Story of the Week 

God Moves Mysteriously 

Greetings!    

God is moving in huge, unexpected ways in the northeast suburbs of Chicago.  At the beginning of November, Kolby, the APU chapter director received a text from Jordan, a senior at Elgin High School who was wondering "Are you helping us out this year?"

In the past two years CSP mentors led HomeTown Trips to Chicago, mentoring four or five high schools in a week of outreach. This year Kolby had decided not to lead a trip, but did make himself available if any of the high school students wanted to contact him.

"The Launch" event ended with a powerful group prayer.

Jordan took the initiative. He had already lined up 8 schools who were on board to do a week of outreach if they could get training from CSP.

A club called Uprising connects all the Christian clubs of the high schools in Chicago. Kolby said that normally Christian clubs don't communicate to each other, but Jordan got a huge response when he told everyone connected to Uprising about CSP.

"We weren't even expecting this at all. It's like, wow God is really moving in hearts of young people!" Kolby said.

Kolby was not planning on going home, but it "turns out some donors were willing to fly me out for the weekend to train all the clubs on how to do outreach." Over the weekend, Kolby and Collin, the APU chapter president, were able to hold a launching event to train 25 students from 12 schools how to do outreach, evangelize, and start initial planning. 

"I was encouraged by the spirit of unity among the high school students. They want to reach the northwest suburbs of Chicago with the gospel; all of the schools were totally behind it and were joined together. It's encouraging that there are Christians who want to reach their area with the gospel," Kolby said.

A few students from Trinity college and Jordan Wind, a local ministry worker are working hard to help get community support. God is orchestrating all the pieces to make His plans happen through faithful high school students who will be putting outreaches on January 7-11.

"The greatest thing I'm learning is that ministry is out of our control. Sometimes we work really hard and we plan a big event and it won't work out or people wont show up. And then, sometimes things like this happen, where God just moves and plans it all and nothing can stop it," Kolby said.

The planning has begun! A few of the themes for outreaches include: "What's my purpose?" "Greatest story ever told," and "Why do bad things happen?"

Kolby and Collin have been facing some challenges over the semester in the APU chapter. The mentors are great, but everything has been moving slowly and it has been difficult to find high school students who are really excited about the gospel. Seeing how God is working in huge ways with almost no effort on his end was a huge reminder to Kolby that God has an ultimate plan.

"It is a great reminder that we're not in control. We are just here to give our best but we have to leave the results up to God."

Pray that administration will be open to allow rallies as most of the schools in Chicago have never done outreaches before.

Pray that the Christian community gets behind these high school students.

Pray that the entire northwest suburbs of Chicago can be reached with gospel.