In my last letter, I
talked about how New Jersey is a “different world”… but really, it’s more like college life is a different world.
When a freshman walks
onto the college campus, he/she is very aware of the differences from home
life. Sometimes these differences stem from their ethnic cultures. Often
students will start to feel alone, misunderstood, and frustrated by the second
month of the semester… unless they meet a friend… someone else who may feel
alone or scared but chooses to smile and say “hello”.
Beyond college life, many
people are scared of what they do not know or understand and often that leads
to assimilation or isolation. However, when someone is bold enough to engage
with another person made in the likeness of God, they choose freedom over the
bondage of fear.
A friend of mine
gave her 3-year old daughter advice for whenever she would meet someone new at
our biennial staff conference in July of this year. After her daughter greeted
me, Sarah said “Pheobe,
do you have a question for Ms. Tabitha?” “Oh yes….
Ummm…. What’s one good thing that happened to you today?” Pheobe would reply. Sarah is teaching her young daughter to
not live in fear of the unknown when it comes to relationships but to engage in
conversation that leads to freedom over fear.
At Cru15, I
witnessed God do something with the fear once in our leaders hearts that was
passed on to the 5,000 staff in the room.
Steve Sellers and the national leadership team began to look around and
truly SEE who was and who was NOT yet in the room and then they encouraged us
to wrestle with the question “why”...Why
were there so few ethnic minorities on staff with the ministries of Cru in the
United States?
