February blog!

 Hi friends and family! I hope you've had a wonderful month of February and have been able to enjoy the great weather we had lately!

As the lent season begins, I wanted to share a verse I will be reflecting on throughout the next few weeks: 

Psalm 34:8: Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. 

Even though my church tradition didn't practice lent growing up, I've really enjoyed participating in it to some capacity the past couple years. It has really helped me be made more aware of the Lord being with me throughout my days, helping me not get caught up in my business. Having regular reminders to seek him and be reminded that he is sweeter than anything I am tempted to desire apart from him. Whether you are participating or not, I hope this verse can be an encouragement to you for wherever you are at in your relationship with the Lord. I pray you also would get some time to reflect on the Lord's goodness in your own life lately, or for how you hope to be more attentive to seeking him in this way.

Diving into this month's events:

                                                               Black History Service!     

                             

One of my favorite parts of February is getting to celebrate Black History Month! This year, with the help of many students, I got to put on our fourth annual Black History Service for our ministry, and I think it was our best year yet! Each year we have centered the night on a gospel choir that does a handful of songs from many of their upbringing. Another big portion of the night is having several students give personal sharings over different prompts that I have them choose centered around the topic of how faith and culture have impacted them in some way. I love this portion, and getting to learn more about their stories. Our ministry is very relational so I get to know many of our students' testimonies or upbringing as it connects to their faith, but their are very little opportunities to hear about their cultures impact on them, and how God has met them in that, so I cherish this part of the night since it provides a space for all those to hear something new from their friends lives. 

This year, we wanted to focus on incorporating not just the experiences of those who grew up in a black american culture, but who have had an african background, since those are very different from one another, and incapsulates a fuller vision of the black diaspora. We had several students who spoke various bible verses in their family's native languages such as: Swahili (Kenyan), Kunama (Eritrean), Temne (Sierra Leonian), and Igbo (Nigerian). It was so beautiful getting to see and hear the words of these different languages that I had never heard or seen the writing of before. Experiencing this every year gives me just a slice of what heaven will be like one day getting to be among those from all nations and backgrounds being united under God's family, and how exciting that will be! 

My big hope for the night that I communicated with our students is that they would grow a curious heart around those of different cultures, challenging them to think about diversifying their friend groups, or in different settings that they find themselves in, to take notice of those different than them. Encouraging them to ask those around them questions about their culture, family, where they grew up, etc. as a way of loving them in a way they may haven't considered before. I encourage you to do the same in your workplaces as a way of being more familiar with God's design for kingdom diversity!

Here are some videos from the event through my photo album through iCloud that I hope you are able to access. Please reach out to me and let me know if you can't! I also hope to update this blog in a few days with some professional photos that were taken from the event once I receive them if you want to come back to take another look!

   https://share.icloud.com/photos/079lY-ALmgh3N9Js2y3ETUYTQ

  https://share.icloud.com/photos/0f37aNA-zm9BvI8Oov6CAxsDg

https://share.icloud.com/photos/07f2TbjDjfkfb0Q7sEucp2aww

https://share.icloud.com/photos/07f2TbjDjfkfb0Q7sEucp2aww

https://share.icloud.com/photos/09fc44_Lc6oEvxZHFTiI7Kl1A

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0528HgHQIutEy4H8BXbgTdmuA

                                                                     Valentines Day dinner!

I invited over some girls from our church and from our ministry on Valentine's Day to have dinner together, fellowship, and play games with one another! It was such a sweet way for our alumni of our ministry to get to connect with some of the students from our ministry! I love any chance to host people and have them over to our home!

Pizza Theology!

Once a semester, we host this five hour event where we do two hours of a lecture over a certain topic, then pause for an hour for fellowship and pizza eating, and end with another half of a lecture in order to grow our students into further depth in their relationship with God. This semesters topic was over "How To Think Like A Christian" and covered many topics on what it means to be a Christian despite our world posing obstacles on how to do that well. We went over topics such as what is truth and the foundations of it, different philosophical viewpoints from throughout history and from western and eastern viewpoints and how those differ, and the state of our culture and how to navigate it. It is always such a treat to hear from our pastors who have spent a ton of time prepping it and our students are always really impacted as am I!

Outreach night!

In our ministry this year, we have really been trying to heat up the value of outreach to our students, and empowering them to make it a regular part of their lives! Our ministry is super community oriented with one another, and within their small groups, but we want to push them to start befriending those around them who are not in their normal circle, and helping them to be more invitational. One week we challenged them to invite just one friend from their classes, workplace, etc. to our large group gathering. The next week we were able to reserve a room that was much larger than our norm to acomodate students bringing new people, and many of our students step into boldness and invited many new people! It was a super encouraging night! Since then, we have started something called 20/60 vision where we are trying to encourage them to go up to someone and have 20 seconds of courage in getting to know someone, and having a vision for that persons future 60 years of their life when they are in their 80's looking back on their life and hopefully can point back to a time where someone invited them into community and faith, and it changed the course of their life! Each week, we've been having students share about their 20 seconds of boldness with people, and our students have been super excited to join in, which has been so neat to see!

Student Testimony!

This student testimony is especially special to me because Chloe was one of the students who led the Black History Service gospel choir, and is an incredible musician! I am so thankful for the many hours she has put in the past two years to help me put on this event, as well as being apart of our regular service worship team. I couldn't have done it without her and DJ another faithful music student who led also the gospel choir for our event. Also, not to mention, Aileen in this story is one of my close friends, and I had no idea she was the reason that Chloe got connected to our ministry! I love these stories because it shows how much just a simple invitation can have a huge impact on someone's college experience and life afterward!

Thank you all so very much for your continued support towards me in my ministry!

Blessings & Peace,

Keanna