Oh the Places You’ll Go
It’s my favourite Dr. Seuss book, and I have fond memories of one of my first events as a student in the Ryerson IVCF community had Jess, the Campus Minister at the time read this story to the graduating class. I always planned on doing something like that when we had a big graduating class, and this year we themed our Year End Party around this Seuss book. With bright decorations, nostalgic games and themed food we celebrated a full year of ministry with friends new and old. I widely announced to the community what’s coming up for me, and ended the party with a reading of Oh the Places You’ll Go.
Oh the Places You’ll Go
Forgiveness
RA is a dynamo! She is full of vision, leadership and wisdom. This year has been a tough year for her, she’s had a number of health issues and has had a number of issues emerge for the students in her care in residence. One such incident with a residence student triggered a traumatic event from her past, and she was caught in a hard place between caring for this student and being filled with anger at the incident and what it brought up in her. When she told me this story, she said, “I’m trying really hard to love this student but I HATE him, I really really hate him for what he’s done.” Just after our last meeting as a leadership team, she felt prompted to go talk to this student. She planned to let him know how he’s been out of line and all the pain he’s caused other people. She knocks on his door, and is completely disarmed when he starts crying. He confides in her that his mother passed away in the last month and he hadn’t been dealing with it well, and all his problematic behaviour was his way of not dealing with his grief. Now as all this is transpiring, RA is talking to Jesus, she’s annoyed because she knows He wants her to minister to this student and care for him in his grief because she’s been through similar experiences of losing someone close to her AND also knows how to distract herself with self-destructive behaviours instead of dealing with her grief. She knows that God wanted her to forgive this student and love him, not scold him as she had planned to do. She felt her anger melt away as she heard more of his story, and she was able to offer him words of hope and encouragement coming from her own experiences. She told her boss after this encounter happened, and her boss waxed poetic about how great she was for using her experiences to help and heal others, and she quickly asserted, “No, this is God teaching me about forgiveness.”
Students reaching Students for Christ
Often when I raise support, I invite people to help me reach students as they reach other students for Christ. This year moreso than any of my other years on staff it’s been clear to me that every single person who’s come to an outreach event, potluck or bible study has done so because of a relationship with someone in our community.
It’s been thrilling to come alongside my students as they boldly reach their peers and share the hope they have in their life.
“You spend a lot of time with these people,” is how a conversation started with AP and her coworker N started. For N, an international Masters student taking 3 courses and working 2 jobs; she couldn’t understand why AP would spend so much of the time she could be working on her thesis, on campus with this community. And so, rather than tell N all the reasons why she chooses to invest in this community, she invites her to come to dinner with us. And then she invites her to come to other outreach events we’re hosting. And then, this summer she’ll invite her to be part of a seeker study with some of their other coworkers.
When I think about the odd community of leaders I had serving alongside me this year, I’m struck at how they are remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. Did I lose you?
Here’s what I mean, each of the student leaders are involved in significant relationships with people outside of our community. RA as an RA in residence, Patchy in a large but intimate engineering program, AP with her Masters professor and colleagues, Dumplings with her Nutrition and Cooking Group friends and Swift, Pink and Beaker with their friends in classes and from high school. If I were to take a poll, none of them would say they have the gift of evangelism, but each in their own way have witnessed to those around them the redeeming work of Christ in their lives in ways that are both remarkable and seemingly unremarkable, as it just flows out of their lived experiences.
Each one has shared about this mysterious and intriguing campus group they serve with, and each one has come around as a community to love and care for each other’s friends.
X is a student who is friends with Patchy. He came to our last 2 events in the fall semester, and turned up at a bible study this February. The study was led by AP, and ended up being a space where X was able to ask his big questions about Christianity. AP then gave him her copy of a new seeker series we are launching designed by Becky Pippert. A few weeks after this study, RA went on a 2 hour walk with X to debrief his experience. She was able to hear his experiences, answer his questions and encourage him to keep asking questions and seeking to understand Christ. X is still on a journey of discovering Christ, but he now knows there’s a community that wants to journey with him.
The Arch 