Captivating Kingdom

Vision and Mission update

2010-10-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Since many people may only know bits and pieces of our vision and mission for ministry at Stanford with Kingdom First, we wanted to share it with you and ask you to pray about how God might want you to partner with us. We are looking for people who will come alongside of us and champion the work that God is doing in the lives of many Stanford students.

Vision (our desires and goals):

In summary, it is our vision that every student at Stanford would have an opportunity during their time on campus to meet Christ, and as many as are willing to accept Him would have resources available to them as they pursue relationship with God.

Our desire for students is that they would be RECONCILED to their Creator, RESTORED to wholeness through walking with Jesus and through interdependent connection to His Body, EQUIPPED with the tools they need to live Kingdom First, Christ centered lives, and SENT OUT to bring Jesus and His Kingdom into the spheres where they will lead and influence.

We desire for students to really see and come to know Jesus as the Treasure of greatest worth, for their minds to be transformed and aligned with the authoritative Word of God, and for them to depend on and be filled with Christ and His Spirit for the rest of their lives. We believe that obedience, surrender, and a life of true Kingdom significance flows naturally from intimacy with Jesus, a renewed mind and heart, and the indwelling power and work of the Holy Spirit.

Mission (how we accomplish our vision):

As has always been the case, a primary way that people meet Christ is through interactions with His disciples. We recognize that for the most part, it will be through their classmates, friends, and teammates who are already disciples of Christ that non-believing students will have the opportunity to meet Christ. That being the case, our primary focus is on making disciples-- people who are wholehearted in their devotion and obedience to Christ, willing to forsake all to follow, abide in, and become like Him). With discipleship in mind, we engage in the following activities:

Weekly, large group worship/teaching gatherings called "Cross Training"
Weekly leadership meeting called "Mission Project" **see notes below for more on this one
Small group bible studies for each class
One on one discipleship meetings
Foreign and domestic service and mission opportunities
Hikes, backpacking trips, quarterly retreats, bbq's, and other community building activities
Friday night fun activities initiated by students

We pour heavily into a leadership team of current seniors and recent post grads who play a significant role in determining the overall direction of the ministry. It is our hope that there would eventually be a more established structure for the "Mission Project Internship" in the years to come (** see more about Mission Project below)

**Mission Project: We have had a vision for a few years now of a one year internship program following graduation for any students who have been involved in our ministry. The full vision we have entails 1. part time work with a partner business or ministry, 2. part time work with Kingdom First to serve as a leader to the student ministry on campus, 3. an intensive spiritual formation curriculum covering a wide range of topics relevant to their life stage, and 4. ideally living in a "community conducive" space right off campus that would serve as a hub for ministry to the campus. We have decided this year to experimentally move forward with an Mission Project internship pilot year, and we decided to invite all recent grads and seniors to meet once a week. Our vision for this group is: 1. That these students would serve as leaders in the ministry, taking on various leadership roles and living missionally to the Stanford campus, 2. For this group to help us shape and reshape the spiritual growth curriculum for future years, 3. Most importantly, for this group to fall more in love with Christ and be more devoted to Him by the end of the year, and 4. For this group to become a healthy, thriving body as defined in Scripture. We have about 20 students who have decided to commit to this group, and we have had some really incredible times together. We are very excited to see where God takes this particular group of students and this general vision of ours in the future.

Our Approach to Ministry:

No matter what we do, we believe that it is ultimately God, through the Holy Spirit that does the work that actually matters. He is the one that draws people, prepares the soil of their hearts, and causes His word to take root and grow. As such, we are desperate for the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives, as well as the lives of every student we interact with. We strive, by God's grace, to be faithful with the students He brings our way each year, and believe that prayer is the single most important thing we can do. While we seek to be as available as possible, we bias our investment of time towards those who are hungriest for God, regardless of how mature or immature they may be in their walk. We do this trusting that God will multiply seed that falls on "good soil."

With that approach in mind, the following is a list of core tenets/values that inform every aspect of our ministry on campus:

High view of God and His Word
Fear of God and love for Christ above all else
Love for the Body of Christ and a deep desire to see all persons reconciled to God
Dependence on Christ in all things
Desperation for the Holy Spirit
A spirit of brokenness, authenticity, humility, forgiveness, and love
Head level knowledge that is accompanied by heart and spirit level wisdom
Seeking to teach the full council of God's Word
Conformity to Christ's image and training to that end

We are very excited about what God is doing on campus, and we are humbled that God lets us do what we do:)We continue to see the monumental importance of future leaders of this world falling in love with Christ and being transformed by Him. As we have said before, a splash for Christ at Stanford truly sends ripples around the world! We hope you will come alongside of us and join in the fruitful ministry that is happening here. God Bless you and yours!

Fall Update

2010-10-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

Another school year has begun and the first few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and excitement. There are a lot of new freshmen who have gotten involved, as well as a surprising amount of new upper class as well. It has been exciting to see a packed house on Monday nights for our weekly meeting called Cross Training, and a lot of new students getting involved in small group bible studies. More importantly than an increase in numbers, there seems to be a greater hunger for Christ amongst new, old, and not yet believers, as well as a greater sense of need for Him. I feel like God is stirring in many non-believers hearts at Stanford right now, which is really exciting. I have had a lot of spiritual conversations with non-believers who are seeking God, feeling a heightened awareness of their emptiness, brokenness, sin, and their desire for something more than what the world offers. This is clearly the awesome work of the Holy Spirit! There are also a number of non-believers coming consistently to Cross Training to check things out, and we are praying for them to fall in love with Jesus and give their lives wholeheartedly to Him.

We had an awesome turnout for the freshmen dinner that we put on the second Friday of the quarter. There were about 17 freshmen and 13 upper class to serve them. We put unique get to know you questions under each of their plates that they went around answering. Then they had the opportunity to ask the upper class some of the same questions. It was really neat to hear some of the stories the upper class shared about what God has done in their lives since being at Stanford, how they have grown through Cardinal Life, and what fun times and adventures we have had as a family of believers over the years. It was also neat to see how comfortable the upper class were in their own skin compared to the understandable hints of nervousness evident in a lot of the freshmen. It made me realize that security comes from knowing you are loved and accepted, which is how the Christian community should be!

We have had a vision for a few years now of a one year internship program following graduation for any students who have been involved in our ministry. The full vision we have had entails part time work with a partner business or ministry, part time work with Kingdom First to serve as a leader to the student ministry on campus, an intensive spiritual formation curriculum covering a wide range of topics relevant to their life stage, and ideally living in a "community conducive" space right off campus that would serve as a hub for ministry to the campus. We have decided this year to experimentally move forward with an internship pilot year, which we are actually calling the missions project, and we decided to invite all recent grads and seniors to meet once a week. Our vision for this group is: 1. For these students to serve as leaders in the ministry, taking on various leadership roles and living missionally to the Stanford campus, 2. For these students to help us shape and reshape the spiritual growth curriculum for future years, 3. Most importantly for these students to fall more in love with Christ and be more devoted to Him by the end of the year, and 4. For these students to become a healthy, thriving body as defined in Scripture. We have about 20 students who have decided to commit to this group, and we have had some really incredible times together. We are very excited to see where God takes this particular group of students and this general vision in the future.

One neat thing about this "mission project" group is that a lot of them have taken ownership of the vision and movement on campus, and have taken initiative in creative ways. One thing that a few students have initiated is "Friday night Fun" activities. The vision of these nights is for the core group of students to intentionally invite non-believers to these regular fun activities so that these students can interface with the Cardinal Life community in a casual, non-intimidating setting. Our first event was a bonfire and it was really neat to see a lot of new faces there!

Last Friday we partnered with 2nd mile to put on a worship night, and it was incredible! Trent's brother Cody, who leads worship for Cardinal Life and is an awesome worship leader and singer, got a band together and they were absolutely amazing. I honestly felt like I was at a Hillsong concert! More than that, however, I felt like they were anointed to lead people into a time of authentic worship. They faded away and God was magnified and glorified! We also got to hear an incredible testimony of a man who grew up in the "badlands" of Philly. He was orpahned, abused, malnourished, run over three times at age five, homeless, addicted to drugs, shot in the back of the head, tried to commit suicide, and ended up getting saved through a powerful move of God at City Team Ministries. He is now the director of City Team Ministry in San Jose and has been healed and restored from his past. He challenged everyone to be faithful with what we have been given, which was very convicting coming from someone who was not given much to begin with!

The freshmen small groups are up and running and I (Natalie) am leading the women's group. I realized that we are almost ten years older than the freshmen this year, and especially since we have a baby, they must look at us as if we are so old:) ha! It does not feel so long ago that I was a freshmen! It is a really incredible group of girls who are all serious about following Christ, and our meetings so far have been very rich and edifying. I could barely sleep after our first meeting because I was so excited about a new year and a new awesome group of students who we get to pour into, love on, and serve.

Overall, it has been a great start to the school year, and we are excited about what God is doing. We covet your prayers for us, for the students within our ministry, and for the Stanford campus as a whole. We continue to feel great love and burden for the people at Stanford, and want to be faithful to pour into each student that God brings to us. Please pray that God would do a miraculous work of growing students to love Him above everything else and that He would unite this group of students to truly love and care for one another and function as a healthy thriving body, family, and bride of Christ. We want to trust Christ for greater things with this group, so please join us in that! We love and appreciate all of you and hope you are doing well.

Cross Training

KFM 2nd mile worship night

Some students preparing the gourmet dessert for freshmen dinner

Freshmen dinner

2010-08-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Because we have been sending out more frequent e-newsletter updates, I have not been updating this blog as much recently. If you want to see some of our recent newsletters from the end of spring/beginning of summer, you can click here, and see what has been going on.

It has been an awesome summer so far! There is quite a contingent of students that have stuck around for the summer, and we are having some really rich and fun times. We have continued to have weekly Cross Training meetings, small groups, and one on one meetings, while also leading some fun hiking excursions, having summer bbq's, and hanging out doing fun, random things since students have a little more time on their hands. As a staff, we have also been setting aside a lot of time to prayerfully revisit and revamp our vision, mission, and overall approach to ministry for the upcoming year, as well as plan some new initiatives we want to do this year. These times are proving very fruitful and getting us really excited for the fall.

One cool thing about summer is that there are usually a handful of new students and non-believers who get more involved in Cardinal Life, and the current students who are around get to bond more. To name a few reasons: people have more time to hang out; current students invite their friends to fun community activities (like hikes and bbq's), which often makes them feel more connected to the community, leading to more involvement; new and current students are out of their normal rhythm and usually have a little more time on their hands to stop and reflect, which God uses to draw them closer. We are particularly fond of summer for these reasons. As we look back, we realize that God has done some incredibly unique things each summer to build momentum, re-center us and students, and build up the Cardinal Life community.

We invite your prayers for us, for students, and for the movement of God on Stanford's campus. Stanford students are SO desperate for the life changing love and grace of Christ. There is so much pain, brokenness, and emptiness that we just see more and more every year amongst students who don't know Christ. We feel very burdened for each and every student at Stanford to get a glimpse of Jesus through His body that is present on campus, as well as to train and equip students to lead Christ centered, Kingdom first lives. That is a lofty goal that we need much prayer, much support, and much help and encouragement from you. We have a lot of work to do!

Trent and Emilee recently led a group of 25 students on a radical day trip to a place called Arroyo Seco. It is amazing how much people can bond from spending one day together on a wild adventure. This canyon extravaganza has it all: jumping off of 20, 40, and 60 foot cliffs, swimming through narrow canyons, climbing up a 15 foot waterfall by rope, walking and floating down the river, and hiking back to the cars in 102 degree heat! Out of the 25 students who went, over half of them were not believers, and apparently there were some cool interactions and coversations that took place. It was neat to see some of those new faces at Cross Training a few days later. This trip has become a traditional summer outing that consistently brings new people into the fold and is just a really fun adventure.

I recently met with a girl who was having doubts about her faith in Christ. She is a fairly new believer, and didn't really know the source of her doubts, but they were present nonetheless and troubling her greatly. She asked me to share with her things that help me in the face of doubt. I giggled and said, "are you sure you want to get me started?" Out of all the types of conversations I have with students, I think coming alongside students in the face of doubt is my sweet spot and the thing I feel perhaps most passionate about and most alive doing! We talked for about two hours, and I asked her if she had any overarching thoughts to anything I had shared. She just smiled really big and said, "I am just so happy right now because I know I am not crazy for believing in Jesus and my faith feels very strengthened." Music to my soul! My faith is always strengthened as well when I meditate on the many reasons why I know that God is real, that Jesus is God and the visible image of the invisible God, that Christ was crucified and raised from the dead, and that I am now united with Christ, made new, and awakened to his Kingdom here and now.

The last Cross Training meeting was really powerful. We invite you to listen to the most recent sermon that we listened to here by a pastor named Britt Merrick, who is Trent's home pastor from a town just south of Santa Barbara. Britt preached this sermon the day before they found out that his six year old daughter, Daisy, has cancer for the second time this year. He posted this sermon on his blog with a note that said, "The day before we found out about Daisy’s new tumor, I preached this message at Reality San Francisco on Jesus being our supreme treasure and how that becomes more and more true when we face adversity and heartbreak. It’s still true today!" What a powerful witness this family is! You can also see the sermon he preached a few days after they found out about Daisy's tumor for the first (and second) time here in the top right corner of the blog, Those sermons are called "When my Heart is Overwhelmed" and "Struck down but not Destroyed." Both of these sermons are among the most powerful sermons I have ever heard!

Freedom Run

2010-05-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Our first ever 5K Freedom Run followed by an abolitionist rally took place on April 25th in Menlo Park in conjunction with MPPC’s Compassion Weekend. We were more than pleased to have over 600 people turn out for it!! The purpose was similar to the Freedom Summit, while we also engaged in a symbolic act of running for freedom. One powerful moment was seeing more than 600 people walk to the start line in complete silence as we took a moment to pray for the victims of human trafficking.
We were honored to have Ryan and Sara Hall with us as our celebrity keynote speakers. Ryan is an Olympic and American record marathon runner, and they are both good friends and Stanford Cardinal Life alumni. They also recently started their own foundation to fight poverty and human trafficking around the world (see www.thestepsfoundation.org), so this event was a perfect venue for them to inspire others to become abolitionists. We also had Mercy Dizon with Not for Sale and Kevin Madsen with Trade as One speak briefly about how to authentically live abolitionist lives. There were about 8 other Bay Area organizations present where people could get involved in fighting human trafficking. Overall it was a tremendous success and you can see some pictures here (http://picasaweb.google.com/nwiesen/FreedomRun#). Find out more at http://freedom-run.org.

Ryan and Sara Hall speaking before the race began

people looking at the pictures and stories of slavery strung up all around the school

Spring Quarter update

2010-04-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

This quarter has been quite amazing so far to say the least!! While Trent and I were welcoming our first baby girl, Elliana Corinne Wiesen, into the world on Monday, March 22, a group of 13 students were in the Amazon jungle of Peru having the time and mission trip of their life. Every single student who went on the Peru trip said it was one of the most incredible, life impacting, community building, eye opening, Spirit filled and God inspired trips of their lives, and they did not want to come home. While Trent and I were sad to miss this amazing trip, we were obviously having an incredible adventure of our own!

Our sweet baby Ellie

The first weekend of spring quarter was Easter, where we packed the Stenstrom house with over 100 students! Since the rain decided not to stay away, the house was literally packed:) It brought such joy to my heart to see lots of new faces, students hanging out late into the afternoon, and just a true spirit of joy and community that filled the air!

most of the Easter Crew

Prayer time where we read all the names for Jesus in the NT

On Good Friday, one of our students, Liz Smith, spear headed a traditional Passover Seder dinner which is now becoming a Cardinal Life tradition. The Stenstrom house was yet again packed with about 25 students and the Stenstrom family around a very long dinner table. The highlight for me was when everyone gave their assigned person a blessing. The "blessee" would come and kneel by the "blesser" and the blesser would affirm that person, sharing the gifts they saw in that person, what their prayer was for them, and what they were proud of them for. It was truly a holy moment! Then of course the tears flowed when Steve gave each of his four kids a blessing, and the precious look on his kids faces while he was doing so was just beautiful. We are blessed to have their family as such an incredible example of a Godly, tight knit, loving family!

Seder Dinner at Stenstrom house

The Monday after Easter was the first monthly Cardinal Life meeting on campus. We had the joy and priviledge of hearing from my father, Steve Foley! His testimony was really powerful, and it was such a joy to have my spiritual hero share to a group of people that I care about so deeply! I know a lot of people were really impacted by it, particularly one girl on the track team who indicated on the response card that she wanted to find out more about starting and having a personal relationship with God. I followed up with her shortly thereafter and had the joy of sharing the gospel with her, telling her about Jesus and what makes Him so unique and incredible. It was so ridiculously clear that the Holy Spirit was moving in power in her heart and my words were falling on good, fresh soil. As I left that meeting, I had to thank God for letting me play a part in His work, because it was so clear to me that He was doing it all and did not need me, but still lovingly allowed me to be apart of it. She has now invited Jesus into her life, joined one of my small groups, and is eagerly and excitedly reading through her new Bible and sending me emails constantly with joyful exclamations of how excited and alive she is to be apart of this amazing community and to have started this incredible journey with God. I LOVE seeing people come to know Jesus. It is the most exhilirating, joyful, addicting thing ever!

Cardinal Life

The most recent Cross Training was amazing! The pastor who married Trent and I started a three week series on the Psalms. He incorporates his own story into his teaching on how the Psalms give us a voice to process every range of emotion from the deepest grief to the highest elation and praise. When we share that voice in the context of community, we connect with one another in a holy, heavenly way that is truly other worldly. His story is incredibly powerful. Because his own emotion is evident as he shares it, we were all drawn into it in a way that touched a very deep part of our hearts. I saw many people wiping away tears as his story gave them a voice for their own pain or praise. He will continue his teaching next week, and the third week we are going to have people share their own psalms and poems that they have written. I think it is going to rock people's worlds, connect them with one another in a way they might not have experienced, and bring forth so much beauty and heaven. I am prayerfully looking forward to that.

As I said at the beginning of this post, this quarter truly has been incredible so far!! All praise and honor to Him.

the mustard seed power

2010-03-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

I got really excited today just in thinking about how huge of an impact that even one Stanford student surrendered to Jesus can and will have on the world. At first I was saddened to think about how hard it is for a Stanford student to be set free from the values of the world system and to surrender their lives to Christ, aligning themselves with His values. There is so much pulling at them, so many promises the world is making to them, and so many enticements of wealth, fame, power, etc. Then I thought about some of the students we have seen fall in love with Jesus over their years at Stanford, and the beautiful freedom they have joyfully entered into. I get so excited thinking about what the Lord can do through even one surrendered person. Look at how dramatically the world was changed through the handful of disciples! Our God does not need vast numbers. His Kingdom will advance, and He will use those who are in love with Him and who are surrendered to Him. We desire to see students discover the life that is in Jesus, the adventure He has in store for them, and for them to wisely spend their lives on things that will last for eternity (and we desire this for ourselves too!) We are praying for God to bring the hungry and thirsty students our way. The good soil who will produce a crop thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. Those with ears to hear.

I read a really awesome quote the other day by David Livingston, a missionary to Africa during the 1800's. He said to a group of college students at Cambridge, "People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk of 'sacrifice' when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His throne on high to give Himself for us." Another one of my all time favorite quotes is similar to this by Dallas Willard in talking about the costs of NOT following Jesus. He says, "Though discipleship does cost us something, the cost of non-discipleship is far greater than the price paid to walk with Jesus. Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, non-discipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul."

These two quotes really reflect what we desire to see students come to believe the most: that nothing satisfies like Jesus!

Lots of Changes

2010-03-03T12:16:00.001-08:00

There have been some recent, fairly significant changes within the staff of Kingdom First Ministries. Steve Stenstrom (founder of Kingdom First and our former "boss" and co-worker) has taken a new position as the President of Pro Athletes Outreach, a conference ministry for pro athletes, namely football and baseball players. Steve and Lori have been involved in PAO for twelve years, and Steve will be an incredible addition to their team. He is very excited about it, knows this is where the Lord is calling him, and we are also really excited for him. He started this new role on February 1st.

What this means for us is that Trent is now the official director of Kingdom First on the student ministry side, and my brother David is the director of Kingdom First on the 2nd mile side. We are so thrilled to work with David and his wife Tiffany. They will do an incredible job at running 2nd mile, and we are very excited for their partnership in student ministry as well. David actually spoke at the last Cardinal Life we had, and all the students really loved him and were greatly impacted by his talk. In addition to that, David and Tiffany come to Cross Training each week and are both very passionate about and gifted at men's and women's ministry. Steve and Lori have taken a seat on the board of directors of Kingdom First, and we now have the responsibility of overseeing and leading the direction of Kingdom First on the student ministry side. We are very excited to take on this new role, and we also know there will be new challenges which will cause us to grow a lot. We will miss working so closely with Steve and Lori, but we know they will still be involved, and we are still going to have Cross Training at their house every Monday night. One of the main responsibilities that we will be taking on with Steve leaving is raising the full budget for Kingdom First, while David and Tiffany will fundraise for 2nd mile. We know this too will be a challenge, but we are trusting the Lord for provision and to grow us in wisdom and knowledge in this area. We ask for your support and prayer as we enter into this new role.

We are also due to have our first baby, Elliana ("Ellie") Wiesen, on March 23, so there are a lot of changes coming up! We are so excited to meet our new baby girl and are praying for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. We invite your prayers for all of these things.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these new changes. You can email us anytime at nwiesen@gmail.com or trentwiesen@gmail.com. Love, peace, and grace to you all! We hope 2010 has been a great year for all of you so far!

This is me at 37 weeks pregnant!

2010-02-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

Following a small group time recently with a bunch of guys, a freshman on the track team commented to me (Trent), that the message communicated during the time (shared with 10 other freshman) was the “most powerful message he had ever heard”. He continued that he felt “unable to not change his life as a result of it”. This is a testament to the type of hunger that we are seeing for Jesus here on campus. Students are really taking seriously the teachings of Jesus, trusting Him for the ability to obey His commands and surrender their lives to Him.

Another freshman guy, who identifies a time during small group this fall as the moment when he began to walk with God for the first time, spoke of the incredible transformation that he has already experienced as a result. “Its crazy how much I have begun to care about people,” he said. After a pause and with a smile, he remarked, “I never used to care about people at all.” God is changing lives, little by little, like yeast being worked into dough. There is nothing better than watching as the bread begins to rise…

Our vision for ministry:

Our vision for students is that they would be RECONCILED to their Creator, RESTORED to wholeness through walking with Jesus and being involved in community, EQUIPPED with the tools they need to live Kingdom First, Christ centered lives, and SENT OUT to bring Jesus and His Kingdom into the spheres where they will lead and influence. We desire for students to really see and come to know Jesus as the Treasure of greatest worth, and for their minds to be transformed and aligned with the Word of God. We believe that obedience, surrender, and a life of true Kingdom significance flows naturally from intimacy with Jesus and a renewed mind and heart.

A few prayer requests:

A group of 13 students are going to Peru for a spring break mission trip led by Emilee, who works with us, and her husband Michael. It should be an incredible experience and we invite your prayers for their work and time there.

We are putting on a "Freedom Run" in conjunction with Menlo Park Presbyterian Church's Compassion weekend at the end of April to raise awareness and help fight human trafficking. It will be a 5K run followed by speakers, educational exhibits, and opportunities for people to get involved in some of the groups who are fighting human trafficking. Please pray that the planning goes well and that God fills people's hearts with compassion, creativity, and generosity to fight this massive global injustice.

Cool Story

2010-01-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

We had a girls night the other night, and one of the freshmen that is really involved in Cardinal Life came and brought a friend named Katie, who is not a believer, from her dorm. We baked, played games, and had a fun time together. As Katie was leaving, she told my friend Jessica, whose house we were at, that this was the most fun she had ever had and was so excited to meet this group of girls. She came to Cross Training two nights later with her friend, and when I came up to her afterwards, she was literally glowing and talking a mile a minute. "I am just so excited to have found this community! I have never met people like this, and I just feel so loved and filled with joy being here! I think I am a Christian but I don't really know. I am just really excited I found this group." I was obviously very happy to hear her saying these things, so I asked her if she would like to meet sometime one on one because I was pretty sure she was not a believer, but it was obvious the Lord was moving. She emphatically said yes. So we met a few days ago, and the first few minutes of our meeting were classic and roughly went like this:

Me: "So can you tell me a little about your spiritual journey and where you feel like you are at?"
Katie: "There is not much to tell. I did not grow up going to church and I don't really know where I am at. I think I am a Christian though."
Me: "So do you feel like you know what it means to be a Christian?"
Katie: "No...not really."
Me: "Do you believe in God?"
Katie: "Umm, I think so, but I definitely have some doubts."
Me: "Do you know what you think about the person of Jesus?"
Katie: "(with a funny look on her face as if the question was fairly odd) Umm, I don't know...I have never thought about that."

I giggled inside because despite her answers, I knew that the Lord had appointed this meeting and that he was working in her heart. I asked her if she would like for me to share a little of my story and what it means to be a Christian with her, to which she very enthusiastically said yes. We proceeded to talk for about two hours. I shared the overall Christian story, some basic apologetics about the existence of God and Jesus being who he said he is, the basics of the gospel and salvation, etc. She sat on the edge of her seat, clearly soaking it all in. At the end of our conversation she said, "WOW! This was so amazing to learn all of this stuff. I am so excited to keep meeting with you and learning about Jesus and what it means to follow Him." To which I laughed and said, "this might have been more than you bargained for huh?:)" I gave her a few things to read in More than a Carpenter and the Reason for God, and we are going to meet again soon. I can't wait to see how her life is changed. I pray that she will embrace all of the things we talked about, give her life to Christ, come to find new hope and life in Him, and have her eternal destiny forever changed. Man I love my job:)!!

Winter quarter update

2010-01-20T11:07:00.001-08:00

Winter quarter is in full swing, and it has been an awesome quarter so far! We feel like we have renewed vision and passion for what we are doing, and a big part of that came from the Passion conference. There was a group of about 15 of us there, and it was really bonding, fun, and impactful!! I think a lot of us were impacted most by John Piper's talk one night, followed by a Hillsong concert, which was an incredible time of worship. John Piper's talk spoke straight to my heart, reminding me that God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him, that my joy is made complete by forgetting myself as I am captivated by His beauty and glory, and that my purpose on earth is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever. The Lord alone satisfies! Something clicked in my heart when I heard that talk, and it made me realize how often we buy into lies that other things will satisfy or bring joy, wholeness, and fulfillment. Like when Isaiah says, "Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare," (Is. 55:2). It is amazing how you can think you really believe and know something, and then He sinks it ever deeper into your heart to where it almost feels like you are learning it for the first time again!

The first few Cross Trainings of the quarter have been amazing, packed, and full of life. I love that time of fellowship, worship, and challenging teaching. I think one of the most special and unique things about Cross Training is the way that it feels like a family. I love seeing students come in, breathe a sigh of relief, say they are so excited to eat a home cooked meal, and then to just see the joy, life, richness of fellowship, and healing that they experience in the Stenstrom home each Monday night. It really is an incredible group, and it is neat to see new faces literally every week as students bring their believing and non-believing friends to partake in the richness.

We are excited about all of our small groups this quarter (about 80 students total) because we are really taking the Great Comission to heart when Jesus told his disciples to make disciples and teach them to obey all that he commanded. We have asked ourselves the question, how do we teach people, and learn ourselves, how to obey Jesus? How do we learn how to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, be truly humble, selfless, surrendered to Christ, forgiving, merciful, filled with the Spirit, etc, not just on the outside but truly in our hearts? Obviously it takes a massive work of the Holy Spirit, and apart from Him we can do nothing. But we believe it also takes training on our part, and developing habits where Christ can be formed in us. We feel like Dallas Willard has a wealth of wisdom on this topic, and I once remember him asking the question how our churches and small groups can be more like training centers, where we are all learning together how to grow into the likeness of Jesus. So with our small groups, we are "training" together in Godliness: helping each other determine who we want to be based on Scripture, what is at stake if we are not that person, again based on Scripture, and baby steps/spiritual disciplines we can experiment with each week that will put us in a place where the Holy Spirit can transform our hearts. It is important to realize that a lot more is at stake than we usually realize if we don't become more like Christ--we miss out on the fullness of life, wholeness, joy, power, fulfillment, intimacy with God and others, etc that Jesus came to bring. It feels good to really focus on the application piece of Scripture working its way into our lives.

We are also doing a coed book study on Crazy Love and an in depth bible study on Romans, which has already been awesome.

We have been really asking the Lord to move in power in the hearts and lives of our students, because all of our planning is futile if His Spirit is not present and moving in power. We ask you to join us in praying that students at Stanford would not only come to Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but come to Him as their treasure of greatest worth! That is our greatest prayer for students (and ourselves:).

part of Cross Training group

at Passion Conference

Eating lunch at Passion Conference one day

Game night

Cardinal Life Video

2009-11-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

2009-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

I can't believe we are already half way through fall quarter! God has been doing a lot of really awesome things.

Here are a few highlights:

We have a lot of freshmen and new students coming consistently to Cross Training, which is our weekly meeting where we cook dinner for students and have a time of worship and teaching. It is starting to feel tight even in the Stenstrom's house. Better yet, most students who come to Cross Training each week are plugged into a small group and/or meeting with one of us weekly. We have roughly 75 students plugged into small groups, not counting the 30 or so guys (mostly baseball and football guys) that Jim Stump meets with one on one each week and has small groups with. Jim is a great ministry partner to have! He has been doing ministry at Stanford for over 35 years and has quite a legacy here. It is also neat to see a lot of the juniors and seniors taking leadership in different ways, reaching out to freshmen, and some helping lead a small group.

Leading a few students to Christ. Always such a miracle!!

Seeing students hearts and minds being transformed. This is also always such a miracle in a culture that can be hostile to Christianity, truth claims, and submitting your will to the Lordship of Christ in an often self-worshipping, consumeristic culture. We see it as a great privilege and honor to lead students towards Jesus and to put before them things that will hopefully transform them in the same ways that they have transformed us.

Sandeep Poonen and his wife, Laura, have been working alongside of us as volunteers with student ministry. Sandeep is an incredible teacher of God's Word, and he and Laura have been a blessing to this ministry in many ways. In addition to teaching occasionally at Cross Training, Sandeep has provided us with a lot of Godly wisdom and support when it comes to shepherding this flock of students. We are thankful for the ways that he encourages us to stay focused on the MAIN THING--which is loving Jesus, submitting to HIS headship as the leader of this ministry and fervently seeking HIS direction, and pursuing transformation of heart and mind into the likeness of Christ in our own lives. It seems like it has been easier than in the past to remember that our greatest impact comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit and depending on Him for everything.

Having Sandeep's father, Zac Poonen, come and share two weeks ago at Cross Training. His father has started over 30 churches in India, has preached through every single passage in the Bible at some point (and you can access it all at www.cfcindia.com for free!!), has written a ton of books, and is one of the most Christ like people I have met. It was a privilge to hear from him!

2nd mile this past weekend. We rennovated a school in East Palo Alto called Willow Oaks. We had about 600 volunteers come out and we finished everything we wanted to get done. It was a huge success and we know this project will richly bless the teachers and students there! Here are a few after pictures (it is better with the before pictures but I do not have them at this time. You can check out www.2ndmile.org for more before and after pictures soon, or to check out pictures from past projects!):

Part of the new teachers lounge

Vice principal and conference room

New principals office

Front entrance view

Mural that one of our students, Liz Smith, free-handed and painted!

Some upcoming highlights are:

We are taking a group of students to the Passion Conference in Atlanta over Christmas break, which should be just an incredible experience overall. They have incredible speakers and worship bands lined up, including Francis Chan, Andy Stanley, Beth Moore, John Piper, Louie Giglio, Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Hillsong United, Matt Redman, and Charlie Hall. So amazing!

Last highlight: I am currently 22 weeks pregnant, and we recently found out we are having a little girl! We are so excited to say the least! Prayers are invited for a healthy baby and a good transition into a life of parenthood. It boggles my mind and brings us to our knees in praise that a little eternal soul is being knit together inside of me right now. It is so so so crazy and miraculous!! There is no doubt in my mind that only an awesome Creator could do such a thing!

right after finding out that we were having a girl

20 week ultrasound picture

the piece of paper telling us what we were having

2009-10-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

This is the sermon we watched at Cross Training last night. It was given by Trent's pastor from home who found out a few days before giving this message that his five year old daughter has stage three cancer and a tumor the size of a nerf football in her abdominal cavity! It is one of the most incredible and powerful sermons I have ever heard, and I would invite you all to watch it! He portrays a beautiful, worshipful heart in the midst of a huge trial, and he is an example to me of someone who treasures Jesus above all else.

When My Heart Is Overwhelmed from Reality on Vimeo.

2009-10-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Fall is in full swing and it has been joyful, chaotic, and life giving! There are lots of new freshmen which has been really exciting. We had a packed house for our first Cross Training of the year at Steve and Lori's house, and our first on campus meeting the following week was also buzzing with the excitement of a new year and new people. We are excited for this upcoming year and all that God has in store. I also got to lead a student to Christ the first week, which was so awesome!

In the midst of the chaos of a new year starting up, meeting with new students, planning fun activities, and figuring out small groups, book studies, one on one meetings, and what to do for Cross Training each week, we have been reminded of our desperate need and desire to be truly plugged into Jesus. He has blessed us with a very fresh perspective of the reality that it is all about HIM and that HE is to be our greatest love and treasure above all other things in life, including above ministry! We truly believe that our impact on the Stanford students will be much greater if we are plugged into Him, rather than operating out of our own strength. I am reminded of that daily!

I am studying 1 Corinthians with my small groups right now, and I can hardly bring myself to move us on to chapter 2 because Chapter 1 is so rich and relevant to our lives here today. Paul keeps emphasizing how the "foolish" plan of a crucified Messiah is so much more powerful and strong to deliver, redeem, make holy, purify, and rescue than the greatest of human wisdom and strength. He also emphasizes that God has seen to it that the world would not know him through its own wisdom, and that no one can ever boast in the presence of the Lord. That is a very relevant message to Stanford students who are being taught in overt and covert ways that there is no truth, that we define our own truth and reality and destiny, and that it is all about us. We live in a place that is often arrogantly hostile to God and exclusive truth claims, and as Paul says, views the message of the cross as foolishness and nonsense. This passage has been an important reminder that God has a handle on reality more than the world, and that His ways are different than the worlds ways. His wisdom is to be sought after and esteemed more highly than the world's wisdom, and we are wise to align ourselves to His wisdom.

We are thankful to be here on this campus fighting the good fight! We are thankful to be inviting students to get to know and love Jesus more and to come see what life in His Kingdom following Jesus is like. Please pray for us to be rooted and strengthened in HIM (we definitely get overwhelmed and discouraged at times because there is so much fighting against us here!) and pray that God would pour out His Spirit on the students at Stanford to come to know, love, and trust Him above all else.

2009-08-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Summer is winding down and we are getting really excited for all the students to return to campus. It has been a really rich summer! We had about 30-40 students around for the first two months of summer, and then summer school and a lot of internships ended around mid August, football players went into "hell month" of training where they are not allowed to leave campus, other sports got a few weeks off, etc. However, as some students left, others arrived for preseason training or other reasons, so we still have had a good amount of students around, which has been a blast! There have been ample opportunities to go do fun things, fellowship and worship later into the night at cross training, have bbq's, and enjoy some down time with one another. But of course we miss the students who are not here and the flurry of energy during the school year.

In Cross Training, we have been reading through some of Paul's letters to different churches. Last week we did Galatians and this week we did Ephesians. It has been really powerful to read the letter straight through, as they would have done upon receiving the letter, and to pretend that we are his target audience. It is crazy how something written to people 2000 years ago in a totally different culture can apply so much to us today! It has inspired great questions and discussion. This last week we talked a lot about the body. Trent and I really seek to create an environment where no one in our community (ourselves included) is a "superstar Christian," but rather that everyone is an equally important and vital part of the body with something necessary to offer. As Paul says, if someone thinks they are too important and don't need other parts, or if someone does not think they are important, the body is out of whack and the whole body suffers whether we feel it or not.

Random story: Trent and I watched the movie Phenomenon last night. At the end, John Travolta dies, and it is really sad. Now I usually will shed a few tears at a movie like this, but "shedding a few tears" would be a huge understatement. Something about the ending scenes reached deep into my heart and made death feel so real to me. I sobbed for about 20 minutes as hard as if someone near to me had just passed away. It caused me to reflect on how short and precious life is, how real and harsh death is, and what GOOD NEWS ressurrection, redemption, and eternity with our glorious Father in the new heavens and new earth truly is. It is funny how much God used a random movie to powerfully reach my heart and inspire me to live well for eternal things. It also reminded and inspired me to live with more of a sense of urgency to love and share the good news with people who do not know Jesus. I guess it goes to show that God can use whatever means he wants to reach people:).

Please pray for the upcoming school year: That Trent and I would be filled with God's love, energy, and passion for students to know him here at Stanford; that many more students would come to know Jesus personally this year; that our students would all grow in intimacy with Christ, in His wisdom and the renewing of their minds, and in love for the hurting world around them. Pray that God would do a mighty work on this campus, uniting and sanctifying all believers, and using all of us to be an accurate reflection of Himself to the world.

2009-06-29T12:53:00.001-07:00

DREAM #2: ONE YEAR INTERNSHIP FOR GRADUATED SENIORS

VISION IN A NUTSHELL: A one year internship for graduated students, which would prepare these interns to be sent out into life beyond college as well as increase ministry to Stanford University. These students will live in community (ideally in a house or apartment complex near campus) while they work part time, focus on spiritual growth, serve somehow in ministry to the campus and surrounding community, and discover which vocation they want to pursue and how they want to pursue it. Overall, the goal of this year long internship would be to strengthen and equip these students to be sent out into the world with a solid spiritual foundation, a strong Christian world-view and Kingdom perspective, relational tools and various life skills, and a clear vision and plan of what they are going to do next. This is all relative to how they are uniquely gifted and passionate about ushering in God’s Kingdom. Additionally, the goal of this internship would be to dramatically increase the ministry to Stanford students because of the increased amount of “staff” and the amount of life changing experiences and activities that students could be invited into.

WHY WE WANT TO DO THIS: We feel there is a gap/need for a ministry focused on walking alongside students transitioning from college to the world after college. We believe students need a space where they can learn healthy rhythms of life in accordance with Kingdom values (while working and engaging with the world around them), develop a Kingdom perspective for work, relationships, and life, and explore their passions and gifts so they can very thoughtfully and prayerfully step onto a particular trajectory for the next big stage of their lives. As it pertains to ministry needs to the campus: In general, we feel that ministries at Stanford seem to do an incredible job of helping to transform the minds of the students as well as providing a structure where community and growth can happen at set times every week as their lives happen at a very fast pace. However, we desire to offer more to students. It is our opinion that what the students need most is a community where they can “come and see” the Kingdom of God being lived out (not just talked about), with the invitation to join in.

If you are interested in helping out with this vision in some way, please email me at nwiesen@gmail.com.

2009-06-29T12:52:00.001-07:00

DREAM #1: FREEDOM CAFE

We have been praying a lot about some exciting dreams that we have had for several years now. We see God starting to work in cool ways to possibly start moving forward with certain aspects of those dreams, which is very exciting. One of the visions is to start a Freedom Cafe, and the other is to start a 1-2 year internship for students after they graduate. We have had a few promising meetings in the last few weeks with some key people regarding the Freedom Cafe, and it has given us a lot of excitement and optimism that it seems there is a very good chance it is going to happen! Let me explain the Freedom Cafe in this post, and then I will write about the internship in a later post.

In general, the idea is to launch a for profit business under our non-profit umbrella to support the work of the ministry. The current business idea is a "Freedom Cafe" close to campus where students and others would be inclined to come and study, hang out, and get filled physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It could also be a place where people learn about, rally around, and fight against various injustices around the world, especially human trafficking. We envision creating a warm, cozy ambiance so that people feel safe and can find refuge, love, and peace there. We would offer a variety of different community gatherings certain nights of the week or month, like poetry reading or poetry writing and sharing, Bible studies, book studies, Cross Training (which is currently our weekly student worship gathering), concerts, various classes, and other creative things to cultivate community, love on people, and lead them closer to Jesus. We could also have a "kids playing" section with one or two students watching the kids while moms get a coffee break, read, or talk with other moms. We definitely feel like this cafe would prove to be an incredible extension of our reach to the campus and surrounding community. We hope to launch a one to two year student internship for graduating seniors as well who would be committed to working/serving in the cafe for a portion of their time. I will share the vision of the student internship in next post!

We have a vision of marrying this Freedom Cafe with a Freedom Store through a partnership with Trade As One - an amazing local Fair Trade Company which seeks to bring good news to the poor by only buying and selling products (which are 100% fair trade) from businesses who employ people living with AIDS, people coming out of trafficking situations, or people living on less than a dollar a day. Their vision has gripped the hearts and minds of the students on campus, and several of our students are even interning this summer with them. We could partner with Trade as One to sell their fair trade products in the cafe, and we would also sell fair trade coffee, chocolate, and other food products that often use slave labor in their production. Check them out on the web at www.tradeasone.com! You can also hear founder Nathan George speak at our Freedom Summit website, www.freedom-summit.org. He is AMAZING!!

In the store/cafe, people could learn about human trafficking worldwide, follow the stories of both victims and survivors, and learn about their ability to effect change through every dollar they spend. Each dollar is a vote, and our votes can demand more products that arrive in front of us through ethical, moral, and righteous channels.

Lastly, our good friend Tbone (who is our co-worker Emilee's husband) has had this vision for a long time. He quit his job a couple years ago and took a job as the store manager of Red Mango to gain experience in running a business of this kind. He would be a key player in running this cafe because he has the right experience and is incredibly intelligent and hard working.

If you are interested in helping out with this vision in any way, just email me at nwiesen@gmail.com! And please pray for us also. If this is God's vision, then He will provide the means for it to happen.

2009-06-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

Our greatest heart's desire for students is that they would truly love Jesus and that their hearts would be transformed. We do not just want a community that knows how to act and speak in the "right Christian way". We want a community of broken, honest, pure hearted students who are truly being made into the image of our Savior. That is who Trent and I want to be too!

I think there have been three theme verses for Trent, me, and our students this last year. The first verse is the first beatitude in Matthew 5, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". There is so much to say about this simple but deeply profound verse. Poverty of spirit is a recognition of spiritual bankruptcy and leads to true dependence on God. The road to poverty of spirit is marked by suffering, God allowing us to see the sin and filth in our hearts, and coming to the end of relying on self. It is a narrow road, but it leads to life. Yes it leads to life!! God has been blessing us by making us more poor in spirit, but the road there has been painful and hard at times. The result has been greater intimacy with God and dependence on Him for the strength I need to be holy, to not sin, to obey His commands, and to love Him and others from my heart. It is baffling how much I subconsciously think I can depend on myself and my own strength for all of those things. Entering the Kingdom does not come by being self sufficient, but by being dependent on God, which is the opposite of what our culture tells us we should be.

The second verse is Isaiah 26:8, which says, "We trust in you by obeying your commands. Our heart's desire is for your name's glory." The second half of the verse is incredibly convicting and powerful to me. How often do I honestly desire for God to get all the glory and not myself? How often do I want His will to be done at the expense of my own? Because His will being done is equated with His Kingdom coming (in the Lord's prayer), I cannot usher in His Kingdom if I am living by my own will and for my own glory. God has been slowly helping us die to our desires to get the glory, but this will be a life long process for sure! What a freedom it is though!

The third verse is 1 Samuel 16:7 when God says to Samuel, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." This verse is actually quite frightening to me because we cannot fool God regardless of how "good" or "righteous" our outside appears to be. How often do I care more about what is in my heart than what I do on the outside? If I "perform well and righteously" in a certain situation, am I still concerned with what was really in my heart? Or am I just proud and happy to receive the praise of man? Because I truly believe that I will stand before Jesus one day and give an account for my life and what was truly in my heart, I am motivated to tend to my heart, to seek transformation of my heart, not just my actions. The beauty of a transformed heart is that a simplicity takes over life, which is really just transparency. A good tree bears good fruit naturally. I do not want to be a Pharisee, yet this is easy to become if I don't care about my heart, engage in spiritual disciplines, and seek God more fervently behind closed doors than in front of others.

This narrow road of dying to ourselves leads to wholeness, freedom, and fruit as we get to participate in God's story. It is all about Him!

2009-06-23T16:32:00.001-07:00

Our 7 day backpacking trip with students was incredible! The weather was much better than expected, which was a huge blessing because it was supposed to be rainy with thunder showers 5 of the 7 days, with a high of 40! It ended up raining a little bit one night, and then it was mostly sunny and pretty warm the rest of the week! It was so beautiful, as you can see in some of the pictures right below this post. You can also see that there was still quite a lot of snow, but it ended up being a fun challenge.

The group bonded and got along incredibly! It was a pretty mixed group in the sense that a lot of the students going did not know each other extremely well. One of the coolest parts of the week for me was hearing everyone's summarized life story around the campfire at night times. People were really honest and I feel like that was a huge source of bonding among the group. It was also nice to be away from civilization, phones, technology, email, etc for a week. It is amazing how much peace we all experienced. And because we had quite a bit of down time, we all got to spend a lot of time with God and one another in His glorious creation which was literally breathtaking at times and filled us all with so much joy and praise!! While we did not want to leave, I must admit that I was very excited to take a shower, sleep in my bed, and eat some good food:) We were all extremely smelly after not showering for seven days, but it was an incredible experience that we all embraced and grew from!

2009-06-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

WOW!

2 of the students climbed the big peak behind and left of us

The lakes were still half way frozen over

We made a huge bonfire one of the nights

Gorgeous sunset one night!

One of the students, Doug, standing in a HUGE GORGEOUS meadow

Lots of snow when we came over the Donahue pass!

Group shot at the top of Donahue pass

Climbing up the pass in the snow

Group shot

All the girls minus one

Thousand island lake

2009-06-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

The school year is coming to a close. It has been an incredible spring quarter and year. One of my favorite things about spring quarter was having the opportunity to lead a freshman girl on the tennis team to Jesus and watch her embrace Him wholeheartedly. I am convinced of the Lord's power when he reveals Himself to students who have not grown up with a Christian background whatsoever, and then they just get it so quickly. Within a few weeks, she had me in tears (of joy and praise) because of the wisdom that was coming out of her mouth, how hungry she was to read Scripture, and the things the Lord was convicting her of and showing to her. For example, I led her to Christ on a Friday, and by Monday she had already read John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 1 John, and half of the book I gave her. And that was even during a busy time for her! Within a week she was saying things to me like, "I want to surrender everything in my life to Him because He is so beautiful and good." Or "I have so much joy and purpose for the first time in my life and I am so thankful to have found the greatest truth and reality." Or "I see how wretched my heart is and how much I long to be more like Jesus." Seeing even one student come to know Jesus keeps the fuel in my heart burning for a long time, and we were blessed to see quite a few students come to know Christ for the first time this year!

Students are now venturing off to do incredible and inspiring things for the summer (camp counselors, public health initiatives and/or research in various countries, internships with an incredible local fair trade company, mission trips in Rwanda, India, Honduras, China, and many other incredible things). Many students are also sticking around Stanford, which we are really excited about. Summer is always a great time to bond with a smaller crew, go deeper in our walks with God, and have FUN since no one is quite as busy. Counter to what some might think, we really feel like summer is prime time for pouring into students' lives, building momentum for the movement, renewing our vision for the coming year, and seeking God for what He would have us focus more of our time and energies on. Our first summer working with Kingdom First, Cross Training was born, which has turned into one of the most integral aspects of our ministry to students. Last summer we took 15 of our core group of students to South Africa for five weeks, which hugely impacted all of us and the rest of our group this year! We are looking forward to what God is going to do this summer!!

To kick the summer off, we are taking about 17 students on a 7 day BACKPACKING TRIP in the high Sierras in one week from now. It is going to be challenging, bonding, breathtakingly beautiful, and FUN!! About 20 of our students just hiked half dome in Yosemite as a "warm up". If any of you have ever done half dome, you know it is really hard (16 miles round trip and 4800 ft elevation gain). But try doing it all through the night, starting at midnight, getting to the top around 4:30am, and then hiking down an hour later and driving home. Craziness:) Gotta love their energy and passion.

Please pray for a safe trip and that God would minister to us and let us commune with Him and one another in His BEAUTIFUL creation!

2009-05-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

The Freedom Summit was absolutely INCREDIBLE last weekend!! It far surpassed my expectations in quality and quantity of people that came! We had about 500 people register in the last few days leading up to the conference, so we had about 1,000 people total. While numbers are not the ultimate gauge of success for anything, we were thrilled that 1,000 people in the Bay Area cared enough about human trafficking to come to the Freedom Summit. We were also thrilled that 1,000 people were educated and given many opportunities at the conference to get involved in fighting this horrible injustice (we had about 25 local and international organizations come to the conference. Each organization was given a table in the "global village" where conference attendees were able to explore, ask questions, and see how they could get involved.) We can't wait to see all that God is going to do as a result of this conference! We trust that many seeds were planted at the Freedom Summit, and that He will cause them to grow as He desires. Beginning on June 1st, videos of all the main and breakout sessions will be posted on our website: www.freedom-summit.org. Make sure to watch at least the three main sessions if you were not able to attend. We also posted the handbook on our website, and this is a great compilation of information on the organizations that were present--their needs, vision, niche in fighting human trafficking, prayer requests, and how YOU can get involved. We were so blessed by this event and praise GOD for all that He is doing here among us!

2009-04-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

2nd Mile - Green Oaks Academy from Emilee Shim on Vimeo.

Check out our most recent 2nd mile slideshow. We rennovated an elementary school in East Palo Alto last weekend, and it was a blast! We were excited to bless the students and staff at this school, and it was such a joy to serve. We had a lot of students come out too, which was a lot of fun!

2009-03-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

We finally arrived home from Honduras late last night. The trip was incredible to say the least for everyone involved! We felt God move in powerful ways in and through us, the work was very rewarding, the group got along incredibly and bonded a lot, no one got sick (at least no signs of sickness yet...some fevers take a week to kick in so hopefully no one got anything:), everyone grew in new ways, and everyone was used in the lives of the local people who we were privileged to hang out with for a week. Trent and I just love mission trips for so many reasons, and this proved to be worth all of the hard work that went into planning it!

Here is a short snippet from an email that Trent sent the parents while we were there. It gives a brief picture of our work and rhythm there:

"As we’ve discovered, things happen slowly in Honduras (and having to move 40 people doesn’t help!). While the going has been slow, we’ve been picking up steam over the past couple of days, and have managed to demolish a house, reconstructing the foundation and flooring, prep and paint a school, church, and playground, build the foundation of an additional bathroom for a school, reconstruct a communal common area, teach classes in elementary schools, play soccer with local kids, launch local kids 10-12 feet in the air during lunch time swim breaks, and much, much more. The work, while not always the epitome of efficiency, has been very rewarding, and has provided for some really powerful interactions both with locals, and within the group. We are beginning to hit our stride as a group, and are excited to see how the next couple days will unfold!...Our times away from work have included much recreation (hiking, snorkeling, soccer, etc…), powerful times of teaching and small group interaction, and of course some time to work out (you’d be amazed at the creative workouts that unfold when you have nearly 30 varsity athletes, 5 gallon water jugs, steep hills, and fitness test awaiting them upon return to Stanford! Needless to say, I think they will all do just fine.)"

We are excited to see the ways that the Lord continues to move in the hearts of the students as a result of this trip. It was incredibly heart warming to hear some of their reflections at the end of the week and the ways that they were touched, the ways that they were used, the ways that God revealed Himself powerfully, the ways that they fell in love with the people there, the ways they fell more in love with God, the ways they grew individually and as a community, the ways that they were sanctified, and so much more.

Thank you so much to all of you who supported this trip financially and in prayer! We are so grateful for all of you and hope God is blessing each and every one of you. Please pray for God to keep moving powerfully on this campus this spring quarter. We are very excited to see what He is going to do! Below are just a few pictures of the trip. Enjoy and God Bless!

2009-03-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

funny group pic

speeding their boat through the mangroves

launching each other off the dock:)

singing with the kids

house demo

cute kids!

more craziness off the dock

playing with kids is hard work:)

awesome beach in one of the towns where we worked

On the way to work!

Some of our students working

Our amazing artist Kat painting one of many murals at the school in town

Repainting a school

Playing with the precious kids!

2009-03-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the incredible promotional video for the Freedom Summit that one of our students made!! You can read more about the Freedom Summit in the post right below this. Go to our website at www.freedom-summit.org to learn more and register now!

Freedom Summit from Freedom Summit on Vimeo.

2009-03-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

We are more than excited about the upcoming Freedom Summit, a conference on slavery and human trafficking! We have an incredible team of our students and Abundant Life members working hard to put this together. It has been so fun to see our students take ownership and come alive in planning this conference. We have incredible speakers coming, including pastor Francis Chan from Cornerstone church near LA, David Batstone with Not for Sale, and Bethany Hoang from International Justice Mission. Not for Sale and IJM are two of the biggest and best organizations in the country fighting human trafficking! In putting this conference together, we have learned so much and met so many incredible people who are working full time to fight this massive injustice in this world.

One example of someone we have met who is working hard to fight this injustice and will join us at the conference is Nathan George (and his small team of employees) who started a for profit business called Trade as One a few years ago. Nathan worked in the UK in business for 20 years before he felt led to start this business in the United States. He started by spending a lot of time travelling around the world to places where there is a lot of poverty, AIDS, and/or human trafficking. He found large and small businesses who were employing people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of forced prostitution or labor. He said the one main thing that all of these people wanted was help in marketing and selling their products. So he set up Trade as One to buy products from these businesses and sell them in the States. Last year, they sold $700,000 worth of products and it was only their second year in operation! They are not only running an eithical business in which ALL of the products they sell are 100% slave free, but the very existence of their business is responsible for sustaining and creating jobs for many thousands of people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of human trafficking. Now that to me is an example of creative Kingdom business that delights God's heart!!

Nathan is so passionate and optimistic that the "Fair Trade" movement in America can take off and change the world dramatically. This is how: If a lot people begin to truly care enough about this issue to change the way they spend their money by buying only fair trade products wherever possible, then the companies who are certified "fair trade" because they have NO slave labor in their supply chain will begin to do really well, setting an example for other companies. Even if prices need to be a few dollars higher (since they might have previously been getting free labor way down the line in their supply chain, allowing them to have lower prices for the finished product), companies will realize that people care enough about this issue to not only keep buying their products if they are a few bucks more, but actually buy more since they are "fair trade." It is kind of like how the organic movement took off five or six years ago, except this issue of slavery is WAY MORE IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT IS DEALING WITH THE LIVES OF PRECIOUS PEOPLE, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN, MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD! People are willing to pay more for organic because the food is healthier, animals are treated better, it is more environmentally friendly, etc. How much more should fair trade companies take off and succeed since they are ensuring good, fair treatment of every worker in their supply chain! Now that I know what I know, I cannot with integrity keep buying products that are not fair trade. Of course at this point, there are not a lot of things that are certified fair trade, but I know that will change soon. And in the meantime, I will just be a responsible consumer wherever possible and buy stuff from businesses like Trade as One! Trent and I were wondering why every church in America wouldn't have a "trading post" in their church where they sell fair trade products. They don't seem to have a hard time having book stores to sell their own books.

Please go to our website for more info on this conference: www.freedom-summit.org. It is going to be incredible! We are really hoping to mobilize the body of Christ to take action on this issue, because there are ways we can do so! We know that God is waking up the church in America to put their money where their mouth is, put love into action, and care about the things that He cares about. We are His hands and feet, and we want to take that role very seriously for our King!

Roatan Missions Trip Update

2009-02-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

We are extremely excited about our upcoming trip to the island of Roatan, located 27 miles off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We will be making the trip with 31 students from Stanford, spending our time rebuilding homes, cleaning up communities, and caring for the sick and marginalized that inhabit the island's east end.

We can't wait to see how God moves in and through our group during this time! If you would join us in praying for the trip, please pray for:

hearts that are prepared for whatever we encounter on the island
God's working in the hearts of the people we are to meet on the island
this trip to bless those we meet on the island, while also growing each of us more in love with Him
seamless preparation, both on our end and on the island
safe and smooth travel
health and safety during our time on the island
the financial provision necessary for everyone to go
the financial provision necessary to complete the projects we will be doing while there
unity, growth and love within the context of our group

Also, we are currently raising money to help fund the projects that we will be doing on the island, as well as to supplement the money raised by students for the cost of their trips. If you are interested in giving for this particular trip, either click the "Donate" button located on the right hand side of this page, or send checks made out to the National Christian Foundation, with "Fund #:648866" in the memo line to:

2314 Williams St
Palo Alto, CA
94306

We appreciate your partnership with us in this venture!

Thanks, and God Bless!

2009-02-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

We feel that the word for this quarter is "surrender", accompanied by the loving yet challenging question from the Lord, "what is your treasure? what do you really love the most?" Trent and I recently watched a 3 minute youtube video of John Piper's response to the "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel that is being touted by so many preachers, televangelists, and other pastors around the world. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGzqIcbvARw. He is very blunt about how horrible this "gospel" is because it is not the gospel and is really just idolatry. While I also share Piper in his hatred for the overt "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel because it is not the gospel, I felt surprisingly convicted by this video. I realized that my heart is prone to wander and treasure other things above Jesus, which is also idolatry! It made me start reflecting on how self centered and small my view of God usually is. God has been doing major heart movements in me surrounding this core, deep issue of where my treasure is. Trent and I, along with many of our students, have been on our knees begging the Lord to "circumcise our hearts so that we may truly love Him with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul" (Deutoronomy 30:6). Things are shifting and softening in my heart and I am falling more in love with Jesus. I am beginning to feel more of the "rivers of living water" and love for others gushing from my heart.

I am also experiencing a lot of wrestling with Him as well. He is letting me see just how deep some of my other loves run, and He is slowly prying my hand away from those things. I feel like in some ways, God has been patiently waiting and asking, "how much of me do you want?" I thought I had already "lost my life for His sake and found it," and in some ways I have, but there is still more to go. And I truly believe that in God's economy, resurrection comes from death. Seeds must die to bear fruit. I must lose my life for His sake to save it and find it. It costs everything. But then I realize that everything I have is as loss, rubbish, garbage, compared to knowing Him. Philippians 3:7-11 says exactly what I am communicating here. As Paul writes from prison, he says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So my Stanford degree, my gymnastics accomplishments, my incredible family and friends, ministry, are all a loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I want there to be no comparison when it comes to what I love the most. This is challenging! I guess when we come face to face with Him one day, we will realize how pale everything is in comparison to his glory, goodness, and greatness!

2009-01-29T21:49:00.000-08:00

Winter quarter has been an absolute whirlwind so far. An awesome whirlwind:) We have had over 50 kids packed into the Stenstrom's house at our first three Cross Training meetings of the quarter (this picture is about half the group!). God has been doing an incredible work in so many people's hearts, and we continue to praise God for the ways we get to participate in His work on the Stanford campus. I step back often and think about the ripple effect that so many Stanford students falling in love with Jesus will have on the world. Channeling all of their passions, talents, resources, and LOVE towards God and His Kingdom is so exciting to Trent and I. God keeps drawing new people to himself and to the Cardinal Life community, and we are humbled and thrilled by His mighty power that is at work in transforming students hearts, minds, priorities, and lives. We so strongly know and proclaim that all glory and credit belongs to Him.

Something that we are really excited for, and know will have a HUGE impact on this group of students: we have about 30 students already committed to coming on a spring break Honduras mission trip! Our brother in law's father, Joseph Natale, started a missions organization there, on the island of Roatan many years ago, and there is a lot of poverty there, though a breathtakingly beautiful place! We are going to build a house for a family, possibly do some HIV/AIDS prevention education at the local high school that the Natale's started (1/5 people have HIV/AIDS in most of the towns on Roatan!), play soccer with the kids, pray and share the gospel with people, and just have fun and love on them! Please pray that God would do a mighty work in and through us. We are so excited about the group that is going, and we know that God is going to rock their worlds with His love, truth, and invitation to radically follow Him the rest of their lives.

One quote by Mother Theresa that has really impacted Trent and I pertaining to how we view mission trips: "the rich rescue the poor and the poor rescue the rich." This is so true. We often go into mission trips thinking we are going to serve and give since we have "so much", but we are served and given so much also. This summer in South Africa, I felt like we were "rescued" to a certain degree from our American consumeristic mentality, and we received so many spiritual riches from the poor there. It seemed like the degree to which they were materially poor, they were that spiritually rich towards God, which is so much more important. I was actually saddened by the spiritual poverty of America in comparison. The family of God, ALL of the family of God, NEEDS one another. So we will go to serve, teach, and love them, and they will serve, teach, and love us! I know our students will come back changed and hopefully more in love with God than ever before. And hopefully the effect upon return will be a closer knit community more in love with God and other people, leading to more people seeing and coming to know Jesus. May His Name be praised and lifted higher through everything we do!

2008-12-02T15:03:00.000-08:00

Fall quarter is nearing the end, and it has been such an incredible quarter. It is fun to sit and reflect on all that God has done this quarter. It brings me to my knees in praise of God's love, power, and glory. He is so good! I feel like this has been a quarter of love. God seems to be teaching all of us how to receive his love and realize who we are as his beloved children. Only in receiving his love can we love him and others back, which is the aim of our lives. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." If we do not receive his love first, we cannot love him or others as we are called to do. God has been moving a lot of these truths into our hearts, and we have seen students just falling more in love with Him as they experience Him. Our single greatest desire and prayer for our students is that they would truly learn how to receive from God and let Him love them. Right along with that prayer is that they would love God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength and love their neighbors as themselves! There are a lot of things pulling at us in our world, and there are a lot of things that compete for our allegiance and love. God has truly been revealing the treasure that He alone is--far above all other things.

Our weekly Monday night Cross Training worship gatherings at Steve and Lori's house (which we are so thankful for their generosity in letting us use their beautiful house as we surely could not fit in our house) has been such a rich time of community, worship, learning, pouring into one another, and soaking in God's love and presence. His Spirit is so alive among us as we come together to refocus and worship Him. He has definitely been working powerfully in everyone's hearts to reveal himself to us, his love for us, his heart for lost people on our campus and beyond, our purpose here at Stanford, and the people he has destined us to become--conformed to the likeness of our King. I really cannot express to you how much this time has felt like a glimpse of what the early church must have felt like. It is neat to see that while he has given us more vision and conviction than ever to be more missional on our campus, he has also been increasing our understanding of how that will most effectively happen--by falling more in love with Him and relying on HIS powerful Spirit that is at work within us, rather than subconsciously thinking that we are self sufficient to carry out his commission on our own. He keeps giving me a picture of a seed that is planted to produce a harvest. It must first die so that the outer shell is cracked open. Then what is inside can grow and come forth. As Jesus said, " I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds," (John 12:24). I picture the outer shell as my self and my pride that needs to be cracked open and crucified daily so that the Spirit inside of me can minister to others through me. So "it is no I who live, but Christ who lives in me," (Galatians 2:20).

We just had our last Cardinal Life of the quarter last night and it was just incredible. We had over 100 kids there and we were privileged to have Stanford and Cardinal Life alumni Ryan and Sarah Hall! If you follow running at all, Ryan is the fastest American born marathon runner ever, and recently set the still current American record at the Olympic trials for Beijing. Much more importantly, they are true disciples of Jesus who love Him so much and are using this platform to unashamedly proclaim their greatest love and treasure far above any running achievements. They spoke so much Godly wisdom to our group last night about what truly matters and what truly defines us, which made us so happy.

We continue to see people coming to know Jesus for the first time and in a much deeper, powerful and transformative way. We ask you to pray for the students we meet one on one with and in small groups (about 100 guys and girls total! Praise God!)--that they would continue to grow in the knowledge of who God is and that they would "experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then they will be complete, having the fullness of life and power that comes from God," (Ephesians 3:19). Please pray for the campus as a whole and the difficult culture of relativism where "no one can claim to have truth". This makes proclaiming the gospel difficult and it seems like so few have ears to hear. But God is amazing and he continues to powerfully reveal Himself to people all the time. He is bigger than our culture! My faith has strengthened in the truth of Romans 1:16 that says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the POWER of God for the salvation of everyone who believes". The gospel is inherently powerful, and all we can do is faithfully proclaim his love while SHOWING them the easy yoke, the beauty, the love, and the full life of following Him.

One last exciting prayer request is that we are putting on a big human trafficking conference May 15th and 16th. Many of our students are very passionate about being apart of the abolitionist movement that is growing around the issue of ending modern day slavery. There are over 27 million slaves in our world, most of which are women and children, and it is happening in our own American cities! We already have some incredible speakers, groups, and musicians coming, so we are praying that God will use this conference to raise awareness, proclaim Jesus as the true source of freedom, and mobilize the body to take action to help fight human trafficking. We will share more exciting details soon!

2008-10-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

The first few weeks of fall quarter have been really awesome. We continue to have more new students coming to Cardinal Life, cross training, and small groups, and we also have quite a few students who are seeking right now and want to know what Christianity is about, who Jesus is, and how to start a relationship with God. Emilee and I have a group of about 7 girls who are in that stage and it is such a joy to come alongside them in that time. We love sharing our faith, discussing tough questions, and just loving on them and inviting them to "come and see" what it is all about in the context of the rich student community that the Lord has provided in Cardinal Life.

At the first Cross Training of the year, we emphasized how we wanted the environment and culture of this community to be one of authenticity, love, accepting people where they are at, and being the body where everyone brings their gifts and love to the table to give and not just take. We also want to be sharpening and challenging one another in wisdom and love so that we are not getting complacent or off track in what following Jesus means for all of us in the context of our culture. We want to be an interdependent community because we are broken people and we need one another. We believe that this type of community made up of broken, authentic, loving, merciful, meek, joyful people who are living differently and filled with the light of Jesus attracts other people as moths to a lightbulb. I wrote the following poem (of sorts) for the first cross training to read to the students called I hope. It started as a list of things that I hope for this community, but they were all so convicting to me that I changed the "we" to "I" because I hope that I can be a person like this! I hope this convicts and inspires you too:)

I hope that I truly listen to others and in this way, “consider others as better than myself.” (Philippians 2:3)

I hope that I truly view myself and others as a small but important and absolutely indispensable part of the body. I hope that I don’t expect others or myself to be all things to all people, or that I don’t get frustrated by differences bc this would be like being frustrated that my whole body isn’t an eye.

I hope I am as committed or more committed to helping others become who they were made to be as I am to reaching my full potential in life. I hope that I can truly say that I desire for others to outshine and be more used of God than myself.

I hope that I really want to know the truth about God, myself, and this world rather than things that I just like to believe or that make me feel good.

I hope that I don’t just honor God with my lips while my heart is far from Him or do my acts of righteousness before men just to be seen. I hope that my heart really changes because my eternal treasures and rewards are going to be based on the things done from a pure heart of love for God and love for others.

I hope that I can be broken, honest, and authentic with others; that I can feel free to ask tough questions, and really wrestle with things while asking God to search my heart so I can be honest about what I am really living for and what I really believe.

I hope that I prioritize thinking and living differently when I read the Word, rather than just seeking to know the right answers or have more knowledge.

I hope that I love and serve people into the awesome Kingdom of God and show them what the Kingdom of God is like by my life and community, otherwise my words will be empty.

I hope that I never love anything more than my King, especially things that are awesome and good, like a movement of God, or the gifts of the Spirit, or the blessings of God, or being used by God, or making an impact on others etc.

I hope that I can give up my rights and remember that I am not my own because I was bought at a costly price.

I hope I can forgive much and have a lot of mercy with others because I was forgiven much and shown more mercy than I ever deserved.

I hope that I can love my enemies and bless those who curse me, because that is what my Savior exemplified for me when he was being crucified.

I hope that I will pray more passionately in private than I do in front of others.

I hope that I can be poor in spirit because I remember that I am the worst of all sinners, that I nailed Jesus to the cross, and that I have no power or worth apart from Christ. My “righteousness” is like filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah), and yet, HE changes those filthy rags that are like scarlet to white as snow (Isaiah 1;18).

I hope that I am faithful with the small things and when no one is looking. Mother Theresa said, “we can do no big things, only small things with great love.” I hope that I have great love and a great life, and not just great words.

And finally, I hope that I really do hope all these things☺

I rejoice that my hope is Jesus and my Hope will not disappoint me.

For Cross Training right now, we are going through some of the Sermon on the Mount and other key passages in Scripture that capture the kingdom values and the kingdom heart that Jesus calls his children to live out. His Kingdom is based on different principles and values than the world. We started this series by talking about the first beautitude in Matthew 5, which is: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." We felt that this was the most important place to start this series because in talking about the kingdom heart and how Jesus calls us to live, it is crucial to realize that we cannot, even in the least bit, meet these standards on our own. We are all poor in spirit, whether we realize it or not, because we are morally and spiritually bankrupt on our own. So we can try as hard as we can to love our enemies or bear with others who frustrate us (and it is important that we do in fact put our will and body into this obedience because the Holy Spirit works in accordance with our sumbission to Him), but only God can change our hearts.

I feel like I could write so much more because so much awesome stuff is happening, but I will pace it. We will continue to update consistently, and we hope you are all doing great and falling deeper in love with the greatest treasure of all!

2008-09-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

We are so excited and stoked to announce that our good friend Emilee Shim will be joining Kingdom First staff to help with student ministry. She brings a wealth of gifts to the table that greatly complement Trent and I, and we are so blessed to have her. Emilee graduated the year between Trent and I (2005) and played soccer at Stanford. She worked with Young Life, an awesome high school ministry, in this area for the last two years, then went to Kenya last year to work in an orphanage. She led backpacking trips all summer in Colorado for Young Life, and is now joining us for an awesome year!

She is also joining at the perfect time as there is a great need for her! Last year I met with over 25 girls one on one every week, and led three small groups, so I could not take on any more! Tonight at our first Cardinal Life of the year, we had over 100 students there, and over 20 NEW girls said they either wanted to meet one on one with a Cardinal Life advisor, be in a small group, or learn more about starting a personal relationship with God! Praise God, but I definitely could not have accommodated 45 girls to meet with! So needless to say I am very happy to have my best friend who I so love and admire join us in our mission to love and come alongside Stanford students with the love and good news of Jesus.

So the school year has officially started and it has been an awesome start! We had a kickoff bbq at the park behind our house the day before classes started, and we had a big group of students show up for good food, fellowship, and fun games (washoes and polish golf...if you haven't played them you are missin' out:) Then the following night we had our first official Cross Training of the year. Cross Training is our weekly meeting where we share a meal, study the Word, get into each other's lives, worship God, pray, and then usually have goofy dance parties at the end. It is the highlight of our week and God always moves powerfully in our midst. Last year we had cross training at our house, which we quickly began to grow out of! So this year we are meeting at Steve and Lori's house (the couple we are blessed to work with who started Kingdom First and have been doing ministry at Stanford for 8 years now) which is much more spacious. Last night we had about 60 or more students, which would have been physically impossible to fit in our house.

We are very thankful for and excited about the movement of God on this campus. It is such a joy to see students' hearts being captivated by His love and wanting to live as He did and bear much fruit for His Kingdom. And of course, seeing people come to know Jesus personally for the first time and seeing their lives be forever changed is worth it all!

2008-09-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

I am kind of embarrassed that we have a blog, because we haven't written in so long. I am really going to try and start writing more consistently as a way to keep those of you who are interested informed on what is going on in our world, in Cardinal Life, with 2nd mile, etc.
I would say the most recent thing we want to share about is our five week summer mission trip to South Africa with 15 of our students from Stanford, 15 Boston Campus Crusade students, and two families from Boston. Our time there was very rich and rewarding in many different ways that we would love to share with you.

First, God used the work we were doing with disabled children, orphans, Aids patients, and people living in the worst poverty any of us have ever witnessed to break our hearts in new ways, to humble us deeply, and to teach us the rich value and joy of serving “the least of these” in his Kingdom. We feel like we saw God’s Kingdom in new ways; for example, we experienced the spiritual and relational richness of these broken people who were so loving to us and so receptive to the good news of Jesus and his love for them. So many of them seemed to really know Jesus in a very deep, personal way, and it showed in their worship gatherings Sunday morning where they brought the house down in song and dance. While their material poverty is something that might be rare in America, their community and spiritual wealth is something that seems sadly to be rare in America as well. Their love and joy spoke very loud to us because many of their situations are so painful and seem hopeless.

Second, the teaching given by Boston leaders Pat McLeod and Bret Ogburn inspired and spurred each of us to have more of a God sized vision of loving and serving our friends, teammates, and campus into the Kingdom. The 15 students from Stanford who were there, as well as Trent and I, caught a greater vision of God’s love and mercy toward every person at Stanford, and there is a renewed excitement to intentionally build bridges with the people around us to share the love of Christ with. We are all eager to go that next step of not just being a welcoming group, but seeking people out to unconditionally serve and love.

Third, living in close quarters for five weeks is very sanctifying because it is impossible to “hide” brokenness and sinfulness from others and from self. Healthy communication skills have to be developed, as well as listening and conflict resolution skills. Patience is tested, providing ample opportunity to practice selflessness, humility, giving up one’s rights, bearing with one another, showing mercy, and many other things that may seem easy to do in theory or from a distance. One of our students, Nate Cass, wrote this in reflection from his time in Africa: “One night one of the amazing leaders, Pat, gave a talk on Philippians 3 and the ways we as humans attempt to show to everyone we have it all together. The coolest thing is that Jesus doesn’t want us to feel the pressure of putting on this appearance or illusion of having it “together” (Pat calls this the divine man complex). What God wants from us is a poverty of spirit that admits our weakness and bankruptcy and our desperate need for His powerful transforming work in us. And it’s not as if our loving Father says “Humble yourself and then I’ll bless you” like some power-hungry commander. Humbling ourselves is the blessing and the place where we find freedom—we were created to be humble before God and others, and He wants to release us from the expectations of others. And people seem to be strangely drawn to a community of meek, merciful people who know they are broken but are somehow living in the freedom, hope, peace, love and joy of a resurrection power that works best in weakness. After talking about all of these things the next day with my friend and mentor, Trent, and confessing how wretched and fallen we truly were before God, he commented on how fitting it was that we were doing the maintenance project we just happened to be doing that day—shoveling manure!”

Lastly, we believe that God created a rolling snowball in all of our hearts in Africa that is going to pick up great size and momentum this year in Cardinal Life. We have an incredible group of student leaders who love Jesus and are eager to serve others and usher in His Kingdom at Stanford. We feel His Spirit stirring on campus, and it is really exciting. We already had 30 people come to Cross Training two weeks before school has even started, and many people are still gone, much less new freshmen. Luckily, we have a bigger space to meet this year, which will provide room for the growth that we already see happening. We covet your prayers for this new school year; that God would first and foremost grow students at Stanford in love and intimacy with Himself; that Cardinal Life would be a movement that is building bridges via service with the hurting world around us; that God’s name alone is being glorified and made famous; and that we would be protected against the enemy’s schemes to divide, distract, tempt, and thwart a powerful work of God.

Fall quarter Fun

2008-01-30T16:20:00.000-08:00

I have not written for quite some time, so it is rather overwhelming to even try and capture all that God has done so far this year. Wow. God is Good! We started the quarter off right before school even started with a bbq at our house. Luckily we were having the bbq in the park right behind our house because about 100 students came!! It was a lot of fun and an exciting way to start off the quarter. Shortly thereafter, we had large group meetings for Cardinal Life the first and second weeks of school. Both of those meetings were the largest groups we have ever had come to Cardinal Life (well over 100 students), which was obviously encouraging and exciting. We try not to measure our Kingdom "success" by how many people are coming to meetings, but it was encouraging nonetheless to see that many students show up to a meeting where they would get to hear the gospel and a message about Jesus. In reality, we would rather the group be small and on fire for Jesus than large and lukewarm or not even believing at all. Ideally we would have both:)

I (Natalie) have been meeting with about 23 girls per week all year. That continues to be my favorite part of ministry and where I am energized and come alive the most. I love to go deeper with girls on an individual basis and dig into the Word together, hear what God is teaching them and doing in their lives, love and counsel them however I can, and just walk alongside them. It is such a joy and delight to my heart to see women who either already love Jesus and are committed to following him no matter what the cost or who desire to grow and pursue an intimate relationship with Him, even for the first time. I was able to share the gospel with a few girls for the first time and see them put their faith in Jesus!!! That always makes me cry and rejoice more than anything else. It is truly a miracle to see women come to faith for the first time in college and just be immediately filled with faith and passion for Him. One girl in particular who recently believed and received Jesus three weeks ago (after only two hours of talking) has just been on fire for Him and so hungry for the word. She has already asked me if she could pray for me and has demonstrated a surrender and repentance that is such an amazing demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit! Seeing people receive the Good News of Jesus in faith and getting to participate in that is enough to keep us going for awhile!!

Another cool thing this year is that we started something called Cross Training, which is basically church at our house every Monday night for any students who want to come. Our little house has been packed pretty much every Monday night, and we have gotten to see the Lord work mightily in that space. Our time together starts at 6 with dinner (I have perfected the art of cooking meals for about 30 people), and then at 7, we usually start by either reading a passage of Scripture or watching a sermon (usually Francis Chan from a church in Simi Valley...He is amazing!!) and then discussing it. Then we have a time of worship led by Cody (Trent's brother who is a sophomore at Stanford), followed by a time of prayer for one another. Very simple, but it has been so powerful. It has been really neat to watch a true community begin to emerge where people genuinely love one another, feel at home, and have a lot of fun together. We have gotten to see the Lord work mightily in answering many of our prayers for one another and other people. It has also been amazing to see people more set free to unashamedly worship God and express love for each other. Sometimes it seems like Stanford students (and people in general) have a lot of fear and shame surrounding expressing love for one another or freely worshiping God in song or in other parts of life. It has been neat to see students come to a place where they are able to worship God freely. Our prayer times have become increasingly awesome and we usually either lay our hands on someone or just put our arms around each others shoulders to embrace one another as we pray. That has been sweet and very life giving to us and all of the students! We have enoyed having our home turned into a temple of worship, community, and a little glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is like!

God has also been tremendously growing Trent and I individually and as a couple. I find that the verse in Philemon 1:6 is very true, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ." As Trent and I share our faith and lead other students along, it strengthens our faith and constantly convicts us. I desire for every girl I meet with to genuinely and completely trust in the person of Jesus Christ. To trust that his commands are for our best, that he is the greatest treasure that we could ever have, that in losing our lives for his sake we find it, and that all of his promises are true! So this challenges me to believe it myself through the power of the Holy Spirit. We share in Paul's sentiment that "we beat our bodies and make them our slaves so that after we have preached to others, we ourselves will not be disqualified for the prize," (1Corinthians 9:27).

And finally, we pray that "the Lord will make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones," (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13). We love and miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!!

The last year: highlights of our weekly and monthly rhythm

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After our first year of ministry to Stanford students and looking back, we have had an awesome year. We have both grown so much personally by engaging with God through the Word, prayer, and solitude, through practicing to walk alongside students, and through sharing life with an awesome community of believers. There were many highlights, but here are a few: (This first blog is kind of an outline/highlight of what we do on a weekly/monthly basis and the second blog is of what God has been teaching us this year. We hope you will read all of it)

1. Meeting one on one with students-We feel that this is the most important aspect and our favorite part of what we do. This is where the most authentic relationships develop because students feel more safe to open up. We are able to really listen and come alongside them in their walk with the Lord, wrestle through faith and life questions with them, and dig into the Word and other challenging material together. We have seen a lot of fruit and growth (for them and us) come out of this time. Most of my (Natalie) time is actually spent meeting one on one with about 20-25 girls per week, while Trent divides his time a little more evenly between planning 2nd mile and meeting with guys.

2. 2nd mile- For those of you who don't know what 2nd mile is, it was started by the couple we work with (Steve and Lori Stenstrom) a few years ago. While Jesus was on earth about to go to the cross, he did something we are told to both "show the extent of his love" and "set an example" (John 13:1, 15). He took the posture of a servant and he washed his disciples feet. Upon finishing, he told the twelve, "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them," (John 13:17). The 2nd mile is awakening a church community around this area and on campus. It is not about a project but about a mindset and an approach to living. The 2nd mile is what He did for us, and how we in turn are called to love Him and love our neighbor as ourselves. We had three awesome 2nd mile projects this year. The last one in the spring was a complete rebuilding and rennovation of the Young Life house in East Palo Alto (there is a link to a slideshow of it in the right hand column). As always, there were some really cool relationships built and it was tear jerking to present it to the YL staff. We know this new house will be a huge blessing to the growing YL ministry there. We really experience the paradox of being blessed so much when we serve during 2nd mile!

3. Quarterly book studies- We often go through books with students one on one, but every quarter we have one or two specific books that we go through with groups of students who want to. This last year we went through Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias, The Great Omission by Dallas Willard, Stand Against the Wind by Erwin McManus, Following Jesus by NT Wright, Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby, and Hearing God by Dallas Willard. These books sparked a lot of really good conversations and questions, and it was really neat to see how much we were all impacted by each book we read.

4. Having bbqs and game nights at our house throughout the year- It is neat to open our home and have a lot of students come who don't normally come to Cardinal Life. Trent and I got to know quite a few new students through these events. These nights were always a blast as we had some intense games like dodgeball, football, mafia, washoes, and polish golf (I bet you haven't heard of most of these:).

5. Weekly small group bible studies- This is a really neat time to study and discuss the Bible and how it applies to our life. It was cool for both of us to see a hunger in a lot of students to seriously engage with the Word and follow Jesus. It was also neat to see relationships within the group grow a lot stronger and people start to share more honestly this year.

6. SALT (student athlete leadership team) meetings- There are about 20 students on the leadership team who were invited to be apart of it because of their love for Jesus and people (especially their teammates), their desire to seriously be a follower of Him, and the leadership through Christ like character they show. We have meetings a few times each quarter and what an amazing group of students they are! We have some great discussions during these meetings of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, how we can be more of a light at Stanford, and how we can be a community of faith and love that is genuinely centered on Jesus and his Word. These students are invited to take leadership in different ways and have a voice in the direction of Cardinal Life. Trent and I (and Steve, Lori, and Jim Stump) are closely connected to this group and meet one on one or in small groups with all of them. It is awesome for Trent and I to be working alongside a team of students who share our vision and heart for Stanford. In addition to the students, it is a complete joy to work alongside Steve and Lori Stenstrom and Jim Stump. They have a fire to serve God and Stanford students, and we are so blessed to work alongside them. We are all very like minded and hearted in our approach to reaching students, and we have a blast working together.

7. Cardinal Life large group meetings each Wednesday- Once a month we have a speaker come, and this last year we had some really awesome, challenging teachers. The other Wednesday's of the month, we do something like worship, prayer, reading scripture, or just spending time in silence soaking in God's presence. We really appreciate that weekly time set apart to have fellowship and to worship and meet with God.

8. Hosting students at our house for dinner- we love to invite different groups of students over for dinner to get to know them more and serve them in a small way. We have grown to love cooking and hosting people at our house, and it makes us so happy to see students enjoy themselves. We desire our home to be a safe, welcoming, and comforting place for students, and we feel like it truly has become that to a lot of them.

9. In addition to all of this stuff, we hope to do more mission trips and conferences with students this school year and next summer. Last year we went to the Passion Conference in Atlanta with one student (I heart Katie Riley!!) which was an incredible time of worship, fellowship, and some of the best teaching we have ever heard. We are going to go again this year in LA and hopefully bring more students. (Also, since going to Passion last year where we first heard a guy named Francis Chan speak, we have really enjoyed listening to his sermons online at cornerstonesimi.com. He is an incredible teacher, so if you are looking for good sermons, you should definitely listen to him!)

As you can see, we love what we do and feel blessed to be in the position we are! To read more of what God has been specifically teaching us and reminding us of this year, you can read the next entry.

The last year: What God has been teaching us

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We also want to share some things that God has been teaching and reminding us of this year:

1. Power is defined differently in God's Kingdom than the world's. It is amazing to think that when people looking on thought Jesus was a failure as he died on the cross, the most powerful moment in history was taking place. What good news that God was actually making all things new through Jesus. That He was reconciling the world to himself, taking sin upon himself, and defeating the powers and authorities of evil. Most of the Jews were hoping for a glorious earthly King, but his Kingship looked different than they thought. What is powerful in God's kingdom might often look like weakness and foolishness to the world. We are very comforted that we can trust God with the appearance and outcome of our work. Our task as his servants is to sacrificially love and serve those he has put before us and work for his approval, not man's. We truly believe that what is actually powerful and "makes things happen" in God's kingdom is sacrificial love, faith, prayer, submission to the total rule of Jesus in a life, and other things that often feel in opposition to the world and our flesh (like patiently waiting on God's timing and directive for things, turning the other cheek, forgiving, etc). We feel like God has really been transforming our minds and allowing us to really believe him in these areas. We see our perspective of the world changing a lot.

It is also sometimes tempting to water down and sugar coat the gospel to make it more popular in the world's eyes, but this is not following in the footsteps of Jesus. Jesus often spoke in confusing parables and said really hard things to swallow when speaking to the masses. He spoke of taking up your cross, losing your life, humbling yourself, hating your own life and family in comparison to him, putting the misdeeds of the flesh to death no matter what the cost, blessing those who curse you and loving your enemies, seeking God before wealth, earthly power, success, or comfort, giving love at sufficient cost to others (ie loving neighbor as yourself), giving without expecting anything in return, rejoicing in suffering and persecution for Jesus' name, and ultimately surrendering control of every part of your life to the Lordship and rule of Christ. In short, Jesus was looking for people with ears to hear and good soil in their hearts who wanted to follow Jesus in the Way that Jesus was calling them to do so, even when that meant giving up their own agenda, suffering, and possibly even dying for his name's sake. We have been surprised by how many people have responded to some really challenging teaching this year. Instead of Cardinal Life getting smaller this year with each new challenging speaker and bible study, the room got more and more packed as the year went on. We also had more students who wanted to meet with us as the year progressed to either start a relationship with Jesus or because of their desire to follow Him more seriously and "work out their salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). We believe people everywhere long to live in the fulness of freedom, peace, and joy that Jesus brought, and we desire to display and invite people into this fulness.

2. It is very easy to subtly or obviously start relying on self and/or methods rather than God for how to go about engaging with students, bible studies, weekly meetings, etc. It is easy to want to be in control of the time with students to make sure they "experience God". That is so silly when we think about it. We have gotten better at spending more time soaking our meetings in prayer beforehand and letting go of what we think is best because God has often surprised us.

3. People long for a place to belong, a safe place to call home, to let down their guard and find a genuine community of love. If there was one theme that emerged from all my individual meetings with girls this year, there was a desire for more genuine community. So as summer approached, we were thrilled to find out that most of the students we meet with and are closely connected to were staying for the summer. We decided to have weekly dinners followed by a time to seek and worship God, pray for each other, and get to know one another. Even though it sounds simple, it was so powerful. We did different activities each week. Sometimes, we would have an agenda to start with two or three worship songs and end up worshiping for hours. Sometimes we would read and meditate on a passage of Scripture (like Psalm 19, 39, and Matthew 5-7) and then discuss it. A few times we wrote poems or made some form of creative art to reflect what was going on in our hearts and relationships with God. It ended up being one of the most powerful, genuine times of community for all of us. Other times, we read chapters from a book called Following Jesus (by NT Wright) and discussed it. It was intimate, real, bonding, and genuine. We have gotten a lot of emails from students who had a transforming experience at those dinners this summer and who can't wait to come back to school. We also notice a more confident desire in many of them to follow Jesus because they do not feel like they are going it alone. What a blessing and answer to our prayers!!

4. Our pure faith in Jesus has grown, as well as our admiration for him. Simply put, we are more in love with Jesus now than we were a year ago, and that is the most important work of the Spirit in us and answer to our prayers. Everything else seems futile and pointless without that relationship. God has continually reminded us that the secret, quiet meeting with him each day is where we are restored and filled with the love that we need to pour into others' lives. It is there that we go to develop intimacy with him; to remember that we live, move and have our being in him alone (Acts 17:28); to listen to his voice; to receive the transforming grace we desperately need to become more like Him; to surrender control of our lives and ask for his kingdom to come and his will to be done in our lives as it is in heaven; to remember that we are indwelt by his powerful spirit who is our counselor and who fills us with life and all the fruit of the spirit. Things feel hard when we are not close to Jesus and when we are forgetting to rely on him. Not even his goodies or blessings motivate us then. Only when we remain and abide in him do we bear much lasting fruit, for apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

5. It takes a great amount of prayer, discernment, love, and care to speak truth into people's lives. Most importantly, depth of relationship and trust must be established and developed before earning the right to be heard. Most of the time, our role is to come alongside, ask questions, PRAY, love, listen, and offer counsel when ears are eager to hear.

We absolutely love what we do! We get the priviledge of coming alongside and growing alongside students. College is such a critical, formative time in life when people really grow up, learn to think for themselves, and largely set the trajectory for the rest of their lives. We are very excited for the school year to start again with a year of "experience" under our belts. It feels good to already have established relationships to continue building on. We would love your continued prayers and to know how to pray for you as well! We are so thankful for your support and involvement in our ministry.