As I was raised in a Christian home, I was introduced to Jesus at a very young age. I have always known and had a steadfast faith in who He was and who He is for me today. My relationship with God really blossomed in college when I was faced with making decisions on my own with a new found freedom that I took advantage of. Then, through the process of falling in desperate need for His hand to help me back up, I found the real freedom of what it means to walk with Him in accordance to His will and way. This has been much more freeing than any fleeting freedoms of the world. I have since fell in love with my Savior and never want to let His hand slip from my grasp again.
– Haley, Junior in Salt Company, Iowa City
January was a month of preparation for the upcoming semester. We had two all day staff planning sessions and had a leader’s retreat for all of our student leaders to come together and prepare themselves for what God would do this semester. We also had our first two Salt Company meetings of the semester in January.
The two staff planning days were amazing as we had time to focus our hearts on what God wants to do and we were able to plan some of the major details for the semester. We are blessed to have a staff team that gets along well and enjoys being around each other. We become more and more comfortable with each other as the year goes on.
The Leaders’ Retreat was also a highlight this month. We have nine new leaders serving with the Salt Company. It is really exciting to see our ministry growing, as more and more leaders are raised up. The first night of the retreat we spent some time reading through Matthew 5 and talked a lot about being the Salt and Light of the world. We spent time in prayer and confessing our sins to God and each other. Starting off this way allowed us to clear our minds and truly focus. The second day we got together in the morning talking about evangelism. We then went out around the city to talk to people about Jesus. This made many of the leaders very nervous but they all were willing to do it. It was awesome to see how they all depended on God and put themselves out there to be rejected. We wanted them to see that they could start conversations with random people. It made them realize that they could be as bold in their classes and dorms as they were that day. Even the people that got rejected felt it was a success to start such conversations and become more willing to do that.
Our first two Salt Company meetings were not in our normal location. The first one was in Hotel Vetro in Downtown Iowa City and the second was in the Iowa Memorial Union. At the first Salt of the semester, there were at least 8 new students that came 15 minutes early. It was so cool to see that God had already drawn these new faces to our ministry on the first night of the semester. We had two big connection group emphases at the end of both Salt Company meetings in January and many students that weren’t in connection groups last semester are in one now. The student leaders have done a fantastic job of pulling in new people that come to the ministry and making them feel welcome.
Next week we will be back at our normal location until April. We believe God wants to do even bigger things than he has done in January. We are excited to see what God has planned to do through our ministry this semester!
