“I hope it was worth your trip,” the chaplain said.
“A four hour drive in exchange for fifty-two lives. Yep,” I laughed, “I think that’s a pretty good trade.”
And unexpected.
King College only has about 500 residential students. And only 120 of those crowded into the old wooden pews this morning for the chapel service. They represent incredibly diverse Christian traditions too. Most of the faculty are Presbyterian. Many of the students are too. But they’re the minority, outnumbered by a slew of other backgrounds including some folks who grew up leaping pews and handling snakes on Sunday mornings in the mountains of East Tennessee.
The old chapel walls were lined with large silk banners decorated with words and beliefs that make us one – ideals every Christian can agree upon. Halfway through the service one of them caught my eye and without thinking about where the diversion might take us, I read it out loud: Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Another passage came to mind: In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead…You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.
My eyes closed. I played one last song while Compassion packets were passed out to anyone raising their hand. The students were dismissed and made my way back to the Compassion table to collect filled-out forms and answer questions about Compassion’s ministry if anyone had them. And it was only then that I realized what had happened. We’d run out of packets.
Before the service had begun, the chaplain and I had discussed attendance numbers and how many packets he thought we’d hand out. He and I reasoned we had about twenty too many packets. Turned out we reasoned wrong.
Students ran late to classes and lunch to stay around filling out their forms. Ben ran to the car to get more packets. Two girls sponsored together. Four guys sponsored together. This team sponsored a child. That campus ministry sponsored a child. Professors. Students. Presbyterians and snake handlers side-by-side around a table loving not with words but with action.
Now we’ve got another hour until we head to a local church to pay a concert and ask another crowd to do the same.
Amazing! Wonderful!
Although, as an engineer, I would have to argue your 43% number. Should be higher, I believe, if they were sponsoring in pairs and foursomes. Could well be much higher; a shift to an even better number. Much rejoicing.
It’s so good that more and more kids will be sponsored! Wohoo!!!
Yay God!