By: Sadee Whitfield
The Freshman Christmas party was announced as a formal dress party, with attire specified as “prom dress or suit and tie.” The event kicked off with a fine dining experience at none other than McDonald’s on the main street. Right away the night was off to a great start, seeing everybody dressed to the nines walking into McDonald’s made for some great laughs.
After dinner, we headed to the Hager’s where the real fun began. We hung out and mingled for a while just in case anybody was running late, this gave us some good time to meet freshman that we hadn’t yet and build relationships with the ones we already knew. After mingling for a little we instructed them to get into groups of 2-4 with at least one person of the opposite gender in the group. We then told everybody that we were doing Karaoke and they now had 5 minutes to pick a Disney song that they would be performing for the entire room.
This was a super fun time where everybody got to be really silly and also intermingle with other freshmen that they usually don’t hang out with. After karaoke, we went upstairs where the Hagers had tons of great food and some exciting rounds of bingo waiting. The night was full of so many laughs and tons of great conversations with a lot of new faces.
When I got back to my apartment that night one of the girls in my connection group texted me and said “Tonight was so much fun!!! I’m so happy I went and I’m so glad you guys did this, it was great!”
It has been such a blessing to see God work in the fall semester at Cedar Falls Salt Company. He is doing an amazing work sanctifying our student ministry, especially in the way that our student leaders have really run hard after sharing the Gospel. Many have learned a new way (to them) of sharing the Gospel that involves the memorization of eight Bible verses. All of our student leaders have memorized or are in the process of memorizing these verses so that they can let God’s word speak when sharing the Gospel. There are many stories to tell of Cedar Falls Salt Company students being faithful to carry out Jesus’ commands in the Great Commission.
One student leader in our ministry is a track and field athlete for the University of Northern Iowa, and his commitment to sharing the Gospel with his roommate and other “jumpers” on his team has been awesome to see.
Another student leader has influence in a sorority and is laboring to leverage that influence to win her sorority sisters to Christ.
Other student leaders are reaching lost people at a local plasma donation center, in their classrooms, through an on-campus admissions organization that has a diverse representation of UNI’s students in their leadership, and in taking the Gospel home to their families.
Not only is God doing work on UNI’s campus, He’s opening doors for us to reach students at Hawkeye Community College and Wartburg College. One of our staff members met a Hawkeye student and was able to lead the young man to Christ. At the beginning of the Spring semester, one outreach group will begin meeting on these campuses to identify potential leaders, cast Gospel-sharing vision to those potential leaders, teach them how to share Jesus, and challenge them to begin to share with their peers (all the while trying to invite and reach the lost in these groups).
Thank you for continuing to pray for the Salt Company.
