Eve Carson

The Thursday before I left Carolina for Spring Break there was a lot of commotion in the Student Union. I was meeting with a student and we asked the editors of the Daily Tar Heel (the school newspaper) what was going on- they told us that the unidentified student shot the morning before was actually student body president Eve Carson.

School police made an announcement a few moments later and as some of her friends found out for the first time that Eve was lost to them, a lot of emotion and anger came out. It was so sad to see these students grieve.
Having lost a few friends myself, I can kind of relate even though all of our sufferings are so different.
Last week they found out that the men that shot Eve were in a gang in nearby Durham, they had also shot a student from Duke University in January.
Please pray for the students right now, not just here at UNC but all over the country. And pray for the people who have known nothing but violence and find their lives wasted away by the influence of gangs.
There is a memorial at the Dean Smith center tomorrow for Eve and I am going with a few freshman girls, I pray that we can somehow find Christ together in the midst of so much hurt.
I was stunned to realize the impact Eve's short life made on this world- look at this web-site to learn more about her and the ways her one life has changed things:

http://universityrelations.unc.edu/alert/carson/

Prayer Request

Okay so lately there have been some really good things happening here in Chapel Hill. Last weekend at our first retreat in Asheville, NC, a girl named Nicole- from Honduras- a freshman at UNC gave her life to Christ and it has been amazing to see how her life has changed and her heart has truly been revived by Jesus. Another girl- Margaret, also a freshman here at UNC, realized that she gave her life to Christ for the first time at our Christmas Conference and she is so eager to share this with her friends that are trying to find joy in partying and relationships. I was able to share the gospel with one of these girls- her name is Mimi- last week and am having her over for dinner tonight to follow that up and ask her if she has given any more thought to surrendering her life!

But the further I get into friendships with different women here, the more I am becoming burdened and broken over the hurts in their lives. They have lost close friends in car accidents, had family members suddenly killed, seen their fathers leave their mothers, watched loved ones die of cancer... they wake up and are pushed to succeed academically and socially every day but in their hearts there are deep unanswered questions that lead them to struggle with anxiety and depression.

The blanket of emptiness I see these girls wrestling with makes me hurt. I am not a counselor nor a doctor yet I long to cure them of the pains they carry! There are about 15 girls I am reaching out to right now and each of them is struggling with the claims of Jesus in different ways. If he truly is the Son of God who has come to change our lives and bust our paradigms about religion, then it may cause a major life change for them. It is really challenging me to spend time in the Word, asking God to reveal to me who He is and how He would like me to share Him specifically with each of these women He has placed in my life.

Please join me in prayer as I ask Him to show me specific passages in Scripture to share with these women and for Him to minister to them in their pain in a way that only He can!

Praying that God will break up all unplowed ground like He promises in Hosea 10:12--
"Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the LORD,
until he comes
and showers righteousness on you."

Some January News...

"What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs" -Matthew 10:27
Hello! I hope you are having a wonderful week! Life in Chapel Hill has been very sweet this past week. God is doing amazing things in different areas of my life...

• We have a women's accountability group (about 7 staff women) that has been meeting weekly since September. Sadly, until last week this time was relatively shallow. We would talk about our lives but never go much beyond the surface of our hearts. Last week we asked each other "What about this group makes you fearful?" and "What is something about you that you are afraid the women in this group won't give you grace for?" I said that I am often fearful that I will share something deep and personal and be met with blank stares. That the issues of my life aren't important to the people around me. I told the girls that I am afraid I won't get grace for being a messy person, a person with so many flaws that sometimes I fear that if people knew who I really was, not just who I seem to be on the outside, they wouldn't love me very much at all. God really showed up during this time and in our honesty brought each of us to a place of deeper trust in Him and in one another.
• Bible studies! My staff partner Kellie and I are starting up a Bible study for 7 girls that are interested in walking deeper with God! Some of these girls may not have even surrendered their lives to Christ yet. Their names are Morgan, Sally, Elizabeth, Katherine, Lizzy, Freddie, and Margaret. Each of these girls are so full of life and personality. They each struggle in different ways to believe that God loves them. I can't wait to learn more about them and about Christ through leading this study.
• We have started to meet in the mornings at 8 to get in the Word at a coffee shop near all of our homes. It is really changing me. I used to try to spend time alone with God at whatever point in the afternoons I had free time but having this set time in the morning helps me sit still and engage with God in a deeper way than I would on my own.
• I am part of a party planning committee! Katie, Erik, Tony and I meet every Tuesday to plan events and then present them the following day to our staff team. We are working on planning a Superbowl party for the students. Last Saturday we had an all girls sleepover at our house! It was great, 13 girls spent the night! We played pranks on the boys down the street (the picture is of a few of us before we attacked their home!) and ate lots of pizza and watched Father of the Bride. The next morning many of these girls accompanied us to church, for some of them it was their first time attending church since arriving at college. This upcoming Saturday the boys are playing Flag Football and the girls are having a Miss America Party- we're asking girls to bring their high school prom dress (or providing them a dress via our abundant bridesmaid attire!) and watching the Miss America Pageant. Erik has agreed to come as our host and during the commercials we're going to have a fun pageant of our own complete with toilet paper sashes. These events help bring students and staff together, ultimately for the gospel to be shared, lives to be changed, and God to be glorified!
  

Atlanta Conference 2007

We started praying for students to come with our staff team to the Atlanta Conference last October. Since students had never come with us on a retreat or to a campus meeting, we felt like only God could compel them to give up a portion of their Christmas break, spend the money it cost to go, and be around people they didn't know very well for 5 whole days. Our prayer was that 5 girls and 5 guys from UNC would decide to join us at the conference.... amazingly 6 girls and 4 boys from UNC came, 2 boys from Duke, and 19 students from NC State took a bus from Raleigh to Atlanta to go to the Campus Outreach Christmas Conference (ATL 2007). The picture above is of some UNC girls hanging out after an evening rally.

Many of our UNC staff were involved in planning the Conference. There were over 1,000 students from CO Gulf Coast, CO Charleston, CO Augusta, and the new region that I'm a part of... CO Raleigh! I work with these hilarious guys, Bowe and Tony and they spent weeks planning for their roles as the conference MC's, listed below are some of the videos that they made.
Here are some guys playing flag football on their free day:

The best part of the conference was seeing God show up in these students lives. The theme was "More than a Cliche..." and the various speakers delivered messages focused on God's love being more than a cliche. One speaker said that if you don't understand God's love for you, you miss out on an incredibly important aspect of having a relationship with Him. Over the course of the conference, many students decided to give their lives to following Jesus! These students will surely make an impact on their campus, in their families, and in the lives of so many they encounter as they grow in their relationship with God!

Here are some girls from UNC breakin' it down at our New Years' Eve Dance Party!

My friend Jim took some great pictures of the main conference room and then another here of students listening to a seminar:

End of semester update

"Look at the nations and watch--

and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe, not even if you were told."
Habakkuk 1:5

Hello! It has been one of those nights where those of you that support and love this ministry I am a part of have been heavy on my heart and in my prayers.
Thank you for your role in making Christ known throughout this campus! Here are some of the events that students came to towards the end of the semester!

A holiday cookie party! We had over 40 girls at our home to drink hot chocolate and cider, decorate dozens of cookies, and watch the holiday favorite Elf. It was such a great chance for students to connect with one another and feel welcomed in our home. It was also a chance for us to tell students about the upcoming Christmas Conference.

Our first campus meeting! We invited students that we were connected to to come and hear about the Atlanta Conference Campus Outreach puts on every New Years. Nearly 30 students came to hear about why the conference is worth their time and travel (it's nearly 6 hours from Raleigh) and to hang out with one another!

I will post more about this later- but we had an amazing time at the conference! 31 students from Campus Outreach Raleigh (UNC and NC State) joined us at the conference (God exceeded our expectations, as a staff we prayed for a total of 20 students to come, that's 10 students to come from each campus). Some of these students made commitments to follow Christ for the first time in their life. Each was so thankful for the opportunity to learn how to grow in their faith and experience God's love on a deeper level.

Great Song

These days I am listening to Sara Groves, these are the lyrics to a wonderful song by her that I often listen to before going on campus!

Lord I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know
It's more than I can handle
But your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones
and I cannot let it go

And when I'm weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

Lord it's all that I can't carry and cannot leave behind
but your word has compelled me
when I think of all who've gone before me and lived the faithful life

And when I'm weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaoh's court
I hear his call of freedom for the people of the Lord

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the end of the spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sisters standing by the lepers side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

November Update!

Hello! Greetings from Chapel Hill :) Fall here is so beautiful

I am thankful to have internet today, our house is in and out...
Things are going good here! Sadly I have pneumonia so it is slowing down my energy and efforts on campus but God is teaching me a lot. Since I can't always do all the things I've wanted to the last week, I am forced to pray more and that has been a blessing
Here are some of the things going on!

-We are continuing to meet, meet, meet girls. I have gone by myself more and knock on doors in the dorms. When girls answer, I just tell them that I'm trying to get to know people in their building. We will talk for a while about where we're from, I ask them about their courses, their time so far at UNC, then I go on my way! I will go back a few days later and seek a deeper conversation. Then I will ask the girl if she'd want to get coffee or dinner in the cafeteria sometime. My hope is to build many friendships through which I can tell people about Jesus.

-At this point in the semester, many of these girls I have seen and connected with repeatedly are starting to be interested in what I'm about. Why I live my life the way I do and the reason for the joy that I have. Please pray that I will be bold and listen to the Holy Spirit's guidance in having these life changing conversations with women.

-Through prayer, I can tell that some of the girls I have met so far are very important to God. I can tell that He wants them to be part of His kingdom and that He wants them to influence other men and women at UNC. I love meeting so many amazing women and having a burden for their lives! So many of them are lost and looking for a reason and purpose by which to live their lives.

-We do not invite students to come to a weekly meeting and rarely ask them to be in a Bible Study. We do have two Bible studies running, one for a group of guys and one for a group of girls, but ideally we will continue meeting lots and lots of people and then start Bible Studies next semester. Why do we do this? Because we want to stay on their turf. We want these students to know that we're committed to their lives not just trying to recruit them to come to something.

-But... we do have a conference coming up! Hopefully after spending lots of time with these students, they'll be willing to come with us to a conference in Atlanta over New Years to see what we're all about. At that conference they'll get a big picture of how Campus Outreach works, the awesome community that we have, see thousands of students connected to CO across NC, SC, and Georgia, and hear the Gospel! I am pumped up. Please join me in prayer that many students from UNC will come to the conference and be changed by the love of Jesus :)

Thanks for reading this update! I love you! I am so thankful for your partnership and would love to hear from you: allyireneholm@gmail.com
Blessings and joy to you, Ally