MFuge was AMAZING!

We just got back from a week at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, serving with MFuge. I'm still turning it over in my mind, the way you do after something that mattered.

Our mornings started in worship and teaching, and all week the theme kept pulling us back to one place: Psalm 23 and the Good Shepherd. Pastor Billy did a great job connecting Psalm 23 and passages about Jesus in Mark. There's a reason that psalm has carried God's people for thousands of years. It doesn't promise an easy road. It promises a present Shepherd. He leads, He provides, He walks with us through the valley. Our students sat in that truth every morning before we ever picked up a tool or loaded onto the bus.

Then we went out and put it to work. We served alongside the Davies House men's shelter and spent time on their farm. Honest labor, real relationships, the kind of ministry that doesn't make for a flashy highlight reel but changes something in you. Our kids showed up and served men we may never meet. The men have to be out of the shelter from 8am-5pm looking for work or working so when we were there, it was just us and Mr. John. They cleaned up the entire property with all kinds of yard tools and hard work. They cleaned and organized the space inside as well. On our last day we made blessing bags for the men that will stay at the Davies House and notes of encourgement for the case managers to give the guys as they meet.

But here's the part I can't stop thinking about.

It wasn't the worship sets, as good as they were. It wasn't even the work we did at the shelter. It was what happened in the in-between. During hangout times, when nobody was scheduled to be spiritual, our students started finding each other. They shared their testimonies. They talked about what God was teaching them, what it actually means to live for Jesus and not just believe the right things about Him. Nobody made them do it. They just did it, because the Shepherd was already at work in them.

That's the thing I want for every student I get to walk with. Not a faith that only shows up when an adult turns the lights down and cues the music, but a faith that breathes on its own. A faith that spills out at lunch tables and in dorm hallways and on long drives home. A faith they own.

I came home tired and full. The Shepherd led us to Berry College this summer, and He was already there when we arrived. He always is.