Picnic Tables and the Internet

On campus the best place to check your internet is on these picnic tables around a big tree. 6 white picnic tables form a circle skirting the large land mark. They even have electric plugs in case your computer battery should run low. Only 3 of the tables actually work.

Today the picnic tables offered more than the internet. I sat down to write some e-mails and soon a guy sat down at my table. We exchanged hellos and both went back to our internet. Soon he asked if that was the best place to get wireless internet. This began a conversation about where he was from. I learned he was a first year student, new to the University and in exchange got to share what I am doing here. Somewhere along the line I mentioned something about Christianity or Jesus and related it back to him and where he was. He then proceeds to say that over the next 3 years of college he would like to become a Christian and have a relationship with God. I asked him what was keeping him from doing it. He thought a moment and then replied “nothing, really.” I asked him why he didn’t do it now and he replied that he wanted to get to know more about Jesus. I then asked if he knew how to have a relationship with Jesus if he ever wanted one. He asked me to tell him. On the back of a CM07 card I drew out the basics of the gospel and we talked through man’s sin all the way through Jesus’ gift. He ended up praying with me that Christ would come into his life and change it. How incredible is that!

To me this was more than a conversation with a random guy. It was an amazing encounter all over again with our great God and a blessing to see this guy desire to be in relationship with him and have him change his life. But it was also a love not from God. I did nothing purposeful to initiate with this guy. It was the Holy Spirit in me who shared the truth. I just sat there and opened my mouth. It was God reminding me that it is not my power or might, but it is His power and might that changes life and draws hearts to himself.

5 girls and One bathroom

…yes we survived. The first week of this new adventure called Barbados STINT, my fellow team member and I shared a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with 3 girls from Trinidad (Maggie, Coryce and Koya.) They had come to Barbados to give us some in country briefing and help us settle in and prepare. What a huge blessing from God. Because Maggie rented a car we were able to travel the island with more ease and gather the things we needed to survive the first week.

If you’ve read the above paragraph and wonder what in the world I’m doing in Barbados I guess I should tell you. I’m here for a year on a Short Term International project with Campus Crusade for Christ. We’ll be on the University of the West Indies campus for the majority of the time helping support and develop the movement here as well as building new relationships with people and sharing the truth and hope of Christ. It’s very exciting!

So anyway: week 1 was quite the experience as far as flexing goes. We were assuming we’d be in our apartment but turns out the place we were going to live wasn’t going to work out so we crammed all 5 of us in one apartment. It was fun and nice to get to know Maggie (pretty much our boss from the Caribbean side) and Coryce and Koya better. Coryce and Koya both did an internship with Crusade this last year in Trinidad so in some ways they are at the end of what we are at the beginning of.

Fun things from week 1:
Briefing meetings- snacking along the way
Walking down to campus to get internet
Bert’s Restaurant- we waited 2 hours for our food
Oistin’s – Jeffrey singing karaoke
Someone offers to take you somewhere…they make 3 stops on the way
Church at 7 am – they have a later service but Maggie wanted to make sure we had time to do a couple of things before they had to leave at 2.