During fall outreach, I was having an absolute blast. I enjoyed meeting students and trying to convince them to be involved in a FOCUS Bible study. My one sadness was that, while we were getting a crazy amount of numbers, I was having a hard time finding a student or two or three who were looking like they were going to be potential student leaders. Sure, we had sophomores who were excited and getting ready to run with the mission, but we needed those freshmen! I was excited, but getting a little discouraged. I just prayed on my way to an event on campus. I asked God, "Where the heck are the leaders?" I went to the event, and Levi, one of our future at the time student leaders (meaning he's a student leader now, but he wasn't at the time), introduced Pam and me to a group of students who wanted to get involved in something Catholic, since they were, in fact, Catholic themselves. One of the girls and I started having an intense conversation. In the middle, she started crying and said, "Before I came down here, I was sitting with my Bible open and just asking Jesus for fellowship - strong, Catholic fellowship!" She was praying around the same time I was. I thought that surely this was the girl who was meant to be a student leader.
Fast forward a couple months - she'd been going to Bible study regularly and faithfully. She was doing really well. Then, all of the sudden, she disappeared, right about the time I wanted to start investing more heavily in her. I couldn't get a hold of her, and didn't see her for three weeks! It was strange. She suddenly showed back up and acted as though everything was ok. We had a strong conversation about how she basically dropped our friendship. I was so frustrated because I thought she was the student leader we were looking for! It turns out that's not the case - she didn't even go to our National Conference.
The semester started abruptly, and this girl was on fire. She attended the Passion Conference over break, and was lit up about everything. We had an honest conversation about Living Order and being faithful. I wanted her to think hard about stepping up as a student who could lead others around her. She became crazy faithful. She started bringing others to Mass and Bible study - girls I could never reach myself. She's on fire.
If I had started having the leadership conversations with this girl first semester, we'd have a weaker student in leadership who isn't stable and faithful enough to lead others her age. She's already basically discipling other girls. She even took over my Bible study this week when I went to the Team Director Summit in Nebraska to further discern whether I am called to be a Team Director next year or not! I've been impressed. I'm grateful the train was slowed for me though; patience is a great virtue.
Pray for this girl, as we continue to have conversations about discipleship. I think she'll be in discipleship before Spring Break!