God Conquers Fears
OSP is a professional internship with plenty of fun and spiritual growth mixed in. Kristina Wood
Wednesday, June 18
As I walk into Wycliffe Bible Translator's cafeteria, I can see that God is at work. Long gone are the nervous smiles and small talk from June 2, the first day our interns arrived.
Instead extra chairs are squeezed up to round tables for dinner and everywhere people are talking, laughing and giving out hugs. This is the community of acceptance I have been praying for since January.
Orlando Summer Project is unique. It is a 32-hour-a-week internship at Campus Crusade's World Headquarters. Plus OSP includes Bible study, one-on-one discipleship, evangelism training, living with the other interns, dinner with the presidents of Campus Crusade and Wycliffe Bible Translators and lots of spiritual/leadership development.
Right now, we are in the middle of OSP's third week out of 10.
There are many great moments already, but today I want to tell you about one that happened the first week of project.
From Queasy to Excited
Marc Vergo, my husband, and Ingrid Peck are leading the evangelism team this summer. College students are no different than most people: the thought of telling people about Jesus makes them queasy.
In fact, Marc decided to help lead the evangelism team because he wanted to overcome more of his fear. Even after years of great experiences, even Campus Crusade staff members still get nervous.
At orientation, Marc talked about his fear with the OSP students and almost all of the students replied, "I'm scared too, but I want to grow!"
That was my first inkling that God was up to something good.
A few days later, after some evangelism training, we all headed to Cocoa Beach on the east coast of Florida with surveys and "Would You Like to Know God Personally?" booklets.
We paired the interns with mentors and sent them out in groups of 3 to ask people if they would be willing to take a spiritual survey. We asked the interns to try it for 2 hours and be on the look-out for ways God was already at work in people's lives.
I had accompanied 2 of our interns for about an hour and a half before they told me they were ready to try it on their own. They did a great job and I am super proud of them. I went back to wait for the other interns.
Two hours later, I was still waiting for everyone to come back!
Granted, some of the interns had walked a long way and took a while to come back and play in the ocean. But most of groups simply didn't want to come back. They were so excited about what God was doing, they skipped out on some wave-surfing to tell more people about Jesus.
Asking God for Something Big
Later that night, Tony, an OSP intern, told the group his story.
"I've been praying for the last week that God would do something big," Tony said. "During the outreach, I saw these 2 high- school students drinking on the beach."
"I asked them what they thought about God. One said, 'If there is a God, I'm hoping He will send someone to talk with me.'"
"We were like, 'Guess what? We are here!'"
Tony went on to have a spiritual conversation with the students and came back pumped about what God had done.
That night we sat on the beach and, as the waves kept rhythm, we worshiped God. In just that day, our 21 interns (3 were still on the way) initiated 56 spiritual conversations and explained the gospel to 23 people. We had a lot to praise God about.
The Power of Community
Is It Worth It?