Cardinal Life Video

I can't believe we are already half way through fall quarter! God has been doing a lot of really awesome things.

Here are a few highlights:

• We have a lot of freshmen and new students coming consistently to Cross Training, which is our weekly meeting where we cook dinner for students and have a time of worship and teaching. It is starting to feel tight even in the Stenstrom's house. Better yet, most students who come to Cross Training each week are plugged into a small group and/or meeting with one of us weekly. We have roughly 75 students plugged into small groups, not counting the 30 or so guys (mostly baseball and football guys) that Jim Stump meets with one on one each week and has small groups with. Jim is a great ministry partner to have! He has been doing ministry at Stanford for over 35 years and has quite a legacy here. It is also neat to see a lot of the juniors and seniors taking leadership in different ways, reaching out to freshmen, and some helping lead a small group.

This is the sermon we watched at Cross Training last night. It was given by Trent's pastor from home who found out a few days before giving this message that his five year old daughter has stage three cancer and a tumor the size of a nerf football in her abdominal cavity! It is one of the most incredible and powerful sermons I have ever heard, and I would invite you all to watch it! He portrays a beautiful, worshipful heart in the midst of a huge trial, and he is an example to me of someone who treasures Jesus above all else.

When My Heart Is Overwhelmed from Reality on Vimeo.

Fall is in full swing and it has been joyful, chaotic, and life giving! There are lots of new freshmen which has been really exciting. We had a packed house for our first Cross Training of the year at Steve and Lori's house, and our first on campus meeting the following week was also buzzing with the excitement of a new year and new people. We are excited for this upcoming year and all that God has in store. I also got to lead a student to Christ the first week, which was so awesome!

In the midst of the chaos of a new year starting up, meeting with new students, planning fun activities, and figuring out small groups, book studies, one on one meetings, and what to do for Cross Training each week, we have been reminded of our desperate need and desire to be truly plugged into Jesus. He has blessed us with a very fresh perspective of the reality that it is all about HIM and that HE is to be our greatest love and treasure above all other things in life, including above ministry! We truly believe that our impact on the Stanford students will be much greater if we are plugged into Him, rather than operating out of our own strength. I am reminded of that daily!

Summer is winding down and we are getting really excited for all the students to return to campus. It has been a really rich summer! We had about 30-40 students around for the first two months of summer, and then summer school and a lot of internships ended around mid August, football players went into "hell month" of training where they are not allowed to leave campus, other sports got a few weeks off, etc. However, as some students left, others arrived for preseason training or other reasons, so we still have had a good amount of students around, which has been a blast! There have been ample opportunities to go do fun things, fellowship and worship later into the night at cross training, have bbq's, and enjoy some down time with one another. But of course we miss the students who are not here and the flurry of energy during the school year.

DREAM #2: ONE YEAR INTERNSHIP FOR GRADUATED SENIORS

VISION IN A NUTSHELL: A one year internship for graduated students, which would prepare these interns to be sent out into life beyond college as well as increase ministry to Stanford University. These students will live in community (ideally in a house or apartment complex near campus) while they work part time, focus on spiritual growth, serve somehow in ministry to the campus and surrounding community, and discover which vocation they want to pursue and how they want to pursue it. Overall, the goal of this year long internship would be to strengthen and equip these students to be sent out into the world with a solid spiritual foundation, a strong Christian world-view and Kingdom perspective, relational tools and various life skills, and a clear vision and plan of what they are going to do next. This is all relative to how they are uniquely gifted and passionate about ushering in God’s Kingdom. Additionally, the goal of this internship would be to dramatically increase the ministry to Stanford students because of the increased amount of “staff” and the amount of life changing experiences and activities that students could be invited into.

WHY WE WANT TO DO THIS: We feel there is a gap/need for a ministry focused on walking alongside students transitioning from college to the world after college. We believe students need a space where they can learn healthy rhythms of life in accordance with Kingdom values (while working and engaging with the world around them), develop a Kingdom perspective for work, relationships, and life, and explore their passions and gifts so they can very thoughtfully and prayerfully step onto a particular trajectory for the next big stage of their lives. As it pertains to ministry needs to the campus: In general, we feel that ministries at Stanford seem to do an incredible job of helping to transform the minds of the students as well as providing a structure where community and growth can happen at set times every week as their lives happen at a very fast pace. However, we desire to offer more to students. It is our opinion that what the students need most is a community where they can “come and see” the Kingdom of God being lived out (not just talked about), with the invitation to join in.

If you are interested in helping out with this vision in some way, please email me at nwiesen@gmail.com.

DREAM #1: FREEDOM CAFE

We have been praying a lot about some exciting dreams that we have had for several years now. We see God starting to work in cool ways to possibly start moving forward with certain aspects of those dreams, which is very exciting. One of the visions is to start a Freedom Cafe, and the other is to start a 1-2 year internship for students after they graduate. We have had a few promising meetings in the last few weeks with some key people regarding the Freedom Cafe, and it has given us a lot of excitement and optimism that it seems there is a very good chance it is going to happen! Let me explain the Freedom Cafe in this post, and then I will write about the internship in a later post.

In general, the idea is to launch a for profit business under our non-profit umbrella to support the work of the ministry. The current business idea is a "Freedom Cafe" close to campus where students and others would be inclined to come and study, hang out, and get filled physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It could also be a place where people learn about, rally around, and fight against various injustices around the world, especially human trafficking. We envision creating a warm, cozy ambiance so that people feel safe and can find refuge, love, and peace there. We would offer a variety of different community gatherings certain nights of the week or month, like poetry reading or poetry writing and sharing, Bible studies, book studies, Cross Training (which is currently our weekly student worship gathering), concerts, various classes, and other creative things to cultivate community, love on people, and lead them closer to Jesus. We could also have a "kids playing" section with one or two students watching the kids while moms get a coffee break, read, or talk with other moms. We definitely feel like this cafe would prove to be an incredible extension of our reach to the campus and surrounding community. We hope to launch a one to two year student internship for graduating seniors as well who would be committed to working/serving in the cafe for a portion of their time. I will share the vision of the student internship in next post!

Our greatest heart's desire for students is that they would truly love Jesus and that their hearts would be transformed. We do not just want a community that knows how to act and speak in the "right Christian way". We want a community of broken, honest, pure hearted students who are truly being made into the image of our Savior. That is who Trent and I want to be too!

I think there have been three theme verses for Trent, me, and our students this last year. The first verse is the first beatitude in Matthew 5, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". There is so much to say about this simple but deeply profound verse. Poverty of spirit is a recognition of spiritual bankruptcy and leads to true dependence on God. The road to poverty of spirit is marked by suffering, God allowing us to see the sin and filth in our hearts, and coming to the end of relying on self. It is a narrow road, but it leads to life. Yes it leads to life!! God has been blessing us by making us more poor in spirit, but the road there has been painful and hard at times. The result has been greater intimacy with God and dependence on Him for the strength I need to be holy, to not sin, to obey His commands, and to love Him and others from my heart. It is baffling how much I subconsciously think I can depend on myself and my own strength for all of those things. Entering the Kingdom does not come by being self sufficient, but by being dependent on God, which is the opposite of what our culture tells us we should be.

The second verse is Isaiah 26:8, which says, "We trust in you by obeying your commands. Our heart's desire is for your name's glory." The second half of the verse is incredibly convicting and powerful to me. How often do I honestly desire for God to get all the glory and not myself? How often do I want His will to be done at the expense of my own? Because His will being done is equated with His Kingdom coming (in the Lord's prayer), I cannot usher in His Kingdom if I am living by my own will and for my own glory. God has been slowly helping us die to our desires to get the glory, but this will be a life long process for sure! What a freedom it is though!

The third verse is 1 Samuel 16:7 when God says to Samuel, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." This verse is actually quite frightening to me because we cannot fool God regardless of how "good" or "righteous" our outside appears to be. How often do I care more about what is in my heart than what I do on the outside? If I "perform well and righteously" in a certain situation, am I still concerned with what was really in my heart? Or am I just proud and happy to receive the praise of man? Because I truly believe that I will stand before Jesus one day and give an account for my life and what was truly in my heart, I am motivated to tend to my heart, to seek transformation of my heart, not just my actions. The beauty of a transformed heart is that a simplicity takes over life, which is really just transparency. A good tree bears good fruit naturally. I do not want to be a Pharisee, yet this is easy to become if I don't care about my heart, engage in spiritual disciplines, and seek God more fervently behind closed doors than in front of others.

This narrow road of dying to ourselves leads to wholeness, freedom, and fruit as we get to participate in God's story. It is all about Him!

Our 7 day backpacking trip with students was incredible! The weather was much better than expected, which was a huge blessing because it was supposed to be rainy with thunder showers 5 of the 7 days, with a high of 40! It ended up raining a little bit one night, and then it was mostly sunny and pretty warm the rest of the week! It was so beautiful, as you can see in some of the pictures right below this post. You can also see that there was still quite a lot of snow, but it ended up being a fun challenge.

The group bonded and got along incredibly! It was a pretty mixed group in the sense that a lot of the students going did not know each other extremely well. One of the coolest parts of the week for me was hearing everyone's summarized life story around the campfire at night times. People were really honest and I feel like that was a huge source of bonding among the group. It was also nice to be away from civilization, phones, technology, email, etc for a week. It is amazing how much peace we all experienced. And because we had quite a bit of down time, we all got to spend a lot of time with God and one another in His glorious creation which was literally breathtaking at times and filled us all with so much joy and praise!! While we did not want to leave, I must admit that I was very excited to take a shower, sleep in my bed, and eat some good food:) We were all extremely smelly after not showering for seven days, but it was an incredible experience that we all embraced and grew from!

WOW!

2 of the students climbed the big peak behind and left of us

The lakes were still half way frozen over

We made a huge bonfire one of the nights

Gorgeous sunset one night!

One of the students, Doug, standing in a HUGE GORGEOUS meadow

Lots of snow when we came over the Donahue pass!

Group shot at the top of Donahue pass

Climbing up the pass in the snow

Group shot

All the girls minus one

Thousand island lake

The school year is coming to a close. It has been an incredible spring quarter and year. One of my favorite things about spring quarter was having the opportunity to lead a freshman girl on the tennis team to Jesus and watch her embrace Him wholeheartedly. I am convinced of the Lord's power when he reveals Himself to students who have not grown up with a Christian background whatsoever, and then they just get it so quickly. Within a few weeks, she had me in tears (of joy and praise) because of the wisdom that was coming out of her mouth, how hungry she was to read Scripture, and the things the Lord was convicting her of and showing to her. For example, I led her to Christ on a Friday, and by Monday she had already read John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 1 John, and half of the book I gave her. And that was even during a busy time for her! Within a week she was saying things to me like, "I want to surrender everything in my life to Him because He is so beautiful and good." Or "I have so much joy and purpose for the first time in my life and I am so thankful to have found the greatest truth and reality." Or "I see how wretched my heart is and how much I long to be more like Jesus." Seeing even one student come to know Jesus keeps the fuel in my heart burning for a long time, and we were blessed to see quite a few students come to know Christ for the first time this year!

The Freedom Summit was absolutely INCREDIBLE last weekend!! It far surpassed my expectations in quality and quantity of people that came! We had about 500 people register in the last few days leading up to the conference, so we had about 1,000 people total. While numbers are not the ultimate gauge of success for anything, we were thrilled that 1,000 people in the Bay Area cared enough about human trafficking to come to the Freedom Summit. We were also thrilled that 1,000 people were educated and given many opportunities at the conference to get involved in fighting this horrible injustice (we had about 25 local and international organizations come to the conference. Each organization was given a table in the "global village" where conference attendees were able to explore, ask questions, and see how they could get involved.) We can't wait to see all that God is going to do as a result of this conference! We trust that many seeds were planted at the Freedom Summit, and that He will cause them to grow as He desires. Beginning on June 1st, videos of all the main and breakout sessions will be posted on our website: www.freedom-summit.org. Make sure to watch at least the three main sessions if you were not able to attend. We also posted the handbook on our website, and this is a great compilation of information on the organizations that were present--their needs, vision, niche in fighting human trafficking, prayer requests, and how YOU can get involved. We were so blessed by this event and praise GOD for all that He is doing here among us!

2nd Mile - Green Oaks Academy from Emilee Shim on Vimeo.

Check out our most recent 2nd mile slideshow. We rennovated an elementary school in East Palo Alto last weekend, and it was a blast! We were excited to bless the students and staff at this school, and it was such a joy to serve. We had a lot of students come out too, which was a lot of fun!

We finally arrived home from Honduras late last night. The trip was incredible to say the least for everyone involved! We felt God move in powerful ways in and through us, the work was very rewarding, the group got along incredibly and bonded a lot, no one got sick (at least no signs of sickness yet...some fevers take a week to kick in so hopefully no one got anything:), everyone grew in new ways, and everyone was used in the lives of the local people who we were privileged to hang out with for a week. Trent and I just love mission trips for so many reasons, and this proved to be worth all of the hard work that went into planning it!

Here is a short snippet from an email that Trent sent the parents while we were there. It gives a brief picture of our work and rhythm there:

funny group pic

speeding their boat through the mangroves

launching each other off the dock:)

singing with the kids

house demo

cute kids!

more craziness off the dock

playing with kids is hard work:)

awesome beach in one of the towns where we worked

On the way to work!

Some of our students working

Our amazing artist Kat painting one of many murals at the school in town

Repainting a school

Playing with the precious kids!

Check out the incredible promotional video for the Freedom Summit that one of our students made!! You can read more about the Freedom Summit in the post right below this. Go to our website at www.freedom-summit.org to learn more and register now!


Freedom Summit from Freedom Summit on Vimeo.

We are more than excited about the upcoming Freedom Summit, a conference on slavery and human trafficking! We have an incredible team of our students and Abundant Life members working hard to put this together. It has been so fun to see our students take ownership and come alive in planning this conference. We have incredible speakers coming, including pastor Francis Chan from Cornerstone church near LA, David Batstone with Not for Sale, and Bethany Hoang from International Justice Mission. Not for Sale and IJM are two of the biggest and best organizations in the country fighting human trafficking! In putting this conference together, we have learned so much and met so many incredible people who are working full time to fight this massive injustice in this world.

One example of someone we have met who is working hard to fight this injustice and will join us at the conference is Nathan George (and his small team of employees) who started a for profit business called Trade as One a few years ago. Nathan worked in the UK in business for 20 years before he felt led to start this business in the United States. He started by spending a lot of time travelling around the world to places where there is a lot of poverty, AIDS, and/or human trafficking. He found large and small businesses who were employing people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of forced prostitution or labor. He said the one main thing that all of these people wanted was help in marketing and selling their products. So he set up Trade as One to buy products from these businesses and sell them in the States. Last year, they sold $700,000 worth of products and it was only their second year in operation! They are not only running an eithical business in which ALL of the products they sell are 100% slave free, but the very existence of their business is responsible for sustaining and creating jobs for many thousands of people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of human trafficking. Now that to me is an example of creative Kingdom business that delights God's heart!!

Roatan Missions Trip Update

We are extremely excited about our upcoming trip to the island of Roatan, located 27 miles off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We will be making the trip with 31 students from Stanford, spending our time rebuilding homes, cleaning up communities, and caring for the sick and marginalized that inhabit the island's east end.

We can't wait to see how God moves in and through our group during this time! If you would join us in praying for the trip, please pray for:

• hearts that are prepared for whatever we encounter on the island
• God's working in the hearts of the people we are to meet on the island
• this trip to bless those we meet on the island, while also growing each of us more in love with Him
• seamless preparation, both on our end and on the island
• safe and smooth travel
  
• health and safety during our time on the island
• the financial provision necessary for everyone to go
• the financial provision necessary to complete the projects we will be doing while there
• unity, growth and love within the context of our group

Also, we are currently raising money to help fund the projects that we will be doing on the island, as well as to supplement the money raised by students for the cost of their trips. If you are interested in giving for this particular trip, either click the "Donate" button located on the right hand side of this page, or send checks made out to the National Christian Foundation, with "Fund #:648866" in the memo line to:

2314 Williams St
Palo Alto, CA
94306

We appreciate your partnership with us in this venture!

Thanks, and God Bless!

We feel that the word for this quarter is "surrender", accompanied by the loving yet challenging question from the Lord, "what is your treasure? what do you really love the most?" Trent and I recently watched a 3 minute youtube video of John Piper's response to the "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel that is being touted by so many preachers, televangelists, and other pastors around the world. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGzqIcbvARw. He is very blunt about how horrible this "gospel" is because it is not the gospel and is really just idolatry. While I also share Piper in his hatred for the overt "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel because it is not the gospel, I felt surprisingly convicted by this video. I realized that my heart is prone to wander and treasure other things above Jesus, which is also idolatry! It made me start reflecting on how self centered and small my view of God usually is. God has been doing major heart movements in me surrounding this core, deep issue of where my treasure is. Trent and I, along with many of our students, have been on our knees begging the Lord to "circumcise our hearts so that we may truly love Him with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul" (Deutoronomy 30:6). Things are shifting and softening in my heart and I am falling more in love with Jesus. I am beginning to feel more of the "rivers of living water" and love for others gushing from my heart.

I am also experiencing a lot of wrestling with Him as well. He is letting me see just how deep some of my other loves run, and He is slowly prying my hand away from those things. I feel like in some ways, God has been patiently waiting and asking, "how much of me do you want?" I thought I had already "lost my life for His sake and found it," and in some ways I have, but there is still more to go. And I truly believe that in God's economy, resurrection comes from death. Seeds must die to bear fruit. I must lose my life for His sake to save it and find it. It costs everything. But then I realize that everything I have is as loss, rubbish, garbage, compared to knowing Him. Philippians 3:7-11 says exactly what I am communicating here. As Paul writes from prison, he says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So my Stanford degree, my gymnastics accomplishments, my incredible family and friends, ministry, are all a loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I want there to be no comparison when it comes to what I love the most. This is challenging! I guess when we come face to face with Him one day, we will realize how pale everything is in comparison to his glory, goodness, and greatness!

Winter quarter has been an absolute whirlwind so far. An awesome whirlwind:) We have had over 50 kids packed into the Stenstrom's house at our first three Cross Training meetings of the quarter (this picture is about half the group!). God has been doing an incredible work in so many people's hearts, and we continue to praise God for the ways we get to participate in His work on the Stanford campus. I step back often and think about the ripple effect that so many Stanford students falling in love with Jesus will have on the world. Channeling all of their passions, talents, resources, and LOVE towards God and His Kingdom is so exciting to Trent and I. God keeps drawing new people to himself and to the Cardinal Life community, and we are humbled and thrilled by His mighty power that is at work in transforming students hearts, minds, priorities, and lives. We so strongly know and proclaim that all glory and credit belongs to Him.

Something that we are really excited for, and know will have a HUGE impact on this group of students: we have about 30 students already committed to coming on a spring break Honduras mission trip! Our brother in law's father, Joseph Natale, started a missions organization there, on the island of Roatan many years ago, and there is a lot of poverty there, though a breathtakingly beautiful place! We are going to build a house for a family, possibly do some HIV/AIDS prevention education at the local high school that the Natale's started (1/5 people have HIV/AIDS in most of the towns on Roatan!), play soccer with the kids, pray and share the gospel with people, and just have fun and love on them! Please pray that God would do a mighty work in and through us. We are so excited about the group that is going, and we know that God is going to rock their worlds with His love, truth, and invitation to radically follow Him the rest of their lives.

One quote by Mother Theresa that has really impacted Trent and I pertaining to how we view mission trips: "the rich rescue the poor and the poor rescue the rich." This is so true. We often go into mission trips thinking we are going to serve and give since we have "so much", but we are served and given so much also. This summer in South Africa, I felt like we were "rescued" to a certain degree from our American consumeristic mentality, and we received so many spiritual riches from the poor there. It seemed like the degree to which they were materially poor, they were that spiritually rich towards God, which is so much more important. I was actually saddened by the spiritual poverty of America in comparison. The family of God, ALL of the family of God, NEEDS one another. So we will go to serve, teach, and love them, and they will serve, teach, and love us! I know our students will come back changed and hopefully more in love with God than ever before. And hopefully the effect upon return will be a closer knit community more in love with God and other people, leading to more people seeing and coming to know Jesus. May His Name be praised and lifted higher through everything we do!