Ohio Adventist Christian Fellowship: Just the beginning... :)

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.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Just the beginning... :)

<------ Our new Faculty Sponsor, Paul Kole!
I'm still getting used to the swing of things in this awesome job! I've been trying to set goals for myself and what I hope to achieve and my first goal was to achieve the requirements to start a group. One of the requirements was to find a faculty sponsor, which I have been incredibly blessed to find, Paul Koles who works for the Pathology Dept at Wright State!! I'm very excited! I also found out that there used to be an Adventist Organization a couple years ago, but he said it didn't really go anywhere. I'm working on getting people together to have our first jump off meeting/social next week or so. We can't become an official club till January, because of the club deadline, but we can already start advertising and getting our name out there. I thought we could try to put a video together and start a table and some fliers up around the school, so those are my next projects.The students that I have found are super enthused and I'm even more blessed to have their support and enthusiasm about this ministry. :)

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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.