Coupled with this renewed surge in prayer has been a desire among students to listen to God's voice and reach their friends for Christ.  A sophomore named Yen told us that she was starting a Bible study with her Buddhist friend who wanted to more about Jesus and Christianity.  We have been so encouraged by the way we are seeing God move at UCLA and are already seeing specific ways He is working.

"Manmaker"

Nothing bonds men more than hard work and the great outdoors, so the weekend of February 23-25th found over 60 guys driving to Carpinteria (just south of Santa Barbara) to camp on the California coast for our largest Men's Retreat in several years.  Over the weekend, the men roasted marshmallows, listened to messages by a local college pastor, and played sports.  The men that went had plenty to eat - they went through 80 pounds of tri-tip steak - but they also had plenty of time to experience true fellowship.  The retreat was an invaluable time of connecting the upperclassmen with the new students and fostering friendships among the men.  The guys were assigned to discussion groups comprised of both younger and older students.  As the weekend went on, the men continued to share more openly about their lives and their struggles.  Our prayer is that the bonds developed through those discussion groups and activities will continue to deepen through the rest of the year.

Women's Retreat

During the same weekend as "Manmaker", the women had a retreat as well.  Sixty-five UCLA women stayed at a beach house in Oxnard and heard from Holly Ashman, a staff woman with Campus Crusade for Christ who leads the female staff in our region.  The prayers of the staff women were that our students would experience transformational community - that they would grow in their authenticity with each other and show the love of Christ to each other.  God definitely heard those prayers and answered them in a powerful way.  On Saturday night, Holly shared from her own life about the necessity of vulnerability with other women and invited the students to share about their lives.  As they sat in the house, listening to the waves crashing outside, student after student stood up to share struggles or sin in their lives that had kept them from being authentic and honest with her friends.  After each confession, another woman in the room offered to pray for whoever shared.  It was an intense meeting that lasted late into the night.

True Change

One of the biggest highlights of the quarter was that a freshman named Hannah received Christ!  Hannah grew up in Catholic school but told Melanie (one of our staff) that she was "an atheist dabbling in Christianity" at the beginning of the school year.  Hannah decided to become involved in a Bible study and other Campus Crusade activities, and by the end of fall quarter, started felling the reality of God's love in her life.  Winter break was hard for her since she had already started to taste the greatness of God.  "I see my old friends drinking and getting addicted to cocaine and sex and it makes me sad.  I've never felt like that before, but now I realize that kind of stuff is not what can satisfy," she told Melanie.Now that Hannah received Christ, she thanks God for the beautiful weather and every other good thing in her daily life that she never would have thought twice about before.  It has been so encouraging to see how the other girls in her dorm Bible study have been showering her with love and support this year and helping her grow in her walk with God.  Please pray for Hannah's growth and for protection from the evil one who would want to discourage and distract her.

Katrina Relief

Since we have been encouraging our students to foster relationships with lost students at UCLA, we wanted to go on a Spring Break trip that would be easy for them to invite non-Christian friends to.  We decided to return to New Orleans to help with hurricane Katrina relief for a week.  A group of 26 students - some of them non-Christians- and 3 staff from our campus spent a week in Louisiana working at an elementary school to restore it to it's original condition.  Since the hurricane, only half of the schools have been reopened, causing overcrowding and transportation problems. The students and staff spent four days at Martin Behrman Public School painting all of the doors in the school, landscaping the front yard, and completely restoring a room that had become useful only for storage.  While they were there, members of the community passed by each day and shared stories about their lives and how grateful they were that our students and staff were there to help.  Our team was able to ministry both to the people of New Orleans that week as well as to the lost students who were part of the team!  We are grateful for the part you played in all that happened during winter quarter!