I'm Going to Kenya!

It has been a dream since I was in grade school to visit Kenya and the time has finally arrived. I wanted to post a copy of our itinerary so you can be praying for us. I look forward to sharing lots of stories with you when I return.

There are still a few uniforms that are needed for this trip. It is only $10 for each uniform. Please consider helping us with this project. You can give HERE.

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May 17-18: Travel to Nairobi. The team will travel in pairs to Amsterdam and fly together to Nairobi.

May 19: We will worship together with a church in Nairobi and Impact’s president, Bill Westfall, will be preaching that morning. We will have lunch with the church leaders after church and spend the afternoon exploring, picking up last minute supplies and adjusting to the time change.

May 20: We will spend the day at New Life Homes, touring the facility and getting a picture of their work. We’ve volunteered our time to help wherever we can while we are there.

May 21-23: During the three days we will be working with Missions of Hope International (MOHI). After going through an orientation, we will spend time visiting families that are living in the slums of Nairobi. We will also visit some of the schools that MOHI has established and gain an understanding the programs they are utilizing to combat poverty. 

May 24: We will fly to Lodwar (Turkana) on Friday and begin to adjust to the heat of Turkana. (Yes, I am very excited about being in the 90 degree heat!)

May 25 - 26: We will spend time in Turkana visiting MOHI's school, as well as the Turkana Bible Training Institute. We may have a small work project at the TBTI. Our time here will focus on the importance of local leadership, as well as some historical perspective on missions in Africa. Sunday, we will visit a church in a village. During these days we’ll be visiting the school in Choki-Chok, where many of you have helped provide uniforms for students.

May 27: We will spend some more time with our host families and fly back to Nairobi. We’ll spend the night there and prepare to head to Narok the next day.

May 28-29: We’ll travel to Narok to be with New Mission Systems International’s ministry, AfricaHope. We will have a variety of activities here, mostly focusing on the topic of AIDS, and its impact on much of Africa.

May 30: We will rise early and head back toward Nairobi...the slow way. We will spend the day site seeing (on safari).

May 31: This will be our final day in Kenya. We will have the day to do some final shopping, site seeing, and debriefing.

June 1: Back home!

Impact Stories: Colleen's Baptism

Photo by Leanna Vite - www.leannavite.com

This weekend our SMiCpact family had the chance to gather and celebrate the baptism of one of our students, Colleen Donohue. It has been such a huge honor to watch Colleen learn and grow this last year. I asked her to share a little bit of her story with you. Colleen is a junior at St. Mary's College studying Communication Disorders.

Like most students who go to college, it was the first time I was really on my own. However, it took me until my junior year to realize that I wanted to commit myself completely to Christ, and this is why I have decided, on my own accord, to get baptized (this Sunday!).  

I did not grow up with a strong faith, so when I came to college, it was the first time that I was responsible for directing my faith. My family was not committed about going to church or having Jesus be the center of our lives. My mom was raised Catholic and therefore I was Catholic for the first six years of my life.  When my mom got remarried to my stepfather, whom was Lutheran, our family joined his church. My mother was very avid about going to church when we were younger, but my stepfather ridiculed her and poked fun at her faith. I remember my mother, younger brother, and I coming home from church and my stepfather teasing us when we got home saying that we were “goodie two shoes”. It felt degrading and made me feel ashamed of wanting Jesus in my life. After years of his comments, my mom, my brother Ryan, and I stopped going to church. I felt isolated and lost for a long time.

When I came to Saint Mary’s, the community and faith was welcoming and powerful. Freshman year, I tried to find a place where I fit in, like most people. I wasn’t Catholic, but I didn’t consider myself Lutheran. I joined the campus Bible study and attended Catholic mass, but I never felt at home. I continued to stay strong to my morals, even though many of my friends did things I was uncomfortable with. I decided to become a Resident Advisor and join a group of girls who shared many of the beliefs that I did. I was lucky enough to be placed in the same dorm as Allison Zandarski. Till this day, I cannot thank her enough for how much she influenced me that year. I went with her one Sunday to Granger Community Church.  I have never been touched so deeply by a service as I was that day. I honestly believe it changed my life.  I remember vividly when I saw the baptisms outside of GCC and knew that one day I was going to do that, but I knew I wasn’t ready yet.

              
Actually, about a month later, I pushed in the opposite direction, further away from God.  Last Easter, my stepfather sat all five of my siblings, my mother, and myself down and told us that he messed up and that he had been cheating on my mom for about a year. I couldn’t rationalize the feelings that I felt, but I know I didn’t turn to God for help; I rebelled against Him in anger and frustration. I struggled with trust and forgiveness, but I realized that if I could forgive my abusive, drug addict, biological father, that I could and would forgive my stepfather, my Real father, the man who raised me and loved me. God made me realize that it wasn’t the person I was angry with, but the actions that they committed. He carried me when I was broken and showed me that I was capable of forgiveness and that the only person I needed to put trust in was Him.

After that realization, my pursuit of Christ has basically become an obsession. I have a different bible study almost every night of the week, I have joined the Special Friends program at GCC (Thanks to my friend Gianna,) and I found my calling to become a Speech and Language Pathologist to help give voice to those who do not have one. It has been though these experiences this year that I have pushed my faith to a limit I never thought possible before. This year has made me realize that I want to make a personal, physical, emotional, and verbal commitment to live each day for Christ. While I wasn’t ready my sophomore year when I first witnessed the baptisms, I know now that I am and that my relationship with Christ is where I want it to be. I believe that getting baptized and fully giving my life to God will further deepen my relationship with Him and continue to help me wash away the things in my life - my fear, my trust issues, and my self forgiveness - that have held me back for so long and will allow me to trust in Him completely. 

Photo by Leanna Vite - www.leannavite.com

Part of the SMiCpact family after service

Celebrating Passover

Monday night was the beginning of Passover and once again I hosted a Seder for our student leaders and a couple friends from my church who love college students. Only a couple of the ladies had ever attended a Seder, which made for a really fun evening of watching girls make new connections and learn more about our story as God’s people.

Even though favorite gluten-free matzah recipe did NOT work this year, everyone enjoyed trying traditional dishes and learning about the symbolism of different foods in the meal. The students asked some incredible questions that fueled some great dialogue. One of my friends who joined us has traveled to Israel and it was fun to hear about her experience there and have her share more about the things she has studied. 

I appreciated the conversations that stemmed about what it may have been like to sit around the table with Christ and His disciples during that meal and what it would have been like to try to watch the events we celebrate each Holy Week unfold as you are in the midst of it. Despite the fact that none of us at the Seder were Jewish, we challenged each other to remember that the Exodus story is our story. Israel’s wandering in the dessert is part of our journey.  He is our God and we are His people.

SMiCpact Night of Prayer

After our Collegiate Day of Prayer gathering, our student leaders wanted to set aside another night to pray specifically for the St. Mary's campus. Tonight we did that and had an incredibly powerful time of confession and encouragement. I'm excited to see what the rest of the semester brings.

Prayers of Thanksgiving

Prayers for the Oppressed

Prayers of Submission

Prayers for Unity

Prayers of Adoration

One Year of SMiCpact

Tonight at our Impact St. Mary's gathering we celebrated one year of being an official student organization. To celebrate we ate plenty of Hacienda chips and salsa and took time to tell our story. The ladies made a huge time line of the last year marking major events and times when they encountered God in powerful ways.

Let's go to Kenya!

Inside the school at Choki-Chok, a village we will visit.

Impact Campus Ministries’ president, Bill Westfall, has been dreaming, studying, and working diligently for nearly three years developing a special initiative called Impact The World. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have been asked to participate in the pilot group’s trip to Kenya as Bill continues to refine and develop the program.

Impact the World is a discipleship tool that Impact will use in the years ahead to equip college students for a life-long commitment to Jesus as Lord of their life. Specifically, it is a service-learning experience that will utilize a cross-cultural setting with high intensity activities to capture the hearts and minds of students. It is designed to help participants understand their purpose in life and to give them the tools/skills/perspective necessary to set them on a life-long trajectory toward spiritual maturity.

Ultimately, the goal is to see the participants actually living out their faith in Jesus through a dedication to self-sacrifice and kingdom service. It purposes to engage students at multiple levels (heart, mind, and strength), and is packed with intellectually stimulating lessons that are coupled with heart-captivating activities that serve to solidify the learning process. It examines the negative elements of the student’s own culture from the perspective of a foreign culture.

We’ll be heading to Kenya on May 19^th and spend time in three different parts of the country and return on June 1^st. If you would like to hear more about the trip or help contribute to the project, contact me at sarah.koutz@impacttheu.com.

Collegiate Day of Prayer 2013

Students praying for their campus

Yesterday was the annual Collegiate Day of Prayer where Christians around the country focus their prayer efforts on colleges and universities: the campuses, students, faculty, and staff. Impact St. Mary’s decided to host a prayer room on campus that was open to both the St. Mary’s community and the public. It was a great evening watching students, supporters, community members, and their families pray alongside each other for the campus.

As a result of this event, one of our student leaders was lead to create more moments like this where there is a priority for students to come together and pray for their campus. I’m excited to see how this vision becomes reality and to see how God works through this desire to seek Him.

Praying for the oppressed and marginalized

Local families joined us to pray