Essential Reflections

It's been a while hasn't it? Seems I almost forgot that I had a blog. Six whole weeks of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing. Great.

Finally it's the Easter holidays at Warwick and the pace of things has dropped to a more managable level - and I've finally remembered that I have a blog! Last time I wrote (around the same time as the Queen's coronation if my memory serves :P) was during Essential week and I think I may have promised to review the week in hindsight in the future, so I thought that would be a good topic with which to kick-off this new blogging season! :P

Looking back, Essential week (week 4 of this term, so 6 weeks ago now) was a really exciting week. I guess this mission week was my first 100% Essential week (probably a reflection of the fact that this year I'm the most involved I've ever been in the happenings of CU) - the first time I tried to get involved in as much of what was going on a possible. Last year I was involved in the international bits of essential and went to some of the main meetings but that was all and in my first year I think I might just have been to a couple of the main meetings (that's a long time ago now though). So I guess my point is I tried to get as involved as I could this time around. Of course as there was so much going on and so little time there were many things that I wasn't involved in: questionnaires, bookstall etc. Thus it was really cool to be working with a team of such awesome people in our CU.

8am prayer meetings really focus you on the day ahead. An awesome way to start the day. Quite how I managed to make it those every day I really don't know - I find it so much easier to be asleep at that hour of the day! Those kinda set the precedent for the rest of the day every day though. The international cafes, lunch bars, main meetings and conversations surrounding them and so on were awesome to be involved in. There were numerous occassions when I could see God working in people's lives and although I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the week, it was one that I whole-heartedly enjoyed. As no small number of people pointed out during the week, however, telling people about Jesus is for life, not just for Essential.
I thought I'd conclude with a summary of some of the things that I felt were the highlights of the week (both in general and for me personally):

Generally:
• At least 6 people became Christians (not that it's about numbers, but its always so encouraging to see people discovering God for the first time!)
• Lots of people had the chance to hear the gospel (some brilliant talks) - it was great to see numerous non-Christian faces at all of the events! Yay!
• Many more people know something of the CU and what we stand for as a result of much publicity, conversations Christians had with their friends, questionnaire evangelism etc etc

Personally:
• Several of my good non-Christian friends came along to some of the events
• Even some of those who said they couldn't/didn't want to come along to events I've been able to say something (even if only briefly) of why the week was being held/what I believe etc
• Conversations - so many good ones - especially at the international cafe - some of the international students seem to be really searching
• I learnt loads, enjoyed the week much and hopefully I've grown in my faith through it