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!