FREE with BUECU - day 1

It started too early...









(Of course the morning greeted us with snow. It always snows in BUECU mission week.)














...as at 7.45am I met members of 'my' CU hall group (for whom I'm a CU Guest for the week) to walk to the 8am prayer meeting on campus. At 9 we broke up for lectures and setting up the marquee - this year it's weatherproof, so hopefully unlike last time, shouldn't collapse under the weight of snow. Shouldn't.





50-60 people listened well to each lunchbar, as Paul spoke on Free your mind: Who do you say Jesus is? [Talk available soon on buecu.org/free.]







We did compete slightly with the noise of full-scale snow-ball wars waging outside, as quite a few lectures were cancelled for the snow, but unlike the lecturers, students had all made it to campus anyway.


(What is it about England cancelling everything for snow? Seriously, if we'd done that in Nor'n Iron the whole province would've halted for a quarter of the year.)





With the marquee remaining open, café-style, until 4pm, I chatted with a few interested students about the gospel, and gave away some literature. As one of the CU lads and I chatted with a guy for quite a while, we learned much of interest about socio-political ideas of economics, and shared a fair bit about the roots of sin in our hearts and how changing structures or being anarchic capitalists won't ultimately solve our problems, but Jesus cleans whitewashed tombs from the inside. I decided the time had come to draw the conversation to a close, however, when this guy declared that he could tell that we really believed what we were saying - he could see as we communicated in our eyes that this wasn't some door-to-door sales patter. "It's quite sexy, actually," he directed at me. As I said, there are moments when you move from wondering whether it's profitable to continue a conversation, to knowing that it's high time to move on.



Then, as my hall group members were assortedly departed to London, snowed-in in Nottingham, in a Chinese discussion evening, or in band rehearsal (interesting bunch!), and as I'd lost all sensation in my right foot toes and the ability to move them, I decided to drive home for a couple of hours to warm up. This was possibly foolish, as
a) I discovered it is not very safe to drive when your brake/accelerator foot is devoid of sensation so can't register how much you're pressing either pedal, and
b) I probably won't be able to drive back out tonight to a film night, as it was tricky enough getting the car home safely this afternoon, and it's still snowing.



Tonight hall groups are putting on various events including dialogue dinners, film evenings with discussion / a talk, and a quiz night with talk. It's a good night therefore for people to feel snowed in - they won't have to leave where their accommodation is. (Whether I'll make it to one of them is another question, as when I'm still fighting an infection of a fortnight's duration, and it's possibly not safe to drive again this evening.)



Pray for continued making-people-think in these events, and that as the week goes on, students would increasingly see Jesus as who He is - Christ and Lord.