“We’ll be there, and you’ll be with us”
Globalscope ministry welcomes students back to campus
The fall season is a critical time in lives of young people who are leaving home for their first experiences on a university campus, as well as for the students who are returning as upper classmen.
Globalscope campus minister Tony Cole shares his thoughts here on this new beginning as he and the rest of the team that serves with Unterwegs in Tübingen, Germany, prepare to “be there” for young people who are looking for a new community.
A town divided, we move into fall. The days are cooler, shorter. Gray skies keep us company more often than not, encouraging people to trade any color in their wardrobe for black and gray coats. And yet, there is a stirring in our midst.
Students are pouring very quickly back into our town, bringing their life and energy. Another class of 4,000 freshmen has moved in, along with 23,000 other students who have learned to make this town their home. A new semester means a new start, and a new chance to figure out what this life has in store. Who will they meet? Will they find friends here? Will they find a place to belong?
Unterwegs’ storefront campus house is on the main route to the university.
We’ll be there. We’ll be there with a smile and a chocolate chip cookie, waiting on campus to say, “Welcome to Uni! There’s a lot in store for you here.” It may not be much, but a fresh-baked cookie is the kind of everyday grace that we believe in at Unterwegs. It’s a gift and it’s an invitation: “You are worth it. You deserve good things. You can trust that.”
We’ll be there. We’ll be there at our little storefront campus house with a cup of coffee and a comfy chair. Our location has us smack-dab in the middle of the route from the main university to the town center. We will open our doors and laugh and sing and eat and dance with these dear ones. We will pretend to do our homework and pretend to be the best DJs on earth. We won’t pretend to love each other; there’s more than enough love here to go around.
The Unterwegs community.
We’ll be there, wherever there is. We’ll be in the cafés, having one-on-one meetings, sharing life and exploring where God is taking all of us together. We’ll be in the pubs, hosting Café English and meeting a new group of eager language learners who could very well be our next small group leaders. We’ll be at Donnerstagabend, cooking and eating, playing music and exploring what it means to “Come Home.” We’ll be in the churches and on the streets, in the apartments, and on park benches.
We’ll be there, and you’ll be with us. Your continued partnership enables us to be the faces that smile and that hands that welcome. Thank you for all you give and all you do to love these students. The impact we are making together will resound in ways we can’t even imagine. We give thanks, for it is a privilege to be a part of what God is doing in Germany, and we put our hands to the plow, because there is much work to be done. Would you join us in praying for these things?
- Ask God to bring us some great encounters with new students, as we are putting ourselves out in their world. We trust that it is He who builds community, and we are eager to join in this work.
- We are eager for God to bring us some great encounters with old students, so we can reconnect with the students we already know who may be on the fringe of our community. There is so much good in store, and we want to share it with them.
- Pray that God would give me and my team courage and wisdom as we go about the work of executing our plans and ideas to bring these students in contact with God and as we lead our community in living out Love in Tübingen.
- We need the Spirit to strengthenus and protect us as we go into this semester. We face no little amount of resistance in what we do, and we need help if we are to endure.
God is faithful, and we will strive to imitate Him. Good things are coming, friends.
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