I know that summer just started, but…
I’m really getting excited about this Fall and heading into Christmas season. Why? Because of what’s cooking up for our new student outreach at CSULA starting in late September through November, and what’s happening with La Fe in Los Angeles - on Nov.16th we’re gearing up for the 5th annualCumbre de Alabanza and in December between Christmas and New Year’s, about 500 Latino students from around the U.S. will meet in Torrance for La Fe ‘07 - InterVarsity’s triennial Latino student conference.
Yesterday Abner Ramos & I got the proverbial ball rolling for the Cumbre event. In 5 years of hosting this event, we’ve seen it grow to gather 150+ Latino college students from across GLA. In that time, several campuses have really erupted in building a fruitful ministry to Latino students on campuses. And this spring, we’ve been really working on a 2-3 year vision to broaden and integrate the impact of InterVarsity’s La Fe ministry in the chapter’s that we have across Los Angeles, from UCLA to UCI to Redlands to Oxy to CSULA and ELAC. Stay tuned for more exciting updates.With the La Fe ‘07 conference, I’m preparing two seminars - one on Immigration from a Biblical perspective, and the other on Marriage and dating that I’ll be leading with Vero. My teaching partner for the Immigration seminar is Priscilla Juarez, who is a Stanford grad on staff now at San Jose State. We’re set for a Monday morning phone appointment to work out the framework for our seminar. All of this is getting me terribly excited for the fall and Christmas.
And at CSULA, I’m feeling reinspired about how God wants to reach and develop the predominantly Latino commuter student body. In hearing God’s call to come to CSULA back in 2000, serving and developing Latino students was a huge part of that call. But while the last 7 years have been about many things in developing the ministry at CSULA, the dream of reaching and developing Latino students continues to be unfulfilled. This fall, however, will be an exciting time of leadership for me as we are preparing to reignite our efforts to reach out to commuter students during the day time and develop the next generation of leaders - and Latinos - on campus. As with the La Fe plans, stay tuned….