InterVarsity Update
Ana Graves
4/30/2010
Here is the latest update
from Ana about her ministry with InterVarsity.
10/13/2009
Ana has been with
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship since 2004. She serves as a missionary
to the college campus in
San Antonio
. The former president of the United Nations, Charles Malik said:
"The University is arguably the single most significant institution
in the Western Civilization ... change the university and you
change the world." As a Campus Minister, Ana has the
opportunity to invest in those future leaders of our nation and of the
world.
How does she go about
doing that? She teaches and trains students on what it means to follow
Jesus and how to lead others to do the same. This happens through
one-on-one discipleship meetings with Christians and with those who
don’t know Jesus yet: discipleship groups and Groups Investigating
God; training students in Christian leadership on a weekly basis;
teaching at conferences on scripture study, evangelism, prayer and much
more; and leading mission trips to places globally and domestically in
order to challenge students to serve others and to give them
opportunities to learn about making God the true Lord of their entire
life.
Specifically, in the past two years, Ana has had the
opportunity to lead a campus-wide outreach effort. It focuses on
educating students on the issue of human trafficking while talking about
God’s value for life. This past year, God opened doors for the
ministry of InterVarsity in
San Antonio
to impact not only the campus, but also the city. Her students are
working to learn more about this issue of human trafficking. Further,
they explore ways that their fellowship can help bring awareness to this
issue and resource the organizations that fight trafficking on a daily
basis.
11/13/2008
Happy Fall to all of you...It’s slowly getting cooler
here in San Antonio, much slower than I would appreciate. But it will be
cold soon enough.
This semester, on the other hand, has flown by
QUICKLY!!! I wanted to let you know about a few things going on at UTSA...
 |
Students being trained in EVANGELISM—We
have 7 NEW students who are a part of being trained in how to share
their faith with others. It’s so exciting to think what the
results will be. All of the students wrote down names of 2 friends
who didn’t know Christ and were challenged to pray for them:
 |
Patsy wrote down her two roommates’ names and
began praying...Within two weeks of praying, these two
international students, her roommates, came back to the apartment
after attending a Mormon church service with a friend, and they
asked Patsy if she knew Jesus and if so, could she show teach them
about the Bible...From there, Patsy opened up her Bible to John 1,
and had a conversation about Christ with her roommates for the
next hour. She continues to pray for them and hopes to continue
conversation with these young women!! How exciting is that!!!
Lives being transformed, Patsy’s and her roommates!!! Pray they
would choose to follow Jesus. |
|
Jessie is a part of the evangelism team and
discipleship groups. She has a friend who was raised Hindu, who
has no idea what she believes. Jessie invited her friend to our
DISCIPLESHIP GROUP where we are discussing sexual and emotional
integrity. Pray for us as we meet together as a group with this
young woman and talk about God’s plans for our lives. |
|
|
Women and Men’s Retreats—The next
two weekends, students will be going away to talk about what it
means to be Women and Men of God. Student Leaders have planned
(which is a praise in itself!!) these retreats and are looking
forward to bringing new students into the fellowship with an
understanding of God’s call to them as people of God. There will
be a debrief of these weekends at our CORE TEAM meeting next Tuesday
about how to serve each other as men and women seeking to honor God.
Pray for safety, for life changing decisions, and for new choices of
lordship in these students’ lives. |
|
A Call to Obedience—We began the
semester talking about God calling us to a place of obedience to
him...Not because we MUST be obedient, but because we have the
privilege to follow our Maker and our Savior. Students are wrestling
consistently with how to honor God in relationships, with school,
with money, and with their time. Pray for the leadership team as
they enter the holiday season and finals season, that they would
continue to choose obedience to the Lord over anything else. |
Personally
I am leaving for Brazil in 10 days!!! I can hardly
believe it. I would be honored to have you praying for me as I am in
Brazil from Nov. 23rd-Dec. 1st. Here are some things to pray for:
| For those that don’t know, our team will be partnering with a
Brazilian pastor who has two churches, one in the slums of Rio and
one in a middle class area of the city. We will be partnering with
him to help resource the church leaders, meet with potential church
members, and share the gospel in schools and with people we meet. |
| Unity for our team--We are very diverse in age and a small team,
so we need a sense of unified purpose as we go to Rio de Janeiro |
| Peace and health for me as I’m away—I will be away from family
for the first time for my Birthday and Thanksgiving (which happen to
be the same day) and I will be eating things that I am not used
to...So I’d appreciated those personal prayer requests. |
| I will be partnering to do some teaching to teenage girls about
purity in life...I've done this teaching many times, but never with
a translator. So, pray for discernment on what to teach and
how much to teach as we walk into this time. |
Thanks for your prayers for both UTSA and the ministry God’s doing
there and for the ministry God will be doing in Brazil during the week
of Thanksgiving. I am so grateful for your partnership!!! May God bless
you in amazing ways today.
Ana
10/28/2008
Ana is just beginning her fifth year of ministry with
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. As a campus minister in
South Texas
, she has the opportunity to be stretched personally as well as
challenge students and other staff to be stretched in the areas of
evangelism, prayer, lordship, and loving those who are difficult to
love. As this school year began, one young lady approached Ana
saying, "I'm Catholic, but I'm gay. So, y'all probably
wouldn't want to hang out with me." In response, Ana invited this
young woman to begin studying Scripture about God's heart and what
God has to say about sexuality. Incredible conversations have come out
of these meetings. Ana is praying this young woman comes to believe that
Jesus is the only healer and giver of hope.
At a recent conference, Ana had the opportunity to speak
to a group of 70 women about sexuality. In response to this
discussion, students chose to confess sin issues and asked people to
hold them accountable for change in the area of sexuality. Amazing
things are happening!!
Please pray for Ana and UTSA. God is on the move on the
college campus. InterVarsity's heart is that the Lord will
continue to lead students into places of loving those who need to
experience the Love of Christ.
Here are some specific prayer requests:
|
Ana's health: Ana continues to wrestle with balanced
eating and exercise while experimenting (with doctor's approval)
with different medications to bring her body to balance. Pray
for healing, energy, and discipline with all of the above |
|
UTSA InterVarsity student leaders: Pray for
confidence in sharing their faith with others; consistent dependence
on God; good balance between rest/studies/work/InterVarsity/social
life, etc.... |
|
Changed lives: Pray that TEN STUDENTS WOULD COME TO
KNOW CHRIST this school year!! |
|
Human Trafficking Outreach: Pray that InterVarsity at
UTSA would reach many people through this time of educating the
campus on the issue of Human Trafficking. Pray for us as
we share about the value that God places on each student
at UTSA, as well as on those who are caught in the
horrific situation of being trafficked. This outreach
will takes place March 16-20. |
|
