Today I was lamenting in prayer that I haven't been spending enough time evangelizing. I prayed so hard that the Lord would give me His words to say to His people. I am struggling immensely in prayer, being exhausted all the time (trying to remain joyful through it, thanks to Fr. Rocha ;) ), that it's been a struggle to stay focused on campus. A lot of my mind has been on just getting through the day, so I can just rest, so I can just have a good day tomorrow. Today was a day that I reminded myself that today is the only guarantee we have.
I was eating lunch in the University Center with one of our regular students. She dressed up and took me to lunch at the cafeteria to tell me she ended things with a relationship that just plain wasn't good. As we were chatting, my teammate Roger came by with another student I had just met on Tuesday. Soon after, a third student, and fifth person altogether, came by and sat with us at the lunch table. We were laughing and chatting, having a great time. When there was a lull in the conversation I made a comment about our country possibly becoming a socialist nation. The male student who came with Roger agreed and began a discussion about that. I had to step away from the table, as I saw my disciple out of the corner of my eye, and wanted to chat a few minutes with her. When I returned, the discussion of the table had gone from socialism to sexual education within the school systems. We seemed to have a healthy dialogue, and all agreed that there needed to be some kind of reform. It saddened me that the students weren't even entirely informed about the repercussions of sexual intercourse before marriage. I had the opportunity to explain my "abstinence only" view, and how it was really more than abstinence only to a "chasisty only". I explained how sex is a beautiful thing, but that it's meant within the confines of a marriage. I was able to show them the chemical bonds that human beings make during any kind of sexual act. It was kind of an eye-opening experience for them. All of the sudden, the male student sitting next to me said something about being in a Catholic school. So, I started that conversation with him.
I asked him if he was Catholic, and he replied, "Yes, well, not really. I guess I am, but I don't practice any more, so, yes and no. I guess I shouldn't say that I am." I asked him why he wasn't praciticing, and he said he didn't really have a good reason besides laziness. He told me about his parents, and how they used to be devout when they first went through the RCIA program, but how they grew complacent with time. He told me that he'd get into his faith when he was older. I knew I had an opportunity to share with him a little bit about not having a guaranteed tomorrow at that moment. I talked about a friend who died in a car accident when I was 15. She wasn't a close friend at the time, but we had played soccer together in middle school and wanted to be closer. We lost that chance. He said, "It would have to take something like that for me to get into my faith." I asked him, "What does Jesus have to do for you to practice being Catholic again?" (I learned this from another missionary.) He replied, "I don't know. I've never thought about it." Then he proceeded to tell me about his former friend, who he now hates, because he got into drugs. He just kept saying, "I hate him. I don't even care about him any more. I don't care at all." I answered, "Yeah, I think you care more than you're saying." His eyes teared up a little as he said that he agreed and didn't want to talk about it any more. At that moment, he got up from the table, mentioned to Roger and I that he'd always swipe us in if we ever needed to get into the cafeteria, and left at that. What a whirlwind of a day!
I definitely took to heart this conversation. You have no idea who you're going to bump into and what kind of healing they're putting off. I said a prayer for him today, and was able to share with Roger and the other student how I managed to get this guy to open up a little. Praise the Lord!
Now I'm off to make brownies in the dorms and lead my Thursday night Freshmen women's Bible study. I'm excited! Pray for me!
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