found myself drawn to Chi Alpha because the
group was pas­sion­ate, per­son­al, and gen­uine. Lat­er I found the group
was a reflec­tion of the lead­er­ship.

Glen and Paula prac­tice what they preach. Their faith­ful­ness
to Jesus Christ and this col­lege min­istry has made Chi Alpha suc­cess­ful
in my life, and in the lives of many oth­er stu­dents as well. Their pas­sion
is con­ta­gious. Maybe even more impor­tant­ly, Glen and Paula believe in
me, a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent. They saw poten­tial in me that I could not see
in myself and dili­gent­ly cul­ti­vat­ed it. They are so approach­able and will­ing
to sac­ri­fice time to pour their lives into stu­dents like me. Their time,
prayers, and encour­age­ment have changed the course of my col­lege career
and min­istry.

Wow!
How can I begin to describe how Chi Alpha has lit­er­al­ly changed my world,
turned it upside down, made me a new per­son! When I came to col­lege my
heart was aching and ready to encounter Jesus Christ, although I didn’t
know it. When I first came to Thurs­day night fel­low­ship, I was uncom­fort­able
and a bit tak­en aback by the atmos­phere. But soon God dis­played His incred­i­bly
amaz­ing love through all of the peo­ple involved at Chi Alpha. I joined
a small group, and in Novem­ber of my fresh­man year, after TNF one night,
I gave my life to Christ. I began an amaz­ing jour­ney into life
with Him. Through Chi Alpha here at SMS I have met two of the most gra­cious,
lov­ing, and influ­en­tial peo­ple in my life, Glen and Paula Davis. Start­ing
my sopho­more year I was just fine, but dur­ing the Christ­mas break I expe­ri­enced
an enor­mous­ly con­fus­ing, depress­ing, and life-chang­ing stage in my Chris­t­ian
walk. I began ques­tion­ing almost every­thing I could make up a ques­tion
for. Dur­ing this time Glen began doing his “Bowl­ing Alley The­olo­gian”
thing, and I start­ed com­ing to talk to him about my ques­tions. I found
that he has abound­ing wis­dom from God, and uses that wis­dom to share God’s
love in a prac­ti­cal way. I dis­cov­ered that he was able to explain things
in ways that I could under­stand, ways that no one else could. And he cared
deeply about me and my life. Because of Glen’s help, I grad­u­al­ly made
my way back to a healthy life of love for Jesus. Last semes­ter I also
began to talk to Glen’s wife, Paula, about oth­er issues I could not talk
to Glen about because he sug­gest­ed she could help me. I am now in my junior
year, and Paula and I have become very close friends too. She has shown
me so much love and appre­ci­a­tion that when­ev­er I need or desire com­fort
and care, I can just seek this awe­some cou­ple out and they let me know
how much Jesus loves me. They dri­ve me to church every Sun­day, take me
out to lunch to talk with me about my life on a reg­u­lar basis, and inspire
me to love peo­ple more. I can­not thank God enough for plant­i­ng Chi Alpha
here at SMS and for plac­ing Glen and Paula here at this time to min­is­ter
to me and the oth­er needy stu­dents on cam­pus.

P.S. Nic­ho­lette has her own blog!

This first time I heard Glen speak was in the fall of 2000. Glen’s mes­sage was about attain­ing a desire for wis­dom. His mes­sage began with a mem­o­rable sto­ry about he and a room­mate acci­den­tal­ly lit his car­pet on fire. This usu­al­ly hap­pens when flam­ma­ble liq­uids and aerosols are sprayed on the car­pets. This thought was for­eign to Glen’s room­mate before he struck the match.

As Glen told his sto­ry, every post-teenage boy in the room, that had ever tak­en a match to aerosol can, played WWF in the back­yard, or licked a pole in win­ter, sat with and atti­tude of under­stand­ing and agree­ment. This was real­ly a fun­ny sto­ry, but the impor­tance was stressed lat­er. Proverb 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the begin­ning of knowl­edge, but fools despise wis­dom and instruc­tion.” Glen has under­stood the val­ue of wis­dom and has been encour­aged to desire Gods wise instruc­tion. This was evi­dent to me, that Thurs­day night a year and half ago, when I heard his mes­sage.

I spent the next month out­lin­ing Solomon’s teach­ings and instruc­tions laid out for his sons. I can say, because of my rela­tion to Glen through his mes­sage, I was encour­aged to learn the Fear of God. Since then I have learned about obe­di­ence, a right behav­ior, patience, humil­i­ty, dili­gence, and above all love.

The
sum­mer before I start­ed col­lege, I was real­ly strug­gling spir­i­tu­al­ly.
A friend told me that I should check out Chi Alpha, so a lit­tle grudg­ing­ly
I went to the first meet­ing. I felt the pres­ence of God in that meet­ing
like I had nev­er before. I decid­ed to get involved in a small group
Bible study and began to let God change things in me. I was tak­en through
sev­er­al dif­fer­ent stages of dis­ci­ple­ship and learned what it meant to
tru­ly wor­ship. God brought me from a luke­warm­ness and cre­at­ed a great
pas­sion in me for see­ing His mes­sage car­ried across our cam­pus and into
the world. Last year I was able to serve as a small group leader and Paula
was my small group coach. She taught me a lot about lead­ing people–being
real with them, meet­ing them where they are at, and grow­ing with them.
I am thank­ful that God put Chi Alpha and all the peo­ple that are a part
of our min­istry in my life. The lessons I have learned in the past three
years have been invalu­able.

Chi Alpha has rocked the very foun­da­tion of my life. 35mm lens on canon dig­i­tal cam­era
It pro­vid­ed an out­let for God to take a pride­ful, back­slid­ing kid who enjoyed
play­ing church and turn him into some­one who is con­stant­ly seek­ing and fol­low­ing
after God. I became a believ­er in high school, but XA is where I learned
to walk the path of the believ­er. The course of my life was changed because
an intern from XA decid­ed to talk to a young, pur­ple-haired, fresh­man while
he was tak­ing a nap out­side. This is my third year in col­lege, and my third
year in XA. Last spring break I had the priv­i­lege to go on a XA mis­sion
trip, led by Glen Davis, to South Beach Mia­mi. A good word to use when describ­ing
Glen is knowl­edge­able. When men­tion­ing him to oth­ers I often say, “If it’s
a book, Glen has read it.” But know­ing about God only takes you so far;
know­ing God is much more impor­tant. Both of these kinds of knowl­edge are
dis­played through Glen. I real­ly saw this dur­ing the mis­sion trip. We did
some wit­ness­ing on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mia­mi. While we were
there, Glen did some open air preach­ing. This was not “hell-fire and brim­stone”
stuff, but the respectable, hon­est address­ing of ques­tions peo­ple had about
Chris­tian­i­ty and Jesus. Not only does an activ­i­ty like this take gall, but
also it takes authen­tic wis­dom to do it effec­tive­ly. Need­less to say, Glen
knows his stuff. But as I men­tioned ear­li­er, knowl­edge about God can only
take you so far. Glen’s knowl­edge of God is dis­played just as much. We did
home­less min­istry in South Beach. We did more than just tell these peo­ple
about God’s love for them; we actu­al­ly demon­strat­ed it in a prac­ti­cal way
(James 2:15–17) by feed­ing them and lis­ten­ing to them. When­ev­er I have a
ques­tion about, gen­er­al­ly any­thing, Glen is almost always the first per­son
I go to. Glen and Paula are both real­ly great, God-fol­low­ing peo­ple. And
I would be say­ing that even if they weren’t let­ting me do my laun­dry at
their home. 🙂

I have been active­ly involved with Chi Alpha over this
past year. My fam­i­ly back­ground is strong­ly Chris­t­ian and I have par­tic­i­pat­ed
in the church for as long as I can remem­ber. But when I came to SMS, I
was in need of more than the typ­i­cal Chris­t­ian sup­port group. God has
done so much in me per­son­al­ly through the stu­dents and the lead­er­ship
of Chi Alpha. My small group has con­nect­ed me close­ly with girls who
have brought me encour­age­ment, account­abil­i­ty, and sup­port. Rela­tion­ships
I have built with stu­dents and men­tors have been a vital part of my spir­i­tu­al
growth through­out this past year. I most recent­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty
to go to Inver­ness, Scot­land, on one of the Chi Alpha mis­sion teams. What
an expe­ri­ence! I was blown away at the things God was doing while we were
there. The high­light of the trip for me was the hon­or of lead­ing a stu­dent
to Jesus…a first for both of us. I have nev­er felt such a free­dom to share
God’s love in such a real and prac­ti­cal way as I did then. That moment
was one of the most pre­cious I have ever expe­ri­enced. My eyes were opened
to how sel­dom I have tak­en the time and ener­gy to invest in those around
me here at the uni­ver­si­ty. I now pur­pose to be inten­tion­al about impact­ing
my cir­cle of influ­ence. Please pray that God would con­tin­ue to use Chi
Alpha and the stu­dents at SMS to make a mark for Christ on the cam­pus.