Ohio Adventist Christian Fellowship: Entertaining strangers

About Ohio Adventist Christian Fellowship

Here’s a surprising fact: Did you know that 65% of Seventh-day Adventist young people attend secular colleges or universities? Studying at a secular college or university presents challenges to a student’s faith. Being at college may be his or her first time making decisions of their own, without mom and dad there to guide them. University studies are stressful, and social pressures are strong. The Ohio Conference has long hoped to minister to students—Seventh-day Adventists and others—on secular campuses. In September, we started a pilot program to place chaplains at three of our state’s universities: Ohio University in Athens, The Ohio State University in Columbus, and Wright State University in Dayton. Here are some of their experiences.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Entertaining strangers

God is laughing tonight. He pulled off a great joke. For a few weeks now I have been receiving texts from an unknown number inviting us to Wednesday evening meals. We were unable to attend the first one because of a schedule conflict but when we received an invitation on this Tuesday for a pizza party we had nothing else planned and decided to go. We were quite embarrassed that we weren't sure who was inviting us and didn't recognize the number but since we meet so many people every week at various churches we were sure they knew who we were. I responded that we would come and asked for an address. When we arrived we were surprised at how few cars there were. We were expecting a party. The woman who answered the door looked quite surprised to see us as well. I told her we had been invited to a pizza party so she invited us in but seemed to know nothing about campus ministries. Then she started to put things together. Her brother had recently changed his cell number and she had been texting the old number which is now our number. We were complete strangers, but, since we were there, we might as well have some pizza. We laughed a lot about the mix-up and had a great time meeting the family, all young first time parents. Good one God!

2 comments:

GingerDecember 2, 2010 at 7:13 AM
Heh-heh! That's a great story!
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Cristine Orillosa-ThurberDecember 3, 2010 at 5:34 AM
This made me smile. I love God's humor :)
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Our Campus Ministries team

Columbus, Ohio is the home of Ohio’s largest university, and one of the largest campuses in the United States. There are 55,000 students on the campus of The Ohio State University. Gina and David Helbley were serving as missionaries in Kazakhstan, when they felt a calling to do campus ministry. David is an engineer, and Gina is a graduate from the ministerial program at Walla Walla College. Now in Columbus, they’ve made their home a center for campus outreach.

Wright State University is located in Dayton, Ohio. Many Seventh-day Adventist students are in the 20,000 student body. We’ve invited Sabrina Araiza, a young adult psychology graduate from Arizona, to become our campus chaplain at Wright State. Sabrina will be working with a team from the Kettering church, under the mentorship of Kettering young adult pastor Elliot Smith.

The state’s oldest university is located in Athens, Ohio, in the foothills of Appalachia. Although Athens is a small city, 20,000 students attend Ohio University. The church in Athens has a vision to reach out to the university community. They’re being assisted by Darrin and Cristine Thurber. The Thurbers come to Ohio from California. Darrin is a ministerial student, and Cristine (known to her friends as Beamy) is a social worker. With the help of other Seventh-day Adventist students and faculty, they’ve started a strong outreach program to students.