Dear friends and family of HCFA,
I hope your summer has been warm and restful. At Harvard we are already a few weeks into the semester and the Lord is at work!
At the end of August we took around 60 students to Vermont for our annual pre-retreat. This retreat is designed to bring students back together to catch up, focus on the Lord before the semester takes off, and to prepare for our freshman outreach. This pre-retreat was really special. The Spirit was at work in our time there and every night was full of times of confession, prayers for healing and heart-filled worship. There was such hunger for the Lord. Students were encouraging one another, exhorting one another with scripture, sharing what the Lord was teaching them, and praying late into the night. As we spent time together caring for one another, there was also so much joy in looking ahead to reaching out to the incoming freshman class. It was absolutely beautiful to see the spirit of Christ at work in our students. This joy and life that the Lord led us into at pre-retreat has certainly carried over back on campus and it is exciting to see such zeal and boldness in our students as they bear Jesus at Harvard. Please join us in praying that this movement of the Spirit would continue. Pray that our students would grow in their discernment in hearing God’s voice. Pray that they would continue to hunger for the Lord, His word and His mission in the world. Pray that the Lord would protect them as they face temptation, distraction and spiritual attack in this season of fruitfulness.
Freshman outreach began almost immediately when we returned from pre-retreat. Our first event is a pizza party for freshman. This year we had our largest turn out ever with 80+ freshmen coming through the event. From there we have an event every day until classes begin—a dinner at a local restaurant, church visits with brunch afterwards, a picnic by the Charles river, and an event in the science center plaza. Our students were amazing in pursuing these freshmen and inviting them into this community. At this point, as we are a few weeks into Bible courses, we have an enormous number of freshman men and are surprisingly low on freshman women. Last year, the opposite was true as we had high numbers of women and low numbers of men. We know that the Lord is at work in bringing each student into this community and we are thrilled about the number of men! Please pray that freshman women would continue to be stirred to seek out Christian community and that there would be new desire to know about who Jesus is. Pray that Tyler and Fady, who are teaching freshman men, would be fruitful in their ministry to these young men and that they would come to know who Jesus is in more profound ways every week.
Lastly, we are studying Philippians this semester. As a Bible course teacher, I love being able to spend more time going deeply into God’s word. Paul’s letter is so full of his joy and commitment to following Jesus. Please pray that our students would grow in their desire to count everything as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus.
As always, thank you for your partnership in this ministry. We need your support and are so encouraged knowing that we have friends and family who are praying with us.
In Christ,
Anne Kerhoulas
Christian Union Ministry Fellow
at Harvard College
Please note: if you would like to receive regular updates on how to pray for Christian Union's work at Harvard, please email prayer@christianunion.org.
