Dear HCFA friends and family,
Fall is here in Cambridge and it has been beautiful! We had the joy of getting away with students into the Berkshire’s of western Massachusetts a couple of weekends ago for our fall retreat. We had a great turn out this year — about 90 students, many of whom were freshman.
We are always excited to see freshman come out to the retreat and really grow deeper in community. We went to a new location this year and were able to canoe, go apple picking and eat apple cider donuts. We also had a guest speaker come and talk about courage and hope in outreach. It was an amazing weekend. It was so wonderful to see students stepping outside of normal social circles, praying and ministering to one another, and resting from the hectic pace of Harvard. Please pray that the steps forward that students made will take deep root, that they would continue to hunger for God, His word and His presence. Pray that the relationships that were forged that weekend would continue to grow and become sources of encouragement and grace on campus.
Our leadership lecture series (DOXA) has been particularly great this semester. This last week we had the privilege of having a Harvard professor, John Stauffer, come and teach on Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln’s faith. It was a unique DOXA experience for our students as they could see one of their own professors share his faith with them. This is very unusual. Harvard faculty is largely non-Christian, and the few professors who are Christian experience a lot of pressure, hostility and even damage to their reputation for being known as a Christian. Stauffer had stumbled upon DOXA last year and said he had never seen a faith group like ours at Harvard. He was blown away by the student leadership in music and the quality of teaching that was present (ministry fellow Nick Nowalk). Please join us in praying for the Harvard professors who are Christians, that they would be unashamed of their faith, bold in their proclamation of the gospel, and that the Lord would use them on campus for the glory of His kingdom.
Another exciting development this semester is our seeking God team’s initiative to start a prayer room in the HCFA office for four hours on Monday afternoon. This is a new endeavor to encourage and invite HCFA students to make prayer a more regular part of their day. There will be different themes for each hour — intercession, worship, small group prayer and liturgy. Please pray that the prayer room would take off this semester and students would put aside an hour or even 15 minutes of their day to spend time in prayer. Pray that their desires would be for the Kingdom of God to come and that they would learn to pray and hope in big ways for the Lord to work at Harvard. We are so grateful for your partnership with us! Thank you for taking the time to hear about HCFA and pray for us!
In Christ,
Anne Kerhoulas
Christian Union Ministry Fellow
Harvard University
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.
