Happy Thanksgiving!

I love this holiday! Its the best. I can't wait to be with my family (well, part of it) for more than one day. All of us who live in California are going to my parent's house in Mission Viejo. Anyways, I hope that whatever you're doing, wherever you're going you will have a fabulous holiday! What a special time to remember how many ways God gives to us.

get ready this one's loaded!!

it has been quite the week so far! it is hard to choose a tidbit to share...

let's go with hedrick. last time i wrote about how excited i am about kyrsten and some of the other girls on her floor in Hedrick Hall. well i think God is really answering your prayers, because i have been totally blown away. kyrsten is consistenly so excited and willing to pray for and be intentional with the girls on her floor with me. rachel (one of the girls i've gotten to know) responded SO DIFFERENTLY than i ever thought she would, when i asked if she wanted to read the bible with us: "yeah! i've never read it before. i'm really excited!!" no joke.
kyrsten, liz, rachel, tiffany and i met up tonight with brownies and a bunch of extra bibles in the common room and talked about john 1. the common room was resonating not only with our little group, but also the "Wicked" soundtrack (so fun) and a bunch of people studying. this is so exciting!! i love it. please keep praying for Hedrick 7.

also, tiffany. God is working in Tiffany!!! it feels like dragging through the stickiest of mud sometimes...but then i witness a miracle. and Tiffany sat out on my patio tonight by our fire pit and told me that something is different. she explained that something is definitely different about her than last year, than before May when she told Jesus she believed Him and needed Him. she was basically explaining to me about the spirit of God living inside of her now!!!!!!!!!! i cannot tell you how encouraging this is, after weeks and months and months of very little to no evidence of change. there is change!!! the kingdom of God starts as the smallest of seeds inside a person's heart. as we read through psalm 139 together she was in wonderment of God wanting to know her. his spirit is in her! and i see it. what a gift! please pray for tiffany. what a special girl she is.

sorry, that was two. can't help it.

hedrick

i just got back from a night hanging out in hedrick hall. i love going there! it is always a crazy adventure with bizarre conversations and neither predictable nor appropriate. love it. tonight i was treated to hedrick hall's open mic night, where my ears were assaulted with acoustic versions of "umbrella," "please don't stop the music," and "i kissed a girl." i sang along, for sure(only for the first two, don't be alarmed) :)

well i am excited about kyrsten (on the left). i have known her and been meeting with her off-and-on for about two years, since i first moved to LA and had my other job. she is an RA in hedrick on the 7th floor, and totally has a heart for her floor and her other RA friends who don't know Jesus. we're hoping some of the girls that she and i are friends with on her floor will read the bible (John, most likely) with us. i hope they will! i think they just might. i am so proud of her courage in asking and praying for her friends. obviously we hope they read the bible with us because God's word is ALIVE and WILL have some sort of an effect on them; also it gives me a "reason" to be there (which is necessary as a 25-year old grad of a different college hanging out with freshmen in the dorms). then i can go there as much as i want, and i am totally okay with being the "bible girl." please pray for kyrsten, myself, and HEDRICK 7!!!

sactown

so we're leaving in 3ish hours to road trip to sacramento. i'm excited because ROAD TRIPS ARE THE BEST!! this trip is for our students and all the other campuses in our region (mostly socal), and its a service project weekend. we'll be in inner-city sacramento working for a school/program whose demographics are pretty dismal: around 90% have no father figure and around 60% are not expected to graduate high school. we'll just do whatever projects they ask of us.
we're taking the students on this trip because it will be good to serve together and also because road trips are such a great time of bonding and craziness. yay!
so please pray for us this weekend if you think of it!

the Gospel on a Starbuck's napkin

i have been so delayed in updating this! i feel like i always need pictures for every post, and i never have that many. ok, breaking the chain now.

please pray for Liz!! I am so encouraged right now with how God is working in her heart.
i met her last year as a freshman and was able to read the bible with her for a while with Tiffany, her roommate. Liz had to leave halfway thru the year for medical reasons, but now she is back!!

we have been able to hang out a lot this quarter and i just love getting to know her more. today we met up to read the Bible together and i asked her if i could show her a really simple picture illustration of the Gospel (the "bridge"). she totally tracked with it and was actually really excited about it (the Gospel)!! i am so blown away. sometimes i overlook the obvious, like just laying it out there. God is working here!! It is so clear that He is drawing these students to himself and "waiting on high" to hear from them. i think she is so receptive to a frank and clear presentation of the gospel because she is familiar with Jesus from reading John. she has seen for herself what He is like: how he talks, treats people, what He asks.

Please pray for her!! pray that she would be able to confess to Jesus her need for Him and come into her new life in Him. she didn't want to do this in the moment at Starbucks with me, but privately. she is so funny--she wanted to wait until 11:11 pm tonight since that's her favorite time. :)
please pray that God will make her heart soft to Him and draw her out. she's reading psalm 139 this week to see what it says about her identity and existence.

here is a pic of us trick-or-treating on Halloween:

we heart bruin walk

last week was the first week of classes at UCLA! the first week is so fun because almost everyone in the dorms is feeling social and eager to make new friends. it seems like the only time of the year with this vibe, haha! but my team and i had so much fun taking advantage of it, walking through dorms and making friends with as many people as possible. it is great to make no apologies about who we are and why we're there, and see who is interested in what we're doing.
during the whole week we (the Navs) have a table set up on Bruin Walk, which is the main walkway on campus. this is just another way to help us meet freshman and people who might be interested in coming alongside us in what we're doing on campus. and we met some fabulous people! here is a pic of kelsey, amanda and me with our table. :)

this week we are following up on all the people who were interested in our group, building friendships with them, and in some cases, just trying to actually meet them!

Fall is in the air!

these are my new roommates! joanna is on the left, and katie on the right. these girls are so easy to live with because we get along so well!

well school FINALLY starts this week and tonight we are having a gathering for our returning students. we'll be telling them about changes that are going to be made in the Nav ministry. our campus director wants our focus to be nonChristian students at UCLA--reaching out to them through friendships and even investigative bible studies. i love this! i am so excited for this new year, and can't wait for our students to get on board.

we are aware that the size of our group (and evenmy own group of girls) might diminish since we want to do more here than just be a Christian club, and that is definitely okay.

what an impact we will have here if we even have a handful of students who are committed for their lives to influencing their nonChristian friends/classmates/teammates/co-workers for Christ.

please pray for us tonight!