Big Break is over

Well, Big Break ended on Friday and we left Florida Saturday morning, arriving about 3am Sunday. I had a busy day Sunday unpacking and working on EveryStudent stuff. Then today I started classes again (bummer) and am currently at work. A lot of things happened during the trip and there's no way I'll have the time to type up even a fraction of them now, but I think I'll give you a little taste of what happened.

There were roughly 1350 students from across the country at the conference, with 130 of those being from Purdue (we were the largest school represented by a wide margin). The weather was not in our favor during the week, starting out at about 75 degrees and sunny the first couple of days and then going downhill into a couple of days of rain and falling temps. It eventually got to the point that I was walking along the beach in a swimsuit and a hoodie (strange combo, I must admit). The last day the sun came back out, but it didn't top 65 so it was still a little cool. The reason that the poor weather was a tragedy is that there weren't many people on the beach to talk to, so we hit the saturation point very quickly (defined as when nearly everyone on the beach had been approached by Crusaders at least once). This made it frustrating because most of us didn't get to have more than a few good conversations with people the whole week.

All in all, there were about 2700 conversations initiated during the week (including those people who had been approached 5 or 6 times), with a little over 200 people accepting Christ! I wasn't one of the people who got to witness one of those moments, but my friends Natalie and Rebecca did. I never even got to share the whole 4 Spiritual Laws booklet with anyone (got close to the end with one guy, but never even got to open it with anyone else). That's especially sad because there was one conversation I had with a guy named Raul who was so ready for the gospel and interested, but his friends showed up right when I was about to start it with him and, despite the best efforts of my wingman Dustin, dragged him off. I was able to give him the booklet and my email, but now all we can do is pray that he looks at it. The only other encouraging conversation Dustin and I had was with a guy named Bert and his girlfriend Michelle, both were out of college and interested in talking, but when it came time to start with the gospel they said that when we had approached them they were just about to go eat so they didn't want to go through it with us. I gave them the booklets and my email and we walked off. When we got to about 50 feet away, I turned around and saw them both reading it! So please be praying for Raul, Bert, and Michelle as I think they are the most promising contacts we had.

Probably the single most encouraging part of the trip for me occurred late at night hanging out with my roommates. One of them, Big Nick, is a relatively young believer, but he is not afraid to ask questions. One night I was sitting in the living room of our condo with him and Garet until 2:30 am talking about all sorts of things, from relationships to scripture to cults, and the whole time he was asking good, thoughtful questions. He would precede every question by saying "I have a question," but it was only after a couple of hours that he kicked himself for saying it and Garet and I even noticed. The single coolest thing about it wasn't even his questions (even though they sparked some really awesome conversations), it was his attitude as he asked; open, honest, not antagonistic in any way, heartfelt, and thoughtful. One could tell that he was really thinking about what we were saying and applying it to his perspective on his own life experiences.

Because of how much cool stuff happened on the trip, I'll have to stop there for tonight. There's just no way I'll be able to cover even a fraction of it in this blog, so you'll just have to ask me in person sometime. However I think I'll add a set of quotes from the week that reflect some of the less serious things that occurred (if you have stories/quotes to share from the week, or want to ask a question about the story behind any of the quotes, this is your cue to post a comment):
-"Mel Gibson's a stud, I hate needles and blood!" --Shelby crooning to a Maroon 5 tune
-PopTart loves NAVY guys
-Big Nick has a question
-"We 'Big-Sixed' em"
-Alena is the pancake queen
-Ronny is still my loyal sidekick (and some girls at O'Charlie's Saturday night thought he was still in high school)
-The Big Break office thought I was Staff
-Rebecca is learning my evil ways much faster than I thought
-Albert's a Nancy (he also loves running over midgets)
-Pseudo-frat parties are fun (it's hard not to have a good time with Kool-Aid Pong, crazy dancing, bongin' root beer, and noise violations)
-Are you diggin my chili?