TOCCOA FALLS COLLEGE
From: "Timothy C. Tennent" <ttennent@toccoafalls.edu> ..SMF at TFC is having its best year yet! We are in awe this year at the remarkable things that are happening. It is student led, student initiated, student directed... Many nights it is a standing room only crowd in Williams Chapel. We have involvement from both mission majors and non-mission majors. Many are meeting in our new World Missions Center building for prayer at 6:00 a.m. every weekday. Praise the Lord... [This is one chapter of close to 100 student mission fellowships active on Christian college campuses throughout North America. I used to work full-time with this network and would love to see more interaction between these student mission fellowships and mission agencies and church mission programs...NW]

KING COLLEGE WORLD CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
About 10 years ago, Garth Wright and Doug Addington, itenerating missions mobilizers, visited King College and asked around as to who was missions-minded on campus. Jennifer Blackburn's name came up, they spoke with her, and she caught the vision of starting a World Christian Fellowship (WCF) at King. Attendance went up to about 50 (out of a student body of 500)! Around that time, a new chaplin began ministry there, Dr. Erroll Rohr, and God has been using him to mobilize about a third of the student body to go on short-term missions projects! At the time of this writing the WCF meets on Monday nights under the leadership of Kent Price, a chemistry major. The two times I've visited, they had missionaries speak and them prayed for them during the meeting. Kent said that they also sometimes have a Bible study or write missionaries during their weekly meetings. WCF is also working to sponsor a "Community Service Project", where they can do some ministry in a nearby city, as well as some informal activities occasionally on weekends where they could go out and do something fun--like build a bonfire and sing... They also hosted a "World Focus Week" where Bart Campollo (yes, that's Tony's son) was the main speaker. His first talk was especially interesting to me: Bart asked, "Why does God want you to be involved in missions?" After blasting a lot of spurious reasons out of the water (such as "Because He needs us." and "Because He wants us to be happy."), he answered his question with, "Because He wants to be close to us!" He likened it to the way a father gets his little son to help him wash the car--the little boy will probably slow down the job and get Dad all wet in the process, but Dad gets his son to "help" because he wants to deepen his relationship with his son as they work together. Fascinating! King College's World Christian Fellowship played "missions pictionary" during one of their meetings, and it was a big hit! They used the regular Pictionary rules and all, but called out terms that would be in a World Christian's vocabulary (i.e. names of countries, and other words relating to missionary work and sending roles) Jeffrey Farmer, their treasurer, also mentioned making a "World Christian Chocolate Chip Cookie" (the BIG kind) or cake decorated with an image of the world divided into countries. As everybody is served a piece of the cookie or cake, they pray for the lost and for the missionaries in the country that came out on their piece! Another idea they had was to put together an Easter care package for a missionary--including a letter or a tape with a recorded message from your fellowship and some distinctly American stuff that they don't have over there.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ministry: Covenant College
The Covenant College student missions fellowship president wanted to meet some real live Muslims, since he was wanting to be a missionary to Muslims, so he went downtown to The University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, and hung out in the student center. He discovered that the international students hung out in the lobby and the game room, so he started talking with them. He also talked with the faculty member who is in charge of watching out for the international students and giving them help with their English. We ended up filling a carload of Covenant students every Monday afternoon to go down to UTC to help lead a conversational English workshop! I started attending their Inter- national Student Organization (ISO) meetings too, and they loved it (they even tried to vote us into office)! Most of the International students at UTC were Indian Hindus or Arabic Muslims, but they really responded to our friendships with them as we hosted dinners for them and went to their social functions at UTC. Almost every time we'd talk with them, we'd talk about our faith; they respected that and it left an impact on them. One said that she couldn't understand why we'd drive all the way across town to make friends with her, and that we were the only friends she had in the U.S! Another guy asked us why we were different from all the other people in the U.S. who called themselves Christians, yet who lived immoral lives. But you should know before you start such a project that it takes a lot of time to build a friendship with someone off-campus, and it is a big commitment--don't start too big. I just finished reading (director of InterVarsity's International Student Ministry) Ned Hale's 16 pg. paper on Intn'l student ministry. It's not so much a how-to (although he does lay down a few basic principles) as it is a compelling motivational article for people to be involved in ministry to intn'l students. If you want a copy, write him at POB 7895, 6400 Schroeder Rd., Madison, WI 53707 7895. [I also have a box of brochures from International Students, Inc. (ISI), to give you some starter resources to get involved in ministry to non-Christian International students.--NW, 1997] There's no better way for gaining experience in cross-cultural evangelism and discipleship right in your own hometown!

SUMMER MISSIONS PROJECT SUPPORT GROUP: Bryan College
At Bryan College, I saw a great model for a support group for students who are going on Summer missions projects: The coordinator sets up a display board of brochures for various Summer missions projects and finds out which students are going where over the Summer. They meet every other week to pray for each other and prepare for going--a major part of this being fund-raisers for money to cover their costs. Some fund-raisers they do include a penny drive (competition between the classes to see who can contribute the most pennies--intramural points to the winning class), a used book sale (students contribute used textbooks which are sold below the retail used book cost), and the old faithful: a donation car wash (explain the cause to the person while their car is being washed, then ask for a donation). At the end of the school year, a booklet is made containing the name, picture, and prayer requests of each student going; this booklet is distributed to the student body for prayer support.

CAMPUS CRUSADE STUDENT MOBILIZATION
FROM: Michael Schwartz <MSchwartz@CProject.com>
I thought you might be encouraged by this note I received from Mike Sutton. He oversees the mission mobilization for Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) in the Upper Midwest U.S. He ...invited me out to Minneapolis in September where we constructed the "Caleb Challenge" with 11 CCC students. They are calling it the Upper Midwest Challenge. [The Challenge states: "I commit to live an open, authentic, humble Christian life with others and the Lord, and, being compelled by His love, to seek and fulfill my role in God's mission to reach the world, so that Jesus receives all the glory He deserves.] Anyway, be in prayer for these students and leaders as God begins something fresh in their lives...

Mike Sutton <74152.1513@Compuserve.com> writes "We had a amazing week in Minneapolis. The Challenge Students were in front of the conference (500 students) the first night, sharing about the Challenge...

..The final night of the conference (New Years Eve), Dr. Bright ..challenged the students with the urgency of the hour related to the year 2000 and to give up their plans for the next 5 years and focus on helping to fulfill the Great Commission. Right after he spoke, Carter got up and lead the conference through a commitment time, where we had the students write a letter to the Lord and challenged the students to sign the Challenge if they hadn't. I haven't counted it all up yet but it's over 200 more students and staff (in addition to the 250 from the retreats) that signed it! It was an awesome and very moving event. After that, Kurt lead the conference through a time of prayer for the commitments.

The students were a BIG part, (really MAJOR) of the conference. They did great and I know the Lord really used them... [They also] set up a 24-hour prayer room [that] was well-used...

Please pray for the follow up of all this. After the commitment time, each campus broke into separate time, and I heard that is was some of the best sharing the [staff] have ever seen in their students. Pray for our staff that they will know how to lead and nurture these students without stifling their ownership of it all. Pray for my leadership; I really don't know the next step at this point.

Along with the Challenge things at the conference, we did have major interest in missions. The first night our main speaker spoke on the Student Volunteer Movement. The third night, we devoted the whole evening to international missions. Mostly about Latvia and China. After the meeting we had divided special seminars, and about 200 students and staff came to the China break out seminar...

STUDENT PRAYER MEETINGS
Church historian, Dr. J. Edwin Orr, once said that every great revival and missionary out-thrust could be traced back to a student prayer meeting. (Check out the 26 min. video of the late Dr. Orr's sermon, "The Role of PRAYER in Spiritual Awakening," from Inspirational Media, 2700 Little Mtn. Dr., POB 6046, San Bernardino, CA 92412). Here's what's happening at Southeastern Bible College, Birmingham, AL:

From Joe Brate <103624.1001@Compuserve.com> Jan. 30th, we started a "prayer initiative" at Southeastern Bible College. "MAKE US A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS:" Isaiah 56:7d. ..This is a 24-hr.-a-day, seven-day-a-week prayer chain. Each participant signs up on the prayer calendar poster, which has 3 slots per hour. As the Vice President of Prayer for our SMF [Student Mission Fellowship], I have been able to promote it in our chapel service announcement time... Each week...we will have a different prayer focus. Our first...is "spiritual awakening in the Birmingham area," with each day having specific prayer points. (We give each intercessor their own prayer packet.) ...Our next prayer focus will be the Muslim World...followed by a different prayer focus each week...[SBC, 10/40 Window, Latin America, Unreached Peoples, India, Cults, 4th World Peoples, Gospel Broadcast, Bible Translation, Russia...] Fourty-two people have signed up and are praying. That leaves 30 spots open. Please pray for us as we pray...

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