Day 3: Hitting the Campus (and some walls)

Craig, Chris and I woke up at 6:45 to go running today...then promptly decided that was dumb and went back to sleep.

We got a less-early start with breakfast at 8:30, got some good time as a team (talking logistics with a brief encouragement to meditate on the intense beauty of what God has done in our own lives) and rolled out.

UAQ (Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro) (pronounced "OOO-WOK" (yes, this did prompt a slew of "walk" puns)) did not know what hit it. Our desire, our prayer was to encounter the Person of Peace (Luke 10): people who were interested in the gospel, who we could build solid relationship with, who were hungry for God. Our teams broke down asi:
-Justin and Ana (yea, it is adorable)
-Chris and David (Frankie's younger son)
-Craig and Kassy
-Kristina and Javier*
-Heather and I

Nervous and excited, we prayed and went out into the campus. Our goal, as I said, was to make fewer, stronger contacts than we did some years in Monterrey. Between conversations, Heather and I saw our groups scattered across the campus in conversations with the students. Sometimes, we dive right in with, "Hi, we're from Texas, visiting some friends in a church here. We're spending a week on campus, talking to students about God and spiritual stuff, do you have time to talk?" (imagine that in Spanish). Other times, we'll just chill and talk with the students and bridge into God-talk more naturally. Anyway, we met up for lunch and heard some amazing stories of God bringing every group into touch with at least one really open and interested person who we can meet up with Wednesday when we come back to this campus (there's three we're visiting this week) and hopefully get connected with the Aguilar family. After lunch (my first legit tacos this year), we headed back out to keep going.

Heather y yo had a bit tougher of a time. We kept hitting walls. Some people didn't want to talk, others didn't have time, others we had a hard time communicating with. We finally met an awesome guy who I'll call Isaac (mostly because that's his name) who wanted to practice English with us. Isaac is a student and on the fútbol team for UAQ and was a lot of fun to talk to. Right as we were transitioning to the good stuff, however, he had to go to class (be praying we can meet back up with him Wednesday). In the afternoon, we shook off the discouragement and - joined by Adrian - decided to be a little more bold, with the hopes that we could get into the gospel. My prayer: "God, lead us to someone we can talk to, who has time and wants to talk to us..." So we met Rodrigo, the young English teacher who was done with classes for the day and loved the idea of chatting with some real live gringos. We talked with him for two hours about God, the Bible, Jesus, the Church...all of it. Granted, we talked about all of that because Rodrigo was a staunch agnostic who had some intense questions. We hit the gospel hard, Heather shared her testimony, but ultimately Rodrigo was closed to the idea of God revealing himself to us. It was a good conversation, but difficult.

Dinner...yea, delicious.

We got out of dinner late and walked to the plaza *insert a long story about keys and people getting locked out of their home* to hang out. Heather and Javier sat and had a long conversation with a girl who was open, interested and even offered a lot of much-needed encouragement to Heather after our time on campus. I was able to have a good talk with a German gentleman (Hubert) who was visiting for work and had a lot of interesting (though sad) things to share.

(Ask Craig about the time he almost got "arrested" in Mexico).

Sorry for the length, I feel like I could talk for a long time about the people we met today, because each one of them is a life, a soul God is pursuing. Each one of them has a story of hope and hurt, of loss and learning, of fear and faith. For several, I experienced a simultaneous and sharp awareness of God's deep, deep love for them and of their current rejection of his love. It was heavy, but God's love is so patient and beautiful. He will hold out his hands to us in love our whole lives, hoping...hoping.

Please pray for continued contact with our new friends from today, for renewed strength for tomorrow and for great contacts at the other campuses.

*Did I mention Javier joined us from Monterrey today? Having him join us such a blessing. Anyone who knows him doesn't need to have it explained why.

ckc:8