“I love Getting to Tell Them About Jesus”
Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 by
by LeAnn Wilson
This past month I had the privilege of being one of the Campus Life volunteers at YFC’s annual Gatlinburg trip. It was a life-changing experience for me. I bonded with kids through fun activities and I even got to witness students make the decision to follow Christ. It was also a chance to hear their stories, the student’s stories, like never before. I knew most of these students before the trip and parts of their stories. But there was something about the atmosphere in Gatlinburg. Something about the trip gave these students more faith and trust in our staff members than before.
One student in particular, Ashley, openly admitted that she struggled with putting her faith in anyone or anything. At a young age, she found herself abandoned with no parents in her life. She now lives with a friend of the family and has to take care of herself. She is her own caretaker and makes all her own decisions without the help of a caring adult. Her mother barely visits, and when she does, it’s usually to borrow money. She has recently lost a family member, and another is terminally ill. With all of this weighing on her shoulders, Ashley said that she found it hard to believe that there is anyone who cared about her. She told us that she had been taught throughout her life not to put all of her trust in anything because when it’s gone you are left with nothing. During this trip she learned that maybe she has been wrong. Ashley discovered that her staff, her fellow campus lifers, and most importantly Jesus care about her.
Throughout the trip, Ashley began to share bits and pieces of her story with other students. She became one of our most talkative participants during the discussions, and she began to find stability in her life for the first time. She even asked the staff if we would consider organizing a Campus Life for college students as she is about to graduate. Her exact words were "I just can’t see my life without Campus Life in it." She has yet to make the decision to follow Christ, but I am extremely confident that that decision is soon to come. Through YFC we have been able to plant the seed and to give her something to trust.
These stories are what make me love what I do. I have been so abundantly blessed through the Youth for Christ organization. I enjoy the frantic phone calls late into the night when the students don’t have anyone else to call. It makes me ecstatic to get to go to their sporting events when they haven’t had anyone else to come and support them all season. I adore watching their faces light up when they see me walk into the lunchroom. But most importantly I love getting to tell them about Jesus. Because without this organization, many of our students like Ashley would probably never experience the love of Christ this way.