Matt Strautmann - Stinter - I Believe That God Created us for Relationships

I can't claim to feel this all the time, but I love our STINT job.  Our job is to build spiritual movements among college students in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. These spiritual movements are not buildings or meetings, they are created by individual people that God has allowed us to live life with and together learn more about Him. Our team believes God has placed us here in Cote d'Ivoire this year to communicate positively with the community. Since we believe God created us for relationships, we are spending our days "available to, and involved with, the local people, learning from them and highly esteeming what the people know" (Language Learning is…Ministry, E. Brewster). We are learning and serving and sharing among the students.  

I want to give an example of how we have seen this work in our relationships with students. One of the students we are working with lives across town. He lives with his parents as the university dorms are not open. He invited us into his house for fellowship and a meal. We were able to spend the morning and afternoon with him--sharing stories, encouraging him, and challenging him. He shared with us his dream that the various churches in the city would work in harmony to reach this city and many would be sent out to other nations to share the gospel. He also revealed to us that he struggled to be intentional with his friends in sharing the gospel and living set-apart. This situation was made more difficult because he felt like he couldn't associate with many Christians because he was struggling in an area and had not experienced any grace in communicating with them. Through this interaction, we were able to encourage him to draw closer to God--showing him the grace God constantly extends to him and the truth of how the Bible instructs followers of Christ to live.

This represents our dream for the next couple months. We are praying that God would give us daily opportunities to be with students and pour into their lives. We are praying for a community of believers who boldly use each conversation to point to the gospel as it applies to their lives and those around them. We are praying that our STINT presence and activities are good news to these believers.