Fall quarter is nearing the end, and it has been such an incredible quarter. It is fun to sit and reflect on all that God has done this quarter. It brings me to my knees in praise of God's love, power, and glory. He is so good! I feel like this has been a quarter of love. God seems to be teaching all of us how to receive his love and realize who we are as his beloved children. Only in receiving his love can we love him and others back, which is the aim of our lives. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." If we do not receive his love first, we cannot love him or others as we are called to do. God has been moving a lot of these truths into our hearts, and we have seen students just falling more in love with Him as they experience Him. Our single greatest desire and prayer for our students is that they would truly learn how to receive from God and let Him love them. Right along with that prayer is that they would love God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength and love their neighbors as themselves! There are a lot of things pulling at us in our world, and there are a lot of things that compete for our allegiance and love. God has truly been revealing the treasure that He alone is--far above all other things.

Our weekly Monday night Cross Training worship gatherings at Steve and Lori's house (which we are so thankful for their generosity in letting us use their beautiful house as we surely could not fit in our house) has been such a rich time of community, worship, learning, pouring into one another, and soaking in God's love and presence. His Spirit is so alive among us as we come together to refocus and worship Him. He has definitely been working powerfully in everyone's hearts to reveal himself to us, his love for us, his heart for lost people on our campus and beyond, our purpose here at Stanford, and the people he has destined us to become--conformed to the likeness of our King. I really cannot express to you how much this time has felt like a glimpse of what the early church must have felt like. It is neat to see that while he has given us more vision and conviction than ever to be more missional on our campus, he has also been increasing our understanding of how that will most effectively happen--by falling more in love with Him and relying on HIS powerful Spirit that is at work within us, rather than subconsciously thinking that we are self sufficient to carry out his commission on our own. He keeps giving me a picture of a seed that is planted to produce a harvest. It must first die so that the outer shell is cracked open. Then what is inside can grow and come forth. As Jesus said, " I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds," (John 12:24). I picture the outer shell as my self and my pride that needs to be cracked open and crucified daily so that the Spirit inside of me can minister to others through me. So "it is no I who live, but Christ who lives in me," (Galatians 2:20).

We just had our last Cardinal Life of the quarter last night and it was just incredible. We had over 100 kids there and we were privileged to have Stanford and Cardinal Life alumni Ryan and Sarah Hall! If you follow running at all, Ryan is the fastest American born marathon runner ever, and recently set the still current American record at the Olympic trials for Beijing. Much more importantly, they are true disciples of Jesus who love Him so much and are using this platform to unashamedly proclaim their greatest love and treasure far above any running achievements. They spoke so much Godly wisdom to our group last night about what truly matters and what truly defines us, which made us so happy.

We continue to see people coming to know Jesus for the first time and in a much deeper, powerful and transformative way. We ask you to pray for the students we meet one on one with and in small groups (about 100 guys and girls total! Praise God!)--that they would continue to grow in the knowledge of who God is and that they would "experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then they will be complete, having the fullness of life and power that comes from God," (Ephesians 3:19). Please pray for the campus as a whole and the difficult culture of relativism where "no one can claim to have truth". This makes proclaiming the gospel difficult and it seems like so few have ears to hear. But God is amazing and he continues to powerfully reveal Himself to people all the time. He is bigger than our culture! My faith has strengthened in the truth of Romans 1:16 that says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the POWER of God for the salvation of everyone who believes". The gospel is inherently powerful, and all we can do is faithfully proclaim his love while SHOWING them the easy yoke, the beauty, the love, and the full life of following Him.

One last exciting prayer request is that we are putting on a big human trafficking conference May 15th and 16th. Many of our students are very passionate about being apart of the abolitionist movement that is growing around the issue of ending modern day slavery. There are over 27 million slaves in our world, most of which are women and children, and it is happening in our own American cities! We already have some incredible speakers, groups, and musicians coming, so we are praying that God will use this conference to raise awareness, proclaim Jesus as the true source of freedom, and mobilize the body to take action to help fight human trafficking. We will share more exciting details soon!

The first few weeks of fall quarter have been really awesome. We continue to have more new students coming to Cardinal Life, cross training, and small groups, and we also have quite a few students who are seeking right now and want to know what Christianity is about, who Jesus is, and how to start a relationship with God. Emilee and I have a group of about 7 girls who are in that stage and it is such a joy to come alongside them in that time. We love sharing our faith, discussing tough questions, and just loving on them and inviting them to "come and see" what it is all about in the context of the rich student community that the Lord has provided in Cardinal Life.

At the first Cross Training of the year, we emphasized how we wanted the environment and culture of this community to be one of authenticity, love, accepting people where they are at, and being the body where everyone brings their gifts and love to the table to give and not just take. We also want to be sharpening and challenging one another in wisdom and love so that we are not getting complacent or off track in what following Jesus means for all of us in the context of our culture. We want to be an interdependent community because we are broken people and we need one another. We believe that this type of community made up of broken, authentic, loving, merciful, meek, joyful people who are living differently and filled with the light of Jesus attracts other people as moths to a lightbulb. I wrote the following poem (of sorts) for the first cross training to read to the students called I hope. It started as a list of things that I hope for this community, but they were all so convicting to me that I changed the "we" to "I" because I hope that I can be a person like this! I hope this convicts and inspires you too:)

I hope that I truly listen to others and in this way, “consider others as better than myself.” (Philippians 2:3)

I hope that I truly view myself and others as a small but important and absolutely indispensable part of the body. I hope that I don’t expect others or myself to be all things to all people, or that I don’t get frustrated by differences bc this would be like being frustrated that my whole body isn’t an eye.

I hope I am as committed or more committed to helping others become who they were made to be as I am to reaching my full potential in life. I hope that I can truly say that I desire for others to outshine and be more used of God than myself.

I hope that I really want to know the truth about God, myself, and this world rather than things that I just like to believe or that make me feel good.

I hope that I don’t just honor God with my lips while my heart is far from Him or do my acts of righteousness before men just to be seen. I hope that my heart really changes because my eternal treasures and rewards are going to be based on the things done from a pure heart of love for God and love for others.

I hope that I can be broken, honest, and authentic with others; that I can feel free to ask tough questions, and really wrestle with things while asking God to search my heart so I can be honest about what I am really living for and what I really believe.

I hope that I prioritize thinking and living differently when I read the Word, rather than just seeking to know the right answers or have more knowledge.

I hope that I love and serve people into the awesome Kingdom of God and show them what the Kingdom of God is like by my life and community, otherwise my words will be empty.

I hope that I never love anything more than my King, especially things that are awesome and good, like a movement of God, or the gifts of the Spirit, or the blessings of God, or being used by God, or making an impact on others etc.

I hope that I can give up my rights and remember that I am not my own because I was bought at a costly price.

I hope I can forgive much and have a lot of mercy with others because I was forgiven much and shown more mercy than I ever deserved.

I hope that I can love my enemies and bless those who curse me, because that is what my Savior exemplified for me when he was being crucified.

I hope that I will pray more passionately in private than I do in front of others.

I hope that I can be poor in spirit because I remember that I am the worst of all sinners, that I nailed Jesus to the cross, and that I have no power or worth apart from Christ. My “righteousness” is like filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah), and yet, HE changes those filthy rags that are like scarlet to white as snow (Isaiah 1;18).

I hope that I am faithful with the small things and when no one is looking. Mother Theresa said, “we can do no big things, only small things with great love.” I hope that I have great love and a great life, and not just great words.

And finally, I hope that I really do hope all these things☺

I rejoice that my hope is Jesus and my Hope will not disappoint me.

For Cross Training right now, we are going through some of the Sermon on the Mount and other key passages in Scripture that capture the kingdom values and the kingdom heart that Jesus calls his children to live out. His Kingdom is based on different principles and values than the world. We started this series by talking about the first beautitude in Matthew 5, which is: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." We felt that this was the most important place to start this series because in talking about the kingdom heart and how Jesus calls us to live, it is crucial to realize that we cannot, even in the least bit, meet these standards on our own. We are all poor in spirit, whether we realize it or not, because we are morally and spiritually bankrupt on our own. So we can try as hard as we can to love our enemies or bear with others who frustrate us (and it is important that we do in fact put our will and body into this obedience because the Holy Spirit works in accordance with our sumbission to Him), but only God can change our hearts.

I feel like I could write so much more because so much awesome stuff is happening, but I will pace it. We will continue to update consistently, and we hope you are all doing great and falling deeper in love with the greatest treasure of all!

We are so excited and stoked to announce that our good friend Emilee Shim will be joining Kingdom First staff to help with student ministry. She brings a wealth of gifts to the table that greatly complement Trent and I, and we are so blessed to have her. Emilee graduated the year between Trent and I (2005) and played soccer at Stanford. She worked with Young Life, an awesome high school ministry, in this area for the last two years, then went to Kenya last year to work in an orphanage. She led backpacking trips all summer in Colorado for Young Life, and is now joining us for an awesome year!

She is also joining at the perfect time as there is a great need for her! Last year I met with over 25 girls one on one every week, and led three small groups, so I could not take on any more! Tonight at our first Cardinal Life of the year, we had over 100 students there, and over 20 NEW girls said they either wanted to meet one on one with a Cardinal Life advisor, be in a small group, or learn more about starting a personal relationship with God! Praise God, but I definitely could not have accommodated 45 girls to meet with! So needless to say I am very happy to have my best friend who I so love and admire join us in our mission to love and come alongside Stanford students with the love and good news of Jesus.

So the school year has officially started and it has been an awesome start! We had a kickoff bbq at the park behind our house the day before classes started, and we had a big group of students show up for good food, fellowship, and fun games (washoes and polish golf...if you haven't played them you are missin' out:) Then the following night we had our first official Cross Training of the year. Cross Training is our weekly meeting where we share a meal, study the Word, get into each other's lives, worship God, pray, and then usually have goofy dance parties at the end. It is the highlight of our week and God always moves powerfully in our midst. Last year we had cross training at our house, which we quickly began to grow out of! So this year we are meeting at Steve and Lori's house (the couple we are blessed to work with who started Kingdom First and have been doing ministry at Stanford for 8 years now) which is much more spacious. Last night we had about 60 or more students, which would have been physically impossible to fit in our house.

We are very thankful for and excited about the movement of God on this campus. It is such a joy to see students' hearts being captivated by His love and wanting to live as He did and bear much fruit for His Kingdom. And of course, seeing people come to know Jesus personally for the first time and seeing their lives be forever changed is worth it all!

I am kind of embarrassed that we have a blog, because we haven't written in so long. I am really going to try and start writing more consistently as a way to keep those of you who are interested informed on what is going on in our world, in Cardinal Life, with 2nd mile, etc.
I would say the most recent thing we want to share about is our five week summer mission trip to South Africa with 15 of our students from Stanford, 15 Boston Campus Crusade students, and two families from Boston. Our time there was very rich and rewarding in many different ways that we would love to share with you.

First, God used the work we were doing with disabled children, orphans, Aids patients, and people living in the worst poverty any of us have ever witnessed to break our hearts in new ways, to humble us deeply, and to teach us the rich value and joy of serving “the least of these” in his Kingdom. We feel like we saw God’s Kingdom in new ways; for example, we experienced the spiritual and relational richness of these broken people who were so loving to us and so receptive to the good news of Jesus and his love for them. So many of them seemed to really know Jesus in a very deep, personal way, and it showed in their worship gatherings Sunday morning where they brought the house down in song and dance. While their material poverty is something that might be rare in America, their community and spiritual wealth is something that seems sadly to be rare in America as well. Their love and joy spoke very loud to us because many of their situations are so painful and seem hopeless.

Second, the teaching given by Boston leaders Pat McLeod and Bret Ogburn inspired and spurred each of us to have more of a God sized vision of loving and serving our friends, teammates, and campus into the Kingdom. The 15 students from Stanford who were there, as well as Trent and I, caught a greater vision of God’s love and mercy toward every person at Stanford, and there is a renewed excitement to intentionally build bridges with the people around us to share the love of Christ with. We are all eager to go that next step of not just being a welcoming group, but seeking people out to unconditionally serve and love.

Third, living in close quarters for five weeks is very sanctifying because it is impossible to “hide” brokenness and sinfulness from others and from self. Healthy communication skills have to be developed, as well as listening and conflict resolution skills. Patience is tested, providing ample opportunity to practice selflessness, humility, giving up one’s rights, bearing with one another, showing mercy, and many other things that may seem easy to do in theory or from a distance. One of our students, Nate Cass, wrote this in reflection from his time in Africa: “One night one of the amazing leaders, Pat, gave a talk on Philippians 3 and the ways we as humans attempt to show to everyone we have it all together. The coolest thing is that Jesus doesn’t want us to feel the pressure of putting on this appearance or illusion of having it “together” (Pat calls this the divine man complex). What God wants from us is a poverty of spirit that admits our weakness and bankruptcy and our desperate need for His powerful transforming work in us. And it’s not as if our loving Father says “Humble yourself and then I’ll bless you” like some power-hungry commander. Humbling ourselves is the blessing and the place where we find freedom—we were created to be humble before God and others, and He wants to release us from the expectations of others. And people seem to be strangely drawn to a community of meek, merciful people who know they are broken but are somehow living in the freedom, hope, peace, love and joy of a resurrection power that works best in weakness. After talking about all of these things the next day with my friend and mentor, Trent, and confessing how wretched and fallen we truly were before God, he commented on how fitting it was that we were doing the maintenance project we just happened to be doing that day—shoveling manure!”

Lastly, we believe that God created a rolling snowball in all of our hearts in Africa that is going to pick up great size and momentum this year in Cardinal Life. We have an incredible group of student leaders who love Jesus and are eager to serve others and usher in His Kingdom at Stanford. We feel His Spirit stirring on campus, and it is really exciting. We already had 30 people come to Cross Training two weeks before school has even started, and many people are still gone, much less new freshmen. Luckily, we have a bigger space to meet this year, which will provide room for the growth that we already see happening. We covet your prayers for this new school year; that God would first and foremost grow students at Stanford in love and intimacy with Himself; that Cardinal Life would be a movement that is building bridges via service with the hurting world around us; that God’s name alone is being glorified and made famous; and that we would be protected against the enemy’s schemes to divide, distract, tempt, and thwart a powerful work of God.

Fall quarter Fun

I have not written for quite some time, so it is rather overwhelming to even try and capture all that God has done so far this year. Wow. God is Good! We started the quarter off right before school even started with a bbq at our house. Luckily we were having the bbq in the park right behind our house because about 100 students came!! It was a lot of fun and an exciting way to start off the quarter. Shortly thereafter, we had large group meetings for Cardinal Life the first and second weeks of school. Both of those meetings were the largest groups we have ever had come to Cardinal Life (well over 100 students), which was obviously encouraging and exciting. We try not to measure our Kingdom "success" by how many people are coming to meetings, but it was encouraging nonetheless to see that many students show up to a meeting where they would get to hear the gospel and a message about Jesus. In reality, we would rather the group be small and on fire for Jesus than large and lukewarm or not even believing at all. Ideally we would have both:)

I (Natalie) have been meeting with about 23 girls per week all year. That continues to be my favorite part of ministry and where I am energized and come alive the most. I love to go deeper with girls on an individual basis and dig into the Word together, hear what God is teaching them and doing in their lives, love and counsel them however I can, and just walk alongside them. It is such a joy and delight to my heart to see women who either already love Jesus and are committed to following him no matter what the cost or who desire to grow and pursue an intimate relationship with Him, even for the first time. I was able to share the gospel with a few girls for the first time and see them put their faith in Jesus!!! That always makes me cry and rejoice more than anything else. It is truly a miracle to see women come to faith for the first time in college and just be immediately filled with faith and passion for Him. One girl in particular who recently believed and received Jesus three weeks ago (after only two hours of talking) has just been on fire for Him and so hungry for the word. She has already asked me if she could pray for me and has demonstrated a surrender and repentance that is such an amazing demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit! Seeing people receive the Good News of Jesus in faith and getting to participate in that is enough to keep us going for awhile!!

Another cool thing this year is that we started something called Cross Training, which is basically church at our house every Monday night for any students who want to come. Our little house has been packed pretty much every Monday night, and we have gotten to see the Lord work mightily in that space. Our time together starts at 6 with dinner (I have perfected the art of cooking meals for about 30 people), and then at 7, we usually start by either reading a passage of Scripture or watching a sermon (usually Francis Chan from a church in Simi Valley...He is amazing!!) and then discussing it. Then we have a time of worship led by Cody (Trent's brother who is a sophomore at Stanford), followed by a time of prayer for one another. Very simple, but it has been so powerful. It has been really neat to watch a true community begin to emerge where people genuinely love one another, feel at home, and have a lot of fun together. We have gotten to see the Lord work mightily in answering many of our prayers for one another and other people. It has also been amazing to see people more set free to unashamedly worship God and express love for each other. Sometimes it seems like Stanford students (and people in general) have a lot of fear and shame surrounding expressing love for one another or freely worshiping God in song or in other parts of life. It has been neat to see students come to a place where they are able to worship God freely. Our prayer times have become increasingly awesome and we usually either lay our hands on someone or just put our arms around each others shoulders to embrace one another as we pray. That has been sweet and very life giving to us and all of the students! We have enoyed having our home turned into a temple of worship, community, and a little glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is like!

God has also been tremendously growing Trent and I individually and as a couple. I find that the verse in Philemon 1:6 is very true, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ." As Trent and I share our faith and lead other students along, it strengthens our faith and constantly convicts us. I desire for every girl I meet with to genuinely and completely trust in the person of Jesus Christ. To trust that his commands are for our best, that he is the greatest treasure that we could ever have, that in losing our lives for his sake we find it, and that all of his promises are true! So this challenges me to believe it myself through the power of the Holy Spirit. We share in Paul's sentiment that "we beat our bodies and make them our slaves so that after we have preached to others, we ourselves will not be disqualified for the prize," (1Corinthians 9:27).

And finally, we pray that "the Lord will make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones," (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13). We love and miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!!