Month 1 Complete! (GYU #7)

It's been over a month now!  September is over, October is here.  And with the new month has come new seasons.  Not only are the trees outside bursting out into bright reds, oranges, and yellows, the air getting crisper, and the birds flying in larger and larger numbers overhead on their way south, our team has been growing and changing too.   One of the things I prayed most frequently for my team before I even knew any of them by name, was for God to unify us and let us love and serve others and one another so well and effectively.  That our love for one another in itself would be a blazing light in the darkness to point to His heart. And, there've definitely been ups and downs, and frustrations and attacks from the enemy to keep us from those beautiful purposes God has for us, but we really are stepping into even deeper fellowship and love together now.  We're learning better how to love and care for each other well and in healthy and good ways.  God's been answering my prayers (and yours!) in such big ways. Just last week, actually, some different conflicts had come up between us.  I knew it was the enemy attacking, but I guess I was just frustrated at where we were as a team - feeling disjointed and confused.  So I prayed. And I asked some of my closest friends back home to pray.  And to fight for our team.  Members on my team stood up to fight too, and...oh my goodness!  God's been so faithful in answering all those prayers.  This past week, we've gotten to see God just do so much restoration and renewal.  So much deep binding of our hearts.  He's blown us away to see the love and humility and grace that He's grown in each of our hearts for one another.  The willingness to grow and change.  The intense desire that's there in all of us for the best for each other person on this team.  And in addition to each of us students on the team growing closer, He's brought  in our team leaders, Bob and Deanne, and even our director (the one and only, and absolutely amazing...Jill Johnson!!!) It's been sooo beautiful, and exciting to experience all together. God's been so good. :) We've had the hard conversations, we've worked through issues and prayed and fought together...and now we've also just gotten to have so much FUN all together.  Even Jill (who flew in from Florida for the week!) got to get in on our day trip to Glacier, our team 1-month celebration dinner out, church all together Sunday, team meetings, and our weekly shopping with the team. Shout out to Jill...she's been such a gift from God and facilitated so much of the health and growth and unity God's wanted for our team. :)  A lot has changed for our ministry here in Missoula lately. As of this past weekend, Montana has reached red state status with Covid.  Which means a lot of our in person ministry has had to be cut down if not put on pause indefinitely.  We've now moved all our Wednesday night Cru club meetings onto Zoom.  We're experimenting with different social media platform ideas to reach students, online ways to use the Jesus Film short films ministry tools, etc. It's been hard and pretty disappointing, for sure, but at least for me, it's also just been so clear in my mind how God is still here, and still working.  The day we found out we were a red state and how that would affect us, Bob told us, "it's not about fruit.  It's about faithfulness".  God's brought us here for a reason.  It's His job to bring about the fruit, ours is simply to trust Him and remain faithful to Him where He's called us.  I'm excited to see how He will still work through us in this time of Covid- maybe even especially during this time of Covid.   Pray for continued trust and reliance on Him for my whole team.  For wisdom and creativity in how to continue forward and keep ministering to everyone God has for us to reach. Thank you! PS Since we've been doing a lot of ministry through Instagram actually, our team now has a shared account where we post all sorts of pictures and current stories and prayer requests, if any of you instagrammers want to find us there. :) It's the cru_gapyear account.

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