I (Aaron) have a love-hate relationship with the day of outreach at our Cru winter conference in Indianapolis. More than 2000 college students and Cru staff go out together into less than wealthy neighborhoods to pass out boxes full of free food and look for opportunities to talk with folks about the love of God in Jesus Christ. This year it happened to fall on a day when the temperature was in the single digits. It was cold. But that’s not the only hesitation I have. It is a lot more comfortable for me to share my faith with college students in a dorm lobby or our student union. I’m less than comfortable in neighborhoods where I’m a complete outsider and in which I hardly ever know what to expect.
Yet God always seems to show up in significant ways. This year my group found a family with many kids in significant need of food. So much so we gave them what we had and went back to find more boxes of food, and when we returned the family was already cooking the food we had brought them just 30 minutes before. What an encouragement to be able to connect this family with a local church in their neighborhood (with whom we partner) that seeks to be a resource to their community. I got back to the church and discovered one of the guys I mentor back on campus had talked with a woman at a different home, and that woman was so spiritually interested she prayed to put her faith in Christ. In the end I’m always glad to be pushed beyond my comfort zone to extend the love of God to others. All total more than 60 folks in Indy indicated decisions to put their faith in a Christ that day.
