March 2016
Dear friends and family,
We are currently in the middle of spring break, which means much needed rest and recovery for both students and staff. The spring always goes quickly and once the weather begins to lighten up, it feels like summer can’t come quickly enough!
This past month has been full. Over spring break we transition into new leadership teams for the coming 2016-2017 academic year. This means firstly praying over and nominating a new executive team and then working closely with them to identify and seek the Lord over about 50 students to be in a ministry team leader role. Although this is time-consuming and a big undertaking it is so exciting and encouraging to see how students have grown and changed over the past year. Current freshman invest in deeper ways as they commit to leadership, and sophomores and juniors show serious growth as they are able to lead different teams in the ministry. It is truly a testament to the Lord’s work in these students’ lives and His perfect provision of willing and service-oriented hearts. We are grateful and excited about this coming year and what the Lord will do. One of the specific goals of this coming year is to see more student-to-student discipleship. As staff we absolutely love and cherish our time in discipleship, but as we grow as a ministry we see more and more the need for students to care for and disciple one another. Please join us in praying that we might train and equip our leaders well so that they might take steps towards leading others to become more and more like Christ.
As mentioned last month, one of the last events the old executive team organized was a campaign called You Are More. The purpose was to encourage Harvard College Faith and Action (HCFA) members to take seriously the fact that they are not first and foremost defined by their work, their grades, their studying or their activities, but as children of God. The secondary, and equally important, goal was to use this concept for outreach to the broader Harvard campus. This culminated in a DOXA that was designed to be welcoming toward non-Christians or skeptics. HCFA students invited friends, roommates, classmates and teammates and we were blown away to see around 175 students show up, a large portion of whom had never been to an HCFA event. The Lord really blessed this campaign and it has been encouraging to see students thinking missionally as they do everyday life at Harvard. Please pray with us that students would continue to reach out to their friends and peers who do not know the Lord and that HCFA would grow as an outreach oriented community more and more.
Some other specific things to be in prayer for are for Bible Courses and DOXA. Pray that students would continue to come and invest in one another and God’s word. Pray for wisdom in our teaching. Pray for open hearts to receive truth in new ways. Pray for more new students and non-believers to be invited and come to hear the gospel. Pray for an increase in prayer from our students. Pray for more profound and real trust in God. Pray against anxiety, depression and the very real mental health struggles that dozens of our students deal with daily.
As always, we covet your prayers and are grateful for your partnership with us in ministry.
In Him,
Anne Kerhoulas
Christian Union Ministry Fellow
Harvard University
previous >
Please note: if you would like to receive regular updates on how to pray for Christian Union's work at Harvard, please email prayer@christianunion.org.
