The Process of Process Group

Once a week myself and Claire, another student staff, lead a process group of 4 students to help them sort through all that God is doing in them at FUI. We couldn't have asked for 4 students more different from each other. There's Rachel, a generally quiet, fairly nerdy white student from Cal Poly who is majoring in computer science. And there's Christina, a calm and level headed artsy black student from Las Vegas, who generally doesn't like to talk to much in groups (she told me the only way she likes to process is through art, not talking). Then there's Colby, an Asian-American business student from Cal Poly who just became a Christian this year, and so is nervous about being the only guy, the only Asian, and a new Christian in our process group. And then there's Judith, the happy, fun loving Guatemalan who never stops talking.
Our first process group was an interesting one, as the students' differences were definitely felt, and Judith was doing a great job of waiting to speak, but since nobody else wanted to talk, that meant a lot of silence. But on Sunday we could see them beginning to get used to each other, probably helped by a weeks' worth of interesting stories from their sites. I have been blown away by their insight and ability to see Jesus at work in the city, and how perfect they are for the sites they are at- even if they might disagree. Judith talked about how crazy its been to see humanity and beauty behind the often harsh exteriors of the kids she works with, and

Christina and Colby at process group

Rachel talked about how fun its been to see that she actually likes working with kids- and they like her too! Christina talked about the challenges as well as the excitement of working with mostly Hmong refugees, and Colby talked about listening to the Holy Spirit to direct him to which homeless men he should talk to and hear their stories. It is so great to think that these students get to live in and experience being in the places that I'm pretty sure Jesus would have made a bee-line for- where there is the most hopelessness and poverty.