A Jesus Outbreak

Hello everyone!

I've never experienced a month quite like this one. Across the country, folks are worried about virus outbreaks on college campuses, but across Iowa, we've been experiencing an outbreak of a different sort- Jesus on the move! Here's the story...

After a first few weeks of class filled with meeting new students and caring for the whole campus, the movement got started in earnest at Drake University on September 5th...

That night, I had a text conversation with our staff, Amy Schoepf that went as follows:

Amy- "A student just became a Christian!! She agreed to share at IV on Wednesday"
Me- Wow!! That's awesome! What's her name?
Amy- Callie. Sweet story--she was really close in the spring but didn't fully commit. She and Audrey and I hung out last night-I brought it up and Audrey led her.
Amy- New Christian (Audrey stared following Jesus last spring) leads new student to Jesus :)
Me- So great-I'll look forward to hearing the full story!
Amy- Yep and she has three girls that come to IV with her who are all nominal Christians--so keep praying!!

Obviously, a great way to start the year, but this was only the start. On 9.9.09, (the same night Callie was sharing at Drake) at Central College, the story I've already shared below went down. I was speaking on the Prodigal Son out of Luke 15, and invited students to make a decision to follow Jesus. To my utter shock 30 students stood to signify their desire to follow Jesus. (Check out the "Unbelievable" post below for the whole story, it's worth a read!) The fruit of these decisions has continued to play out over the last two weeks in new Bible studies being started and additional outreach happening on campus (more on this below).

The next stage in the journey happened on 9.14 at the University of Northern Iowa. After hearing about what had happened at Central, our staff at UNI, Rachel Danley, invited me to make another call to faith at their Large Group, which I was happy to do. When I did so, another student (Evan) stood to mark his desire to give his life over to Jesus! (More on Evan Below!)

That weekend, on 9.18-20, my area staff team hosted FC09: Family Vacation (our annual fall student conference) for 130 students from around the state. I spoke on the final morning, again to give an invitation to faith, but as I was praying about it, I felt like I was supposed to ask Evan from UNI to give the talk with me (he had, after all been following Jesus for 5 days at that point!) So, I approached him to see if he'd be willing to share his story, and though he was a bit shell-shocked at first, he agreed. Sunday morning, Evan did a fantastic job of telling about what Jesus had done in his life, and I again made an invitation for students to give their lives to Jesus for the first time, and another 20 students stood to mark their decision from almost every school represented! Five of these students were from UNI and were inspired by Evan's testimony of receiving Jesus' forgiveness, and several were friends of Callie's, the student from Drake I wrote about above!

Then, on the following Tuesday, 9.22, I got two emails from one of our student leaders at Central, Aaron Jones. The first was a message that he had received over the weekend, it read like this:

Hi, I was in your small group for Vintage community last Wednesday night. I don't know if you can help me but I don't know who to ask about faith. I am new to being a Christian and new to the bible, and have grown up in a home with atheists. I have had a rough past and am ashamed of it, and am looking to find some guidance for my future. I have been told that I can never be forgiven by God for what I have done in the past and
I am scared because if that is true I am afraid what my life has in store for me.
Can something from my past be so bad that God can never love me?

Aaron asked Jessica if she'd be willing to meet to talk more, and she agreed. Later that night, we got word from Aaron again...

Jessica and I just got done talking, and she prayed tonight to accept Jesus as her savior!!
She asked a lot of good questions about forgiveness, prayer and church. I made sure that she knew that she just wasn't accepting my beliefs, but was beginning a relationship with a living God. She prayed for forgiveness and to receive the Holy Spirit and said that she felt amazing! I went with her back to Graham (girls' dorm on campus) as she shared with some girls what she just experienced, then I left as she went to a
prayer meeting that another girl in Graham had already set up.

So, in the space of a few short weeks (22 days to be exact), we've seen 24 STUDENTS START TO FOLLOW JESUS FOR THE FIRST TIME, and another 21 RECOMMIT THEIR LIVES TO JESUS! I wish I had the space to tell you the stories of these 45 students, because Jesus is meeting them in incredible ways as they take steps of faith in following him (students experiencing physical healing, being challenged by parents angry at their desire to follow Jesus, and door after door opening for Jesus' gospel) They are following Jesus immediately into ministry and outreach to their friends, and we are TRULY WATCHING A JESUS OUTBREAK SWEEP THROUGH THESE CAMPUSES!

And, I believe that God isn't done yet. This Wednesday, 9.30, I'll be speaking again at Drake University, and I'll again be inviting students to follow Jesus for the first time (and join the other 5 Drake students who have already made that decision this year!) so I covet your prayers, and can't wait to tell you the next chapter in this crazy story God is writing.

Thank you for your support of this ministry, it's one of the deepest privileges of my life to watch God move in these ways on campuses across the state, and it's your prayers and support that make it possible.

Trying to keep up with a God who is most certainly on the move!

Jon

Bibles for New Believers

As you'll read below, it's been an incredible week of ministry, so I've got a special request...

I've purchased Bibles for each of the 30 folks who stood up to mark their decision to follow Jesus for the first time or rededicate their lives to Jesus to get them started on the right foot.

I was able to negotiate a discounted rate for some study bibles (with explanatory notes), which means I was able to get them for $40 a piece, but with 30 folks, that still works out to $1,200!

So, I'm putting out a call to anyone who'd be willing to spring $40 to give a Bible to a student who just started following Jesus. If you are interested, please contact me at jon.hietbrink@gmail.com or 641.780.6670.

Thanks!
Jon

Unbelievable!

Greetings friends,

I've got an unbelievable story to share, I hope you are blessed by it! (Sorry for the length, I think it’ll be worth your time to read it...)

I was set to speak on Wednesday night (9.9) at Central’s LG and was planning on giving a call to faith out of the prodigal son, but the story really gets kicking early that morning...

I awoke at 4:30a sweating like a pig and with our bedroom spinning all around me. The only thing that made the spinning stop was when I laid on my right side (even on my back, it was out of control). I was able to get back to sleep until about 6:30a, when my daughter woke up. I tried to walk to the kitchen to get her some milk, but was on the floor by the time I got back to her room. I woke my wife up, and tried to get back into bed, but was so nauseuous that I detoured to the toilet. I eventually got back to bed and slept till about 7:45 when I started texting people to pray. At that point, I still couldn’t do anything but lay on my right side, and even then, my head was spinning a bit.

So, things were not good. I couldn’t even sit up, let alone be able to give a talk. My wife spent some time praying for me (along with those I had texted) and very quickly, I started to feel some relief. I was able to sit up in bed within a few minutes and walked out to the living room. Gradually, I regained equilibrium to the point where I took a shower and went for a walk around the block at about 11am. I continued to improve through the afternoon to the point where I felt pretty much normal (although very tired) by about 3pm.

So, I went into the night thinking that God might have some big plans given the morning, but I never would have expected what happened...

The night got off to a great start, and I felt good about how my talk was going as I headed toward the call. I had planned on inviting people to stand who identified with the younger son (irreligious, shady past, etc.) and the older son (cultural “christians”, pseudo-religious, etc.), and then I had about 15 student leaders/staff ready to follow-up immediately with whoever stood, thinking that maybe 5 or 10 folks might stand (not exactly “more than you could ask or imagine”, huh?!)

To my shock, when I made the call, about 30 people stood up, and instantly, I assumed I just hadn’t made it clear that it was a call for people to “follow Jesus for the first time”...I was later proved wrong! I asked everyone to come up to the front so I could pray for them (while the follow-up folks surrounded them), and then I invited them to break off into pairs/threes to talk about what God was doing and what decisions they had made. Here’s a sampling of the reports from the student leaders...

Rick
Sort of knows a little about Church but stopped going in high school and has lived with no regard for Jesus since. Wants to follow Jesus but is scared that he wont be able to overcome temptations and not fall away.

Karen
She said that she has never really been religious and doesn't know a whole lot about Christianity/following Jesus, but she has been coming to the Calm and Nine and keeps just feeling like its right and keeps getting chills all the time when she's there :)

Amelia
She also has never been religious and did mention that she feels like she understands the younger son because she has done things in her past she isn’t proud of. She did however talk about her love for doing service work and helping people, and we talked about how she can continue to do those things and share Jesus' love with people through it.

Mia
This was something she was wanting for a while. She's been looking to talk to someone about this for a while and it was for her tonight. Her legs were shaking the whole night pretty much, and she stood up and they stopped. I feel like I really didn't say much but God was already doing stuff. She grew up Catholic and has struggled a lot with earning salvation and has come to the realization while here (she transferred) that coming to events and doing church doesn't result in satisfaction/salvation. I talked with her how it is by grace we are saved- she's said the prayer before, so we did not do it again- and that it is a gift we can't earn. She seemed pretty excited about it all. She went for a walk afterwards to just "think."

There’s more where those came from, but at the end of the day, I think about 14 folks gave their lives to Jesus for the first time and another 10 recommitted their lives to Jesus; 2 more folks said they wanted to explore more in GIGs!

It was unbelievable. I was driving to Iowa City this morning and crying like a baby thinking about how good our God is that he steps into students’ lives like this, and that he gives us the chance to be a part of it.

Thank you to all of you who prayed for the night (and for my dizziness). God answered in a resounding way.

Beyond grateful,
Jon

9.9.09 @ 9pm

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a good Labor Day weekend. Two stories (couldn't help but share the second, it just came in!) and a prayer request for you today...

The story comes from Sarah Plowman at William Penn University--

"Jen is one of our leaders. She was hanging out with one of her suitemates, Abby, and one of Abby's friends, Nate. When the subject turned to spiritual things, Nate told Jen, "forgive me if I laugh," saying he didn't believe in God. Somehow in the conversation, Jen got Nate to open up more to her as they shared about different family stuff. At one point Jen invited Nate to do a Bible Study with her, saying, "why don't you just do a Bible study with me and let Jesus define himself?" Nate's response? "Ok." Last night during our leadership meeting, Jen got a text from Nate asking, "hey, when are we going to do Bible study?" Cool! Pray for Jess as she prepares to do a GiG with Nate, and for Abby as well and the conversations she and Jen have. "


Here's one from Amy Schoepf, our staff at Drake University--

"So Callie had been a little bit involved in InterVarsity last Spring--and stayed in touch with some students over the summer. She had connected quite a bit with Annika--who became a Christian last year. Long story short, Callie, Annika, and some other IV girls were over at my house Friday night. We were just hanging out and talking and I don't know what got into me--I just looked at Callie and blurted out "When are you going to commit your life to Jesus?" She began to cry (woops!) and share about the things that were holding her back. Annika jumped in and started sharing her testimony and telling Callie she just needed to "go for it." Callie agreed and then Annika and I led her in prayer to commit her life to Jesus. I could literally see Callie's body react to giving her life to Jesus...her physical posture was relief. It was awesome. Then we prayed for her to be "sent" to her friends. Callie has 3 friends who come to IV stuff with her and they are all culture Christians--probably very little if any relationship with Jesus. She was so excited and I asked her to share her testimony this Wednesday night at our weekly service! :) Pray for her.

I drove Annika home later and she was SO EXCITED! She said..."So Amy, that was my first?!! That's the first person I got to see get saved!" And then explained that she "wanted to do it again!" Haha....ooooh I love it."

The prayer request is for me--

Tomorrow night at 9pm, I'm going to be speaking at our gathering on campus at Central (called NINE) out of Luke 15, "The Prodigal Son". At the end of my talk, I'm going to invite students to make a decision to follow Jesus for the first time, so I'd love for your prayers on a few points:

1. Pray that God would draw the "right people" to come
2. Pray that God would give me the "right words" to speak
3. Pray that tomorrow night would be the "right time" for students to make a decision

Thanks Everyone!
Jon