College Weekend

If you didn’t know, College Weekend is a weekend of speakers, fellowship, and fun that our church puts on for college age kids. This year it was being hosted at Leo, Indiana and the theme was Prayer. I had never been to College Weekend or Leo, so right away I decided to go when it was announced a month or so ago. I planned on going up until last week when I started asking around in order to figure out when and from where we would be leaving for the six hour drive. No one I asked was going. Discouraged, I had decided on Friday to give up and not go. Well, that night I got a text saying where to meet and when the next morning. Ok then! I thought, I guess I’ll go. I was lucky enough to have time to pack and still go to the Peoria Young group singing.

The singing was excellent. Led by David Sauder and Brett Hoerr (who was also the host) the mutual praise of all of the precious hearts of the Peoria YG was such a blessing, and it boosted my spirits high. I’m sure God was smiling when He heard the worship. Afterwards we had a snack and chatted. During the snack I couldn’t stop thinking about a certain girl who used to come to Young group things and has stopped. I asked her a few Sundays ago why and how she was doing as a new convert she pretty much said that she didn’t want to have anything to do with God or Christianity. When I heard that my heart just broke. I felt like I had just heard that my sister was dead. The worst part is, I’ve known that she hasn’t been doing so well for a long time and I felt a little niggling prodding to go talk to her and have a heart to heart, but I never heeded it. A couple of Sundays I did talk with her about Salvation and I just hope that God will work in her heart and that I said the right things. Anyway, She has really been on my heart and so I asked if the girls at the singing would have a prayer meeting for her. When they found out, everyone was feeling just as grieved as I was and the prayers were purely a pleading to God for her. I know those prayers were heard, I just hope that she will come back.

So, Saturday morning it was arranged to meet at the Schwind’s house in Roanoke at 8:00 a.m. That meant I would leave a 7:00 just in case I got lost somewhere along the fifty minute drive there. I did and had to turn around twice. Finally making it I found out that it would just be Sheryl Huber (from Alto Michigan but currently living in Morton for school), Brian Schwind (who so graciously offered to drive his car), and myself. The ride up was very quiet. We talked for the first thirty minutes but then Sheryl and I both started reading. I felt bad because that left Brian with nothing to do but drive and listen to music. At one point I asked him how he was doing and he said he was bored out of his mind! I can imagine!

I did get a phone call on the way there that held some news. I was voted for to be in next years ICC BU Young group Committee. I would be the secretary. Actually a couple of people had talked to me about being on the committee quite awhile ago, so I had started praying about it since then. I will say, yes, I did want to be on it and at the same time I didn’t. So I gave it up to God and basically said that if I don’t get voted for then I’ll be fine with that and if I do I’ll consider it a chance to serve.

Well, we arrived late by one speaker and part of another. That was fine seeing as the weekend events usually consists of back to back speakers for hours on end, and while I love to learn about God, I already spend 90% of my life hearing other people speak.

The speaker we walked in on was a REALLY close study on Lord’s Prayer.

The next thing we did was prayer groups. We split up from the guys and then into groups of four. My group consisted of Danielle Eisenmann (from Bluffton. I had actually stayed at her house during the Bluffton Invite a while back), Bethany, and Timneh. The way that the prayer session went was: a speaker would come up and talk about things such as Japan, Orphans, and the Church Body and then we would pray for those things. It was amazing to get to know those girls through prayer!

The next was another speaker: Jeff Waibel. He spoke on what Jesus said about prayer and, wow, that was a good message on a lot of levels. One thing that stuck out to me is a story he told about his four year old daughter. They had gotten her ready for bed when she announced that she needed milk. Well, Jeff, thinking that giving her milk right after she had brushed her teeth and right before bed was a bad idea and gave her water instead. The daughter was happy as a peach with the water. The reason: because when she asked for milk, she was really just saying she was thirsty. Instead of just saying she was thirsty, she went a step farther and asked her dad for something that would fill that need.

Now look at this story as if we were the daughter and this was our prayer life. Often we understand we have a need and pray to God to fulfill that need with a request. But when God gives us water instead of milk we think He isn’t listening or doesn’t care. That isn’t true, though! See, God reserves the right to fill our needs not our specific requests. This story was given in the light of Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you:” and in explanation of why God doesn’t seem to give us what we ask for.

Dinner was next on the itenerary and boy was it great! The chilli tasted like no chili I’ve ever had before. I sat next to a girl I didn’t know: Sarah who is attending U of I to become a Speech therapist. It was nice to get to know her.

The evening program went like this: singing, speaker, prayer, speaker, prayer, speaker, prayer, singing. The speakers would stand up for five minutes and talk about topics such as the persecuted church, abortion, and Gateway Woods and then lead us in prayer. The singing was all the different college groups would stand up and sing two songs. Since ICC group was so small we joined in with U of I.

Of course, this being an AC event and all we had to have a snack next. The rest of the evening was spent meeting new people and catching up with old friends. Funny story, so Drew Martin is a guy in the ICC young group now. His brother, Lance was in it last year and has since moved. Excited to see how he’s been doing at ISU and all, I said a warm hello and how’s it going and he just looked at me blankly. For a few akward moments we just stood there and then I recognized his look of puzzlement. “You don’t know who I am do you?” I asked. Nope, turns out he couldn’t remember me at all. I know I’ve talked with him before. I remember because he looked so much like Drew that I had to marvel at the resemblance last year. Oh well, I know I’ve done the same thing to other people.

So, Sheryl and I got put in the same house to sleep in: Marlise’s house. We had a nice quiet evening once there. We talked for a while then went to bed.

Sunday morning the first service was awesome! We read out of Hebrews 10 and just the message in it all was so good! Second service was nice too, but by then I was starting to feel tired from the late night and exciting events.

Brian had to get home by six so we left pretty quickly at 2:00. I got shotgun on the way home. I wanted to read, but car sickness got the better of me, so the only thing left to do was talk, which I had no problem with since I love talking and I didn’t know Brian very well, so it was a good time to share stories and such. We talked about movies, each gave our testimonies, talked about high school, church, vacations, etc. I must say, that car ride was probably my favorite part of the whole weekend.

We did arrive on time: 6:00. It was a very nice weekend and I’m glad I went, only now this week has been super hard trying to do all the homework I should have done then. Oh well, totally worth it.