Inspired by students!

Guest post by Donan

One of our greatest resources as InterVarsity staff is our students. They constantly amaze and inspire us. On April 1st, we took 5 WSU students and 2 Idaho students to a leadership retreat in Walla Walla. Our hope for the retreat was for students to gain skills in inviting their peers into missional experiences out of scripture. We want studying scripture to not just be an intellectual exercise but an invitation into a deeper relationship with Jesus.

As part of our training, we had students break into small groups and then pairs to practice crafting these invitations for themselves. Each small group received a piece of scripture and then the small group broke into pairs. Each pair received a small group profile so they could craft the invitation from scripture to the needs of that group. Below are the ideas they came up with... praise God for these creative, innovative students!!

Passages of scripture (One for each small group)

Table #1~Good Samaritan~ Luke 10:25-37

Table #2~ Rich Young Ruler~ Mark 10:17-31

Table #3~ Four friends and paralytic~ Mark 2:1-12

Pairs (at each table)

#1: You co-lead a group of 5 freshmen who are from the same floor. They don’t know each other too well as this is only your 2nd week of small group. They all come from church background but you aren’t if they are committed to following Jesus or if they just went to church with their parents.

#2: You co-lead a group that have 5 non-Christians coming. Occasionally a Christian student or two drops in but for the past four weeks these 5 non-Christians have shown up consistently. You’re not sure what is interesting to them about Jesus but the conversations during scripture study are lively.

#3: You co-lead a study that has 3 juniors and 1 senior who come every week. You’ve known all 4 for as long as you’ve been attending InterVaristy events. They have been around awhile and attend events faithfully.

Ideas for invitations:

Table 1

Pair 1:

- Conversation: ask where have you experienced Samaritian love?

- Group application: find someone to serve in secret… report back next week

- Community application: find an agency to serve at

Pair 2:

- Do an act of kindness towards someone that you don’t like (usually don’t interact with)

- Take action in issue of injustice if it’s not your responsibility

- Brainstorm people you don’t like and pray for them

- Use your own resources to care for someone who needs it… go the extra step

Pair 3:

- engage and serve younger students

- as a group meet with the university president or community leader and ask who is the ignored population in that community. Share with fellowship and plan how to serve

- Find a campus group and join even if you wouldn’t normally associate with them

- If they live off campus: find ways to serve their literal neighbor

Table 2

Pair 1:

- Meet with a leader for discipleship time (What questions would you ask one-on-one?)

- “mini-lent”: give a specific thing up for a week

- Bake sale: give donations/proceeds to the poor (decide on specific groups)

- Volunteer somewhere together

- Putting on a community dinner for a section/wing/floor

Pair 2

- What keeps you from following Jesus? This week will you submit that to God and pray to remove that barriers?

- As the lead, give your group a sacrificially large amount of money and have them go use it for a good cause

Pair 3

- Challenge members to brainstorm practical, real-life applications to help those in need and utilitize your riches.

- Discover areas in their lives where they are ‘rich.’ Be imaginative in finding areas in which they have riches to offer (math tutor, rides, etc.)

- Communal applications of reaching out to the poor/destitute, finding ways to give up riches

Table 3

Pair 1

- What’s stopping you from ‘goring through the roof’ to Jesus? What would that look like in your section?

- Who might need to be carried to Jesus?

- What does it look like to have your sins forgiven?

Pair 2

- Do you have any friends who have faith? What does that look like?

- Who in the passage do you relate to?

- Who would you be willing to dig through a roof for?

- What lengths would you go to in order to help a friend?

Injury and Community

So you may or may not of heard...I broke my ankle.

I fell while I was delivering a newspaper. It was an icy morning and I simply lost my balance. I ended up having surgery later that morning and I now am the proud owner of a steel plate and seven screws in my ankle.

Being injured has a funny effect on your sense of worth. You are simply not able to do very much anymore. Getting a cup of coffee is as daunting as a two mile run was a week prior. A worldview that depends on "earning" your worth is quickly eradicated. Twelve hours a day of elevating your ankle is not conducive to productivity.

In the midst of the struggle though, I experienced the surprising beauty of community. People from my church brought Donan and I dinner for the first week. Cards came in daily. People gave us chocolate, money and an attention seeking stuffed tiger name Leonardo. WSU students came and brought me pop and candy.

I (like many people I know) am way more comfortable serving, than I am being served. I think that is why fundraising has been so difficult for me. How can I ask people to support a ministry in which others are being served? How is going to benefit the donor? Shouldn't I be doing something for the donor?

Being injured has reminded me that love and support doesn't work that way. Sometimes people are generous. Sometimes I need help. Sometimes I cannot support myself.

So thank you to those of you who support us. We are blessed in many ways...even when our bones are broken!

Job Provision

So, Donan and I are now gainfully employed in addition to our now (slightly limited) hours with InterVarsity.

I have taken a paper route. It is about 15 hours a week and in early in the morning. Thank God was the flexibility of my IV hours that allow me to get some sleep AFTER my route is done!

Donan accepted a job as a classroom aide for the local Head Start program. Donan works about 16 hours a week as well and this job allows her to get some valuable insight into childhood development, a passion that has been growing in her for years.

Please thank Jesus with me for this provision. Hopefully it will be possible for both of us to work full time with IV in the future, but for now this will allow us to still serve on campus 20-30 hours a week and serve Jesus at WSU.

Thank You!

Sorry it has been so long since I have written. The holidays meant some crazy travel for Donan and I.

I am on my way to campus soon, so I will keep this short...

In December, Donan and I received over $5500 in our staff account. To provide context, this is the largest month of support that we have received in 7 years of staff work (excluding an annual gift from a local church).

I am in awe of the support of God and the support of our friends and families.

For Donan and I to both serve Jesus and the students at WSU, this needs to become an average month, which still feels a little daunting. However, I am so much more full of hope than I was a month ago.

Thank you again for your radical partnership.

Jeremiah

Responses

Thank you for the positive responses that I have received so far. I am again humbled by the support of my friends and community.

I also want to clarify one detail. If the money does not come in, Donan and I are not planning on leaving the Palouse or closing shop. God is doing good things and we believe in our calling.

Obviously, it is our desire to be on campus full-time and we believe that there is more than enough work to be done on a full-time basis. However it is the calling of God, not a full InterVarsity staff account that motivates us to serve the students at Washington State University.

Calling

It happened almost exactly two years ago. I was at an InterVarsity staff retreat and I was sitting at a table with my Area and Regional Directors. They wanted to talk to me about my future with InterVarsity.

Things were changing. Donan was pursuing a new ministry direction, planting a Greek chapter...somewhere. I was considering leaving staff in order to begin full-time seminary education. I had taken two classes at this point and I had really loved (and thrived) in that educational environment. I had loved my time on staff, but I dreamed of pastoring a church and was excited to learn more about scripture and church history. Donan coming on staff felt like the perfect time for me to transition out and begin my education.

Sitting at the table with my supervisors, I had planned to tell them these plans and begin the transition process at the University of Idaho. Then either my RD or AD (I can't remember) said, "what about going to WSU"?

Uh-oh.

It is difficult to overstate how important WSU is to me. I became a Christian at WSU. I developed friendships that have endured and changed my life at WSU. The decision to go to WSU as a student, is without exaggeration, the most important decision I have ever made. And now I was being invited to go back.

The chapter at WSU was struggling. It had few members, a leaking vision and was graduating its only two leaders. This made the invitation more compelling. I wanted future students to experience what I experienced. I believed that other ministries were good and that their work was for the Kingdom, but I also believed that IV had a unique voice on campus. I believed that something about WSU would be missing without IV present.

I told my leaders I would pray, but I knew my seminary plans were in big trouble.

So I prayed and God gave me the oddest image. I saw IV's northwest region on a map. Then I saw all of the campuses on a foundation. There was a beam that the foundation was built on. The beam extended from the University of Washington to Washington State University. I felt like God was showing me that our Region was supposed to have WSU and UW equally sharing the load and that presently our foundation was weak because WSU was weak.

If you know Cougars, you know that we can have a "kid brother syndrome". We can believe that we are not UW's equals. We can see ourselves as the perpetual underdogs, never quite measuring up. Many students come to Pullman and aim to do little more than survive for four years.

But God saw us and invited us to be a foundational place. Not a party school or a kid brother, but a foundational place.

God combined two of my passions, WSU and IVNW. They were together, they were one. And I was being invited to partner with Him in restoring the foundation.

So I said "yes" to the call. Donan resigned from her job at our church and in August 2009, we stood behind a table and asked people if they were interested in a thing called "InterVarsity" and I specifically asked if they wanted to become "All-Day, Everyday Disciples".

And they said "yes".

They played frisbee, studied scripture and broke bread together.

They came to conferences and dreamed about their friends experiencing this same teaching and this same overwhelming presence of God.

I asked them to become partners and not just observers. And again they said "yes".

They came to Tacoma and learned about "Simplicity, Community, Service and Prayer".

Now (this week) they are fasting technology so they can study Jesus' teaching, love people around them, and spend time in a growing community.

The foundation is being rebuilt.

But in this world, you cannot partner with Jesus on a foundation without push back. The push back against Donan and I has been financial.

We are currently $17,000 short of our budget for the year and are looking for part-time work. $17,000 is a little over $1400 per month that we are short. Every month that shortfall effects our salary, health benefits and our time that we have to spend with students.

Seeking financial partners has been a struggle all year. It seems for every partner who joins, another departs.

We have questioned our calling often. Shouldn't it be easier if we are indeed called? Even that vision that I spoke of earlier...was that simply my imagination? I have struggled to stay hopeful; depression and discouragement seems to lurk around every corner.

I have asked if it is now time for me to leave staff. Time and time again, those who pray for the ministry have said "no". I have sought their wisdom and asked them to talk to God on our behalf. They have come back and said "do not be afraid", "stick to your calling" and ultimately "He knows what you need".

I believe that Donan and I are called to be here. God simply will not let us off of the hook (I have often tried to wiggle free!). I also know that "being here" is being resourced.

We just returned from the same staff retreat that God used to call us to WSU. We studied Nehemiah and his noble call to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. He asked the king of Persia to allow him to rebuild this wall and protect the temple (Neh 2:5). The king said "yes". Then asked for the "cedars of Lebanon" to be able to build the wall (Neh. 2:8). Again, the king granted him what he needed.

I am now asking my King Jesus for the cedars of Lebanon and I am asking his people to help. Donan and I cannot work on the wall without the resources.

Please join us in prayer. We need our God to provide.

Please consider beginning to donate or pledging to donate more. We need God's people to send his missionaries.

Please consider connecting us to others who can help. I will travel to speak to churches and elders. I will travel meet with business people, small groups, cousins...anyone who could believe that campuses can be transformed and that WSU can become a foundation of faith in the northwest.

If you have the time, please look at Nehemiah 3. It is a list of those who worked with Nehemiah on rebuilding the wall. The shear amount of names is staggering. Resourcing ministries is like that. 60 people currently help finance this ministry. I am constantly humbled by these people. They are missionaries, parents, singles, students and churches. They don't have a lot. But they believe in this vision with Donan and I. When I read those names, I often wonder why God called me here and if I am honoring that call and those gifts. It drives me into God's grace and His mission.

I believe that WSU can be a foundational place. God is doing something in these students that is amazing to behold. They are worth supporting a resourcing. I want to see them go to China in summer 2012 and see what God is doing in a closed land. I want them to walk into churches with the experience of being part of something that grew from dough to real bread (Matthew 13:33). I want to see other Cougars on staff with IV. I want to see business people, engineers and journalists that believe in the Kingdom of God and are seeking it with everything they have.

I am going to keep this blog open. I need a place to remember the vision and to remember my calling. I want to share with you me and Donan's process. I want to share with you the successes and the discouragements.

Thank you for considering partnership. Partners help Donan and I hold on and believe that God's words are of greater importance that what we presently see.

If you want to give: www.intervarsity.org/donate. Please designate your gift to "Jeremiah and Donan Nealon".

If you want to contact me: Jeremiah_Nealon@ivstaff.org or call me: 208.301.2069

If you want to meet with Donan and/or I: we will be in the Seattle area over Christmas break. We will travel as well.

Please share this blog with anyone who would be curious. I am intentionally not using names of individuals because I want it to be a safe place for anyone to read. Thank you again for your support and love.