The month of January brought about a time of reflection in our lives and the annual winter conference allowed us to reconnect with students that we met on our summer project this past year.
Jenny was one of the five girls that I had the opportunity to meet and disciple. Jenny had just finished her sophomore year at a university out east where she spent the past two years desperately seeking for love from men and an escape from the pain of her family life.
She shared with me the shame she carried around with her and the emptiness she felt. Jenny told me that she had come on summer project to get her life turned around and did not desire to make friends with any of the “boring Christians girls who stay at home and watch Disney movies all night.” She did not have the stomach for what she saw as mainstream Christianity.
But God was at work and had much more than a self-help summer in mind for her. The very next day she shared her life story with her roommates and the pain and shame she had been experiencing.
I wish you could have been there to see the incredible work the Lord did in her life and is continuing to complete! Her heart slowly turned toward the Lord, she let Him come in, heal, love and tell Jenny of her great value. She let others into her life and the Lord grew her heart for the lost. She relied on the Holy Spirit to overcome fear and the result was two of her coworkers coming to Christ.
When Jenny returned to college this fall, she started a Bible study that eight of her friends, most of whom were either seeking or dissatisfied in their relationship with God, attended. Since that time one of them has trusted Christ for salvation. Jenny has also gone back to Santa Cruz for a week to continue to encourage and build up her friends that came to Christ over the summer. The Lord is doing incredible things in and through her. She has sought forgiveness and offered love to a verbally abusive parent and that relationship is being restored!
We rejoice in the Lord and in what He has done! His marvelous love and forgiveness brings life and purpose to all!
Please know and believe that you are being used by God in this ministry and that lives are being transformed through you!
Gratefully, Dave & Jessica