New Student Outreach

The Fredonia semester begins tomorrow and returning students (with a few new ones) started the semester with a Old-Timers meeting.  Here we announced to more of the chapter our renewed vision and some of the ways we hope to see the students and faculty transformed, the campus renewed, and world changers developed.  While we are still adjusting to the many chances and not quite ready to take huge risks in every area, the changes are coming through.
The first three weeks of the semester are NSO: New Student Outreach.  Through a wide variety of events, we hope to connect with many freshmen and transfers to get them involved in our chapter.  So far we've done a carwash to raise some of the funds we need for events like the BBQ on Saturday, the picnic and bonfires this weekend, and others.
Please be praying for the chapter members as they sacrifice their time and effort towards this vision to connect with the new students and to work towards the new vision of InterVarsity.

Also, Kathryn is almost at the goal of having 70% of her funds so she can begin on campus.  If you are interested in donating please contact her at Kathryn_Pilgrim@ivstaff.org or click the button on the side.  As an answer to prayer, she does now have office space.

Healing

Over six years ago, I lay in my freshman dorm room trying to go to sleep at midnight.  My heart felt like it was racing and I had limited strength despite the fact I had not done anything except sit and walk to two doors to the bathroom for over an hour.  After a few hours, I got up and drove myself to the hospital.  I was sick of not knowing what made it so I could so easily lose energy as this pulsing went through my body.  Unfortunately it took until the summer for me to learn what I had: a hiatal hernia.

This is the one kind of hernia that does not require surgery soon after discovery.  I have no idea what caused my hernia as none of the frequent causes made sense to me, but I still remember looking at the picture that the doctor took of my stomach skin in my esophagus.  For the next few years I paid close attention to what I ate, what exercise I did and the time of day, the kind of music I listened to, and my stress level.  All of these things could set my hernia off to a long, painful, pulse that knocked the energy out of me.  Most of the time I could monitor it before it got too bad, but a few times it took me out for 24 hours or more. 

I hated having to ask my friends to turn the bass down in their car so I could make it to the destination safely, or to step out of worship cause I couldn't handle the drum or the bass guitar.  During my summer jobs, I would sometimes need to rest away from the music or from the stresses, but if I could feel any vibration in my room (like from the lathe making a baseball bat next door), it was almost worse than pushing through.  It was worse when I was in Australia, having to bike 2km home at 3pm right before taking my next pill in my 3 a day sequence and I remember a few times that I had to just rest with a friend nearby in case it got worse.  Thankfully, even on the day I couldn't walk to the dining hall but had to cruise downhill I was still able to keep pushing on.  

Lately, I've been getting more frustrated with having the hernia and needing to so carefully watch everything I did.  I mean I ate most things still and it wasn't an obvious problem, but the mental energy it took to consider if I could do something was hard.  And as I joined InterVarsity, I've been in more places where the worship music is louder and more bassy so I hated having to step out.  I knew it wasn't going to go away in time and it would be around for my lifetime unless...

See I have a God who works miracles and many coworkers who believe in His power.  While I was at Orientation for New Staff with over 130 of my new coworkers, I finally hit my breaking point.  If I really trusted that God could heal why didn't I ask Him too.  Sure I had prayed to Him about it before, but I had never truly believed He could do it. And I was still trusting in my own strength, plus I did like being able to use it as a true reason to take a break from an exhausting job.  Again I was laying on my bed finishing up some time talking to God when I realized that it was time to move on from this controlling so much of my life.  I wanted the freedom to exercise whenever I wanted to, to worship with my coworkers and others in InterVarsity, and to eat without the fear of losing energy.  I knew that IV always provides a prayer room during conferences so I went up to meet with one of the guys in my small group up there.  It was going to take more than just me to pray for healing for this, but it was time. 

Three of us gathered together, with my hand over the hernia knot in my chest and their hands on my back.  We prayed passionately with trust that God could heal.  We prayed that He would chose to heal me so that I could better serve Him and not have this concern anymore.  As we prayed for the knot to be released I felt it moving around in my body.  It was such a strange feeling, but I knew God was working.  That day He healed my hernia and I had it confirmed by a doctor a few weeks later who angrily stated "I don't see anything here at all, who said you had a hernia."  

Today, as I relaxed on my couch I could be thankful that I did not have the pulsing state in my chest.  Yes I could feel my heart beat and yes the pounding of the roofer above my head still annoyed me and yes I still have stomach issues that limit my ability to eat everything.  But I learned that I can rejoice that my God is now in control of when I need to rest and my stress level, not part of my stomach where it doesn't belong.  I am free to worship Him without fear now.  

Regional Staff Conference and almost able to start

I (Kathryn) just returned from five days with the NY/NJ staff members.  While there we were reminded of the needed changes required to reach the 1.4 million students in the region.  Fredonia learned at Basileia that many changes were needed in our chapter to reach the campus effectively and to build an ethnically diverse witnessing community.
My track taught us how to lead change, through the many stages and years it takes.  I have been reenergized to change the campus and see the extreme urgency.  The plans the student leaders and I designed in May have been adapted and modified to better fit the needs for this coming year.  Many things are changing from last year impacting our prayer, worship, small groups, large groups, outreach, and leadership program.  Yes, this is almost everything that InterVarsity focuses on.
While I am ready to see these changes implemented, I'm reminded that I am not yet on campus.  At this point, with one week before students arrive to start our carwash fundraiser and just days before the Resident Assistants and International students arrive, I need an additional $3,000 to start.  This would get me to the needed 70% to begin working on campus, helping the students to cast the vision and implement the revised changes.  So for anyone thinking or praying about starting to financially support the ministry of InterVarsity at Fredonia, I invite you to begin now.  Your contribution would impact the success of the changes for this year and the years to come.  Please consider starting today!
To support the ministry of InterVarsity through Kathryn, please visit https://donate.intervarsity.org/donate/to/kathryn_pilgrim

Four Weeks to go!

The small group leader books have been ordered, the first two months of Large Group speakers are planned, and the New Student Outreach events are organized...the semester is coming soon.  While many changes are going to happen this year, we are prepared to make the switches to help the chapter work towards the vision.  We want to see students and faculty transformed, the campus renewed, and world-changers developed.  By revising and adding new things to our chapter, we trust that this will be a life changing event with leaders being developed through it all to impact the world.  Please join us in prayer as we continue to prepare and as the semester starts.  We're trusting God and seeking His will in everything we do.

Crossing that line

Yesterday as I enjoyed a picnic in the park with the kids playing basketball, hanging out on the swing set, and discussing politics and sports at the pavilion, I got a taste of what others lives are like.  See I've been in groups where we have done these things many times, but yesterday was the first time that someone (neighborhood watch) felt the need to watch us.  Everything was normal and like every other time at the park, except we were in a multiethnic group.  I was one of two whites there.  

In the last few weeks, specifically from ONS on, I've been much more aware of my own ethnicity in addition to others.  The feelings of disconnect when I spend significant periods of time with other races became something that I learned they experience on a much more regular basis.  Any time a cultural boundary is crossed some disconnect at the experience is felt, it is our choice on how we want to respond to it.  I realized that it is my responsibility if I truly desire to be part of a multiethnic world where these picnics and many other similar activities with people from all walks of life participate, I will need to take the steps to cross that boundary.  It is not enough to just be close to people of other cultures, I need to talk to them, listen to them, care about them.  School is multiethnic, youth ministry at church is multicultural, and InterVarsity should also be an ethnically diverse witnessing community.  Yes, it will make me and others uncomfortable, particularly whites who have never felt this before.  But  the end result is worth it and it allows us to have a taste both of what minorities feel on a regular basis and glimpse what heaven will be like when all people of all nations gather to worship God.  This is something I desire to be apart of and I am working to continue to build the bridge to real relationships, across the boundaries of race, age, ethnicity, culture, socio-economic status, and location.  I want the next time I desire to go shoot baskets with one of the students, to just be nervous about my ability to make the baskets so I don't look like a fool: nothing else.  This is worth the work. 

AIDS Kits = World Changer Developed: Danielle's Story

                  My last semester at SUNY Fredonia proved to be a time of growth. To start off the year, I went to Urbana; this is a mission’s conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Urbana is where you can take classes about evangelism or growing in your faith, hear testimonies from missionaries, study the book of Luke, and have a chance to sign up for missions trips. This is where all 16,000 participants did “A Join In” where we made 32,000 Caregiver Kits with World Vision. These kits go to people who help those with AIDS in third world nations. Before we made the kits, they showed us videos of people that use the kits or the people that they help. It was moving to see the videos and the impact that the kits have. We could sense the power of the experience ourselves when we made the kits later that night. Making the kits in Urbana inspired me to want to bring the kit build back to Fredonia. After mentioning this to Kathryn,  who was joining as staff but not on campus yet, she encouraged me that I should organize it back at Fredonia. 

            The time between Urbana and the start of classes was when planning began. I never planned something like this before so it was scary for me. The AIDS Caregiver Kit section of the World Vision website was helpful in the organizing process; they had a series of charts and other useful information to get you started. During this time was the service trip; where Fredonia IVCF members go to back to Fredonia a week early and volunteer at local service organizations. Since we were all staying together at a church, we also shared meals and testimonies. Those that went to Urbana spoke about its impact and encouraged others to help with the kit build on campus.  A few more people agreed to help with the kit build.

            Once classes started, there was a lot of work to do. I tried to have weekly meetings with my group to plan and delegate tasks. We tried several things to raise money; we had a spaghetti dinner to involve the community, we worked with Residence Life to raise money by saying we will pie the RA that gets the most money in their jar, and working with the rest of campus by saying we will Pie the President if we raise a certain amount of money. Some of the events were more successful than others; this showed me the importance of putting up fliers early and spreading it by word of mouth. Our school president was a good sport and had the idea to have us to surprise pie her on campus. She definitely was surprised after her lunch meeting and I think that those that were watching were too.  You can watch the pieing here: Pie Dr. Horvath Finally, we had the kit build on campus. Unfortunately, some of those that wanted to come were unable to; however, there were about fourteen of us that made sixty kits. One of the Fredonia InterVarsity chapter leaders also worked for the campus TV station and made a news story about the event.

            Overall, this experience taught me a few things. First of all, it is OK to delegate tasks; people want to help and do not mind if you offer things that they can help with. Second, I learned who you ask when you want to hold events on campus etc. Third, I learned how carefully I need to plan for things to make sure they are set up. Finally, I learned that it is not as scary as I thought to plan things. I did not have to know everything and I could ask others questions or for advice. Also, God was faithful to make everything work out even though I was scared and inexperienced.

Note: Danielle graduated in 2013 with a Video Production major and is heading out as a World Changer.  

Summer Newsletter

The Summer newsletter has been mailed: electronically a few days ago and print versions today.  If you would like to sign up for the electronic one (which also includes the prayer newsletters) please go to http://eepurl.com/u4enz The most recent one can be found at here.  More stories will be added to this blog shortly.