Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Norway

Every month we meet with someone in the leadership of Cru for a meal. We share lunch or dinner, usually in their home, and they share stories of their time with Cru and what they are doing now. In October we went to the home of Ken and Ann Cochrum. Ken is the Vice President of Global Student-Led Movements, which basically means he is working to grow the student ministry around the world. His team has found around 60 countries where there is not a student-led movement. Of those 60, they have picked out 6 countries to focus on for the next 8 years. One of the countries is Norway.

As soon as he said that, a bell went off in my mind.

Norway? That's one of the countries represented at Epcot. I visit that pavilion every week. There are Norwegian interns that I have the opportunity to interact with every Friday.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Cru was trying to reach the college students of Norway. There were college students from Norway working at Disney. This was perfect! 

The Disney ministry team recognized the awesome opportunity they had to reach entire nations through these interns. Some of the interns would return to very influential positions at the end of their year. If we could reach them while they were in America, where you are free to talk about spiritual things, then we could possibly send them home to influence their countries for God.

I had felt the Lord's pressing on my heart to focus on the interns from Norway and France, countries with traditionally hard soil for missionaries. At Epcot I had the opportunity to build relationships in a more spiritually-friendly environment. After hearing Ken and Ann talk that night, I knew God was confirming that calling in my heart.

The only problem was I hadn't made any friends in Norway. The Norwegian interns were really hard to talk to and I hadn't had any successful conversations with them. Until a few weeks later.

At the Thanksgiving Feast, I was helping pick up interns from Disney. When I got to pick-up area, there were 3 Norwegians girls waiting for a ride. God was so good! We hopped in the car and headed to the church for the feast. We talked and got to know each other a little. I sat with them during dinner and we traced some Thanksgiving turkeys shaped like our hands. It was fun. The conversation was easy. I knew God put Linn, Elise and Emilie in my path that night.

I got their numbers and found them on Facebook. We've been talking about hanging out sometime soon. A couple weeks ago, I went to see a movie with Linn and one of my friends, Erica. We had fun, but we didn't have a lot of time to interact. After the movie, Linn actually suggested that next time we could go out to eat or do something where we could talk. I can't even tell you how excited I am!

Please pray for Linn, Elise and Emilie that their time at Epcot would be fun, that their hearts would be open to spiritual conversations, and that we would be able to work out time this year to hang out. Pray also for me that I would have the courage to bring God into our conversations and that God would give me the words.

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