Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday:

Starting our day off right with worship and devotions!

Today we were at the University of Miami! The campus here is beautiful! I kept thinking it looked like a resort. I hung out with Bella all day! We did the God test with a girl from Ireland, ate free Cuban desserts they were giving out on campus, and then had lunch with one of the girls she meets with. They are both Korean so we were joking about that and they taught me the “proper” way to use chopsticks!

Elissa and Kristen doing the GOD TEST with the girl on the left!

Bella, myself, & Elissa!

I really enjoyed hanging out with Bella and getting to know her. She is what I would call an instant friend. We just meet this week but I feel like I have known her forever! I was picking her brain about being a part of a church plant. We have several of the same themes from Strengths Finder (empathy, individualization, & harmony) so I could really identify with what she was saying/ feeling about being moving to a new place and starting a new ministry. Bella has already asked me to move to Miami, so we will see about that! I really couldn't move but I could get used to seeing palm trees everyday!

Pool at University of Miami!

Me and Elissa!

Wednesday

Today we went back to FIU! I started out with Durga! The girl we talked to was Muslim. So we shared with her and asked questions. At the end she said she was glad we talked to her b/c it cleared up a lot of things for her! Wow do I need to study up about World religions again. I have obviously forgotten everything I learned! oh no!

After that we went to get lunch and got to know each other. (Durga goes to UNC.) We talked for a while and then talked “girl talk” with Andrea and Sarah who joined us for lunch. Then we met up with everyone and talked about their mornings. I got ice cream with Sarah and Brittany b/c desserts at least once a day is a must! Then I went out with Bella and Elissa!

Elissa does what I like to call “awkward evangelism.” She will say something funny or calls someone out to start a conversation! This time she went up to these three female basketball players and asked them if they could sing the FIU fight song for her! They couldn’t but it was a good way to start a conversation. We talked to them for a while and then went into the God Test. It was really fun to see Elissa in action!

The girls didn’t really open up about a whole lot about their personal lives. But the one thing one of them shared was real personal. She told us how she didn’t go to church anymore bc she was gay. Apparently she had gone to church with her family before hand and didn’t want to go with them anymore.

How sad is that, that she feared the judgment of the people at her church. It really makes you think does the church catering to the 99, or going after the 1. It makes me thing about myself as well. As much as I like to think I’m open minded, I know I can be really judgmental. This is so not good and something the Lord has been working in my heart lately. I can be judgmental about how someone is dressed and looks. God doesn’t look at the outward appearance/ sin/ tattoos/ immoral lifestyle. He sees the heart. He wants the heart; wants to wash it clean, and bring healing to it. Lord help me to see people the way you see them! I don’t want to be the stumbling block for someone to come to know the Lord. Please help me to point people to you Jesus, and not to a more moral lifestyle…

ECU girls and Elissa!

UNC girls hanging out!

The rest of the day was pretty light. We talked with a few more students and then did another cornhole/mess around sesh for a few hours. It started pouring down rain so we packed up early and then went to eat dinner at Versailles. It was delish! It was Cuban food! I ordered some type of steak and I split appetizers with Kristen and Ryan. This restaurant was so pretty and fun. The owner traveled to the Palace of Versailles in France and used that for his inspiration in designing/decorating the restaurant. (That was the one thing In World History I remembered and was interested and when Girl Scout Troop went to Europe in High School we got to go to the Palace! So it was really special to eat at this Cuban restaurant! Then we all went to get dessert at the bakery! I got tres leches cake and almond cookies. Yum! We had so much fun at dinner and the bakery!

Tonight for the first time it really felt like a family eating dinner. The students weren’t all sitting with the bffs they came with. Looking around at all of the table tonight, I had a cheesy elementary ed. teacher moment b/c I was so proud of all of the students for making new friends this week, doing new things like sharing their faith, some of them even getting on a plane for the first time, and stepping out in faith by raising support to get there! Tonight I am in the room with a few girls but the students are outside, some of the girls are getting cornrows for the first time, some wanted to have Bible Study time, other girls are painting their friends fingernails, I can hear laughing, people worshiping, one girl is in here talking to a boy on the phone… It’s a good night to be the big kid!

Hey there FIU

(From Monday March 5th)

This has been such a fun full day!

We started the day with morning devotions! So glad Elissa is here b/c she lead worship with a few students.

Then we headed to Florida International University. The campus was huge and so much fun! They had so many sculptures everywhere! At ECU they are mostly just around the art building, so it was fun to see them all over campus. They had several fountains and ponds with turtles, painted bridges, swings, I could go on and on! Alan Mitchell would have loved it! I’m sure someone with ideation designed it!

We did evangelism on campus using the God Test which is a tool we use all the time at ECU. We all partnered up two by two. I was partner with Kim. The first conversation we had was great! It was with a girl Kelly, she was a little hesitant to talk to us at first but we just made small talk and then did the God Test. By the end we made a friend! We are hoping to hang out with her again Wed when we go back to FIU.

After that conversation it was time for lunch. Let me tell you, FIU’s student center puts Mendenhall to shame! There were so many restaurants. We ate at Pollo Tropical and had the most delish meal I’ve ever had on a college campus!

After lunch we found some cool sculptures that we wanted to take pictures of! Then we decided it was time to actually get down to business. Kim said she wanted to talk to a guy and I was like “umm are you sure you don’t want to talk to a girl??” She wanted to talk to him so I just said “ok!” It went alright, but not the greatest. At one point he close the God Test book and passed it back to us! Ha! So that shows how into it he was. Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

After lunch we did an outreach with corn hole, ultimate Frisbee, and football. Basically we were just hanging out on a grassy part of campus. This was fun, I just sat and talked with the girls! It was fun to get to know Kristen and Bella more!! So thankful for our friendships. It is always nice to hang out with people in the same station of life as you doing the same thing! I felt so encouraged talking to them about ministry and being single. Bella and I are the same age and have a lot in common.

Tonight after dinner we went to the University of Miami and did a prayer walk there. It was awesome. I was walking with Bella, Calvin, and Akeem praying for the campus. It stirred something inside of me! I have always had a heart for different college campuses so going to two today was incredible! We were praying for divine appointments, that the students we met this week would eventually be student leaders that would pour out their hearts and lives for their college campus, both while in school and for a season after college! Praying that students will get plugged into the ministry/church/ and go to Campus Harvest this year!

Bienvenidos a Miami

Our Miami adventure started yesterday really early! I woke up before my alarm at 2 am! We left Greenville at 4:10am to go to RDU. Precious Kendall picked me up and then rode with us to Raleigh so she could drive the church van back! What a trooper! The plane ride was fun b/c Sarah and Brittany had never flown before! People watching at the airport is my favorite and I sure wasn’t disappointed! After we got to Miami, we pretty much hung out yesterday during the afternoon at the Middleton’s house and got to know everyone.

Today we ate breakfast at a Cuban restaurant. Thank God Elissa speaks Spanish b/c the little bit I remember wasn’t cutting it! Then we went to SouthCoast, the church plant we are helping with this week. Worship and the message were sooo good! I took so many notes that smoke was coming out of my pen. We talked about Nehemiah and the parallels between him and Jesus. I really needed to hear this message b/c it called out so many things in my life! One of the biggest idols in my life is comfort. I love to be comfy cozy all the time. Ross talked about how he didn’t think God was too concerned about the physical comfort of the people in the Bible. He was saying no great leaders in the Bible were ever comfortable. Super convicted! I so need to stop complaining/whining when I’m not comfortable/get me way!

The other thing he said that really stuck out to me was that part of their church’s DNA was the concept of refusing to offend God by not believing Him for big things! I so don’t think this way at all! This really called out hope and faith in me for things that I am believing for, both in my life and for what I hope to see on ECU’s campus!

*I am so excited for the rest of this mission trip! Honestly this Ten Days trip more than ever, I have been more concerned about keeping up with the ECU girls, not what I would get out of the trip. I have already been challenged & inspired and we really haven’t even started yet.

I am excited to see what God does in the lives of our ECU Students!

I am excited to hang out with Elissa and do evangelism with her! She and I were the only girls in our class at EN’s School of Campus Ministry. We got really close living together during those two months! We may both have “Positivity” and “Woo” (from Strength Finders) but we are completely different too. Elissa is super bold and exuberant. I am pretty outgoing but she is way out there! So I am stoked to do evangelism with her on FIU’s campus. I want to bring back her passion and boldness! Tomorrow is going to be fun!! (or F-u-n-n as Victoria says!)

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So Why Miami:

“Miami is home to about 6 million people and home to over 400,000 college students. National Geographic named Miami as the most diverse city in America.”

“With the generally Catholic Latino population, most likely only about 1%-1.5% at most of that Christian population is evangelical Christians. This is lower than Mainland China and lower than Europe.”

“At FIU there are about 45,000 students with around 300 students total attending all the campus ministries put together.”