Working with University Students

We have really loved going to the university and getting to know students. We also love working with the couple from Cru and two of our seminary students to do this. It's always more fun and rewarding to work with others.

We've been working a booth in the lobby of the department we're focusing on each week. We've been able to make lots of contacts and have some initial spiritual conversations. We invite all of the students to come to our movie outreach, "Curtas com sentido" (short films with meaning).

All of the films have spiritual undertones and are designed to promote deeper conversations. If you want to check out some of the films, you can find them at http://www.globalshortfilmnetwork.com/.

We've had three weeks so far and two more to go. We watch a film, take a break for coffee (and to allow students to slip out if they want), divide into groups to discuss the film. Then we watch a second movie and discuss it as well. The whole thing lasts about an hour. The first week 15 students came, the second week 7 came, and the third week 12 came. Each week we had some new students. Every week, I've had opportunities to share Bible stories, my testimony, and even one week the gospel.

After this movie group, we're hoping to movie into a discussion about Jesus and the parables. We'll move from watching movies to hearing amazing stories. We'll then divide into groups and discuss the parables. Pray students will make this transition with us. That they will be willing to move from general spiritual discussions to discussing Jesus and the Bible.

We also try to do a monthly party or something fun so that students who are not yet willing to come to our group but are still wanting to get to know us and what we're about have a chance to do so. Last night we had a light dinner and carved pumpkins. None of the students had done this before. We had 5 students join us for this. We had a blast.

And Eliana had her first chance to dress up for Halloween (we didn't do anything for it last year). She was a forest fairy, so Jonathan went as a tree and I went as a flower. We made our costumes that morning. Yea for figuring out something last minute. And a shoutout goes to Mimi for randomly sending a fairy costume.

Check out pictures from the movie events and our Halloween party below: