We Hit the Ground Running!

How Many Surveys?!

This past week, my team spent 4 days on the USP campus during orientation/registration!  During that time we saw the Lord bring in over 1700 surveys from students!  These students received a free gift bag from Student Life and were entered in to win one of 20 8GB flash drives, or 1 of 2 personal video players!

Each day we were joined by students who were leaders in the Student Life ministry here at USP.  It was so fun to get to work alongside these students and see their hearts grow for their peers at USP to come to know the Lord personally!  As the days went by, I found myself carrying my phone around with me because I kept running into students who were so excited to get involved in Student Life!  These were not only 1st year students, but many were continuing students who had not heard of Student Life before. I promised them that I will give them a call this week to let them know when our first meeting will be, and where it will be held!  One of the girls I met told me that she had received a bag from us earlier that week and had watched the Jesus Film DVD that was included in the bag multiple times!  She was really impacted by the movie and excited to become involved in Student Life so she can learn more about this Jesus that she saw depicted in the movie.  I am so excited to see how the Lord is going to equip us with the energy, and more people to follow-up with these students!  But what a great challenge to have :)

Students, D and Joyce helping us draw the 22 winners from the 1700 surveys!

This seemed like a good idea last week....

So after four long, yet incredible days meetings students at orientation, we thought it would be a great idea to invite the girls over for a sleepover before classes start Monday.  We definitely made this decision without realizing how exhausted we would all be by the time Friday rolled around.  But with the Lord's strength we found ourselves running into town to get dinner ingredients, throwing pizza bread in the oven, making coffee, setting out some of the valentines candy I received from my boyfriend, putting out the chocolate chip cookies we made the day before, and straightening up the apartment!  By early evening our house was filled with 6 fijian girls, all eating, checking their facebook pages on our laptops, talking to each other, or taking pictures.  We soon headed out to the pool and played some volleyball, then came back in to play a game together, watch the movie, "A walk to Remember," and hit the sack!  Or so I thought...apparently fijians do not eat a lot of sweets very often, and because of my sweet boyfriends generosity, they were all pretty hyped up on sugar!  Jenny, Kori and I crashed fairly early (1ish), but we later found out that the girls didn't fall asleep until nearly 5:30am!  Let's just say it was a stretching experience that was great in regards to getting to know the students, but definitely pushed the three of us to face cultural barriers head-on!  

 Just a glimpse of what this past Friday night was like in our apartment!

Outreach!

We joined the Yarawa Wesley Church for an outreach they were doing in one of the squatter villages this past Saturday.  It was such a growing experience!  We were split up into groups of 3 or 4.  I was with the student president of Student Life, Mezah, and a secondary school student, John.  We headed out and delivered 8 Jesus Film DVD's to mostly indian families.  To the left is a picture of the street that we walked along.  It was raining and I nearly slipped numerous times as we ventured down steep hills to reach many of the homes.  Wild dogs roamed the streets as we walked up and down the road, occasionally being invited into homes that had next to nothing in them.  Below is a picture of a little girl I had the opportunity to meet.  We were visiting the house next to hers and were about to leave when the little boy whose house we were at told us there is another house on the side of theirs.  I looked over and saw this sweet girl smiling up at us.  I walked over to her, kneeled down to be on her level, and slowly explained who we were, and what the gifts were that we were giving her.  She told me that her parents were not home, but she would tell them about the Jesus Film DVD when they returned.  I asked her if I could have a photo with her and she got a huge smile on her face.  What a sweet experience.  This little girl had hardly anything, and yet she was so happy.  Please pray that she and her parents open up their hearts to Jesus!