July Prayer Requests

Praises: Just check out all of the stories from our newsletter!!!

• Additionally, even though we ended the year in a deficit, God provided. Our generous team provided the extra we needed to end the year without debt!

Prayer Requests:

• Our current faculty advisor (necessary to be registered as a club on campus) is pregnant with twins and will not be on staff at UVU for a while. Please pray we find a new advisor before the fall semester. We currently have a few leads but we aren't sure yet if they will work out.
• Justin and Samantha will be participating in both a regional conference and area meeting July 29th-August 4th. Please pray this time is encouraging for them, that the training would be just what they need, and that God would give them a vision for the fall semester at UVU and DSU.
• We lost several financial supporters over the summer but because of Mexico, have had little time to fundraise. Please pray that God would make up for these losses and provide new people to participate in the work we are doing in Utah.
• During the next month, we will be doing most of the planning for the fall semester (leadership retreat, fall conference, new student outreach).  Please be praying that we would have ears to hear what God is saying, that we would be obedient to His guiding, and that God would bless our decisions. 
• We hope to meet with many of our prayer and financial partners in the next month. Pray that our schedules would work out for us to meet with many of you! And pray that in these times we would be able to share the stories of what God has done to His glory. 

Susan and Jane's Story (names changed for privacy)

On the project, we met two Mexican sisters, Jane and Susan. Their family is Catholic but not practicing. They were in Stella and Abby's small group. During the last week, God told Stella to buy each of them a Bible. She gave them these Bibles on the last day of class. The next day, Jane gave Stella a note that said her family only owned one giant Bible that they never read. Because Jane said her faith until now had depended on her parents, she had never read the Bible for herself. She was glad to have a personal Bible and to begin to explore faith for herself. By the time we left Mexico, Jane had already started reading her Bible. :

Laura's Story (name changed for privacy)

We met a student named Laura (name changed for privacy) who was in Rilla and Katie's small group. She is so sweet and by the third week had opened up to us about some significant hardships in her life. During the last week, Katie and Rilla wanted to share the Gospel with her, but so far she hadn't seemed interested in spiritual things. They had no idea how to start the conversation, so they prayed. One day after class, Laura, Katie and Rilla were hanging out and were going to go downtown. On the way, they saw a museum and decided to stop in. At that time, the museum happened to be exhibiting a piece that was a cross with mud smeared on it. As they talked about the meaning of the piece, the girls were able to share that the mud is like our sins and about the beauty of what Christ has done for us. Although Laura did not make the choice to follow Jesus during our time in Mexico, we are incredibly hopeful that God used His Gospel to start something new in her. 

Sandy's Story

Sandy with our supervisor, Brad Bertelsen.

During the project we met a student named Sandy. At the time, she was wandering from her faith as a Christian (& not sure she wanted to be a Christian anymore). After interacting with us for 3 weeks during the project, she has recommitted to following Jesus because of seeing our love for Him, has decided to be involved with COMPA, and has committed to going to COMPA's regional leadership training!!! She even sold pies to fundraise all of the money for the training conference and is fully funded to attend. This is a huge praise and we are so thankful.  After the 3 week English course ended, she posted this to her Facebook Page (apologies for the grammar, it was originally in Spanish):

 God, I thank you for what immensely good you are with me, in the last few months I've filled with blessings and beautiful changes in my life, given me so much longed for in the best way, you have brought peace and love to my heart, Friendships, experiences, opportunities to get closer to you and fill me with what I'm gonna bring blessing and allow me to follow my path according to your rules, I appreciate that you put such good people in my path when I needed it the most and now you I am grateful for this adventure that tomorrow I'm going to embark on. There is no doubt that for the children of the Lord are willing the best things of the world.

I feel so happy and blessed for what I expected, so I do understand, and I thank you for those people who hurt me, because thanks to them I'm discovering how immensely strong that I am and what I can to be better every day, If I'm going to be alone it will be because you're preparing me for something better, and so i accept it, but I also don't forget the people who are always there and I thank you for them, I am grateful for the picture that you offer me also for my profession because of you There is no doubt that I will be more humane and I will give the best of me to make a better world. Thank you for all my family, even those who are not here.

Finally, I would like to ask you to touch the heart of the people who are far away from you, for you to find and change their way of seeing the world and to act on it. They don't keep any grudges. I would also like to ask you not to let go of my loved ones, to my family and me.

I love you,

Amen.

Currently, Sandy is at COMPA's regional leadership camp with other students and staff from COMPA.