The intern trek was two weeks of rich teaching, new friendships, prayer and worship, sunburn, hot car rides, and sleeping on the floor. In a nutshell. Now I'll go into more detail.

SEATTLE

We started in Seattle: 18 interns and four staff leaders. Thirteen of the interns will be serving at Northwest schools (in Washington, Oregon and Idaho), two will be in Colorado, and three in California. If all of the interns from Colorado and California who were invited on the trek had come, the group would have been more than 40. Most of us agreed that 22 was a great number.

For two days in Seattle we studied the early life of Moses and his call into leadership. We were handed a 17-page printout of the passage from Exodus, and we went about reading it, marking it up, writing down questions, analyzing themes. A couple of the themes that stood out to me were:

1. It is not about my "capabilities" or personality type that makes me a leader, or determines what God is capable of. That's for God to decide, and he always makes a way.

2. God's plan may be hidden by more tangible, and often discouraging, circumstances, but seek it out and trust in his promises.

The third day we played hard. We drove to Snoqualmie Falls and hiked down to the bottom and back. After a quick lunch, we spent the rest of the day at Pike's Place Market and had dinner on the wharf.

The next morning we got up way too early, crammed into five cars and headed down I-5. We reached Berkeley, California not long before midnight.

BERKELEY

At Berkeley we learned mainly about evangelism and our personal relationship ("abiding") with Jesus. We looked at Mark 4:1-25 (the parable of the soils) to see how Jesus taught those who were seeking after him. He spoke to them in their language (farming), and purposefully left the teaching vague so those who really wanted to understand would have to take initiative, follow their hunger, and ask further questions. How can I speak to students in their context, in a way that creates a hunger in them to know more about God?

The statement that left the deepest impact: Jesus is not the answer to the question. He is much more than a way of thinking or a theology. He uses the parable of the seed and soil because he is describing the exchange of life between the seed and the soil. He is offering himself to the students on campus: Life, Light, the Living Word.

Still on the topic of evangelism, we looked at Acts 17:16-34 when Paul brings the message of the Gospel to Athens. He invests himself in the city, recognizing both its idols and God's fingerprints on its culture. Then with gentleness and boldness he tells them about Jesus.

Both of these teachings were inspiring to me as I plan to focus largely on evangelism this coming school year. Like Jesus and Paul, one of my biggest challenges will be to be incarnational in the way I reach out to students. To have discernment about why they are resistant to God, and also to see where God is initiating in their lives already. Then, like Jesus with his parables, to speak in their language and describe God's invitation to them.

The last evening of teaching we focused on John 15:1-11 ("I am the vine, you are the branches.."). What struch me most about this passage is that the one command is not "Bear fruit." Instead, it is simply, "Abide." We are not to work hard at bearing fruit, but committing ourselves to knowing him better. Jesus is the end, not the means. The fruit will come, but only if our first priority is our relationship with God. I know this will be important for me to remember this year as I spend so much time doing ministry. Making the sacrifices needed to spend daily time with God will be necessary, and worth it.

Our day of play was spent in San Francisco. We took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) into the city, rode the cable car down to the wharf, where we spent the afternoon, took the ferry over to Jack London Square, goofed off for a couple hours and had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. Then we took the BART back to the Berkeley area and watched the movie Shrek at a staff worker's house in the area.

The next morning we got up bright and early for our drive down to Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES

In L.A. we spent the first day of training on the topic of ethnicity, and the second day on being visionary leaders.

I have about 8 pages of notes just on the talks about race relations within our fellowships. We began by looking at the role of ethnicity and how it shapes both us and leaders of the Bible. I found myself seeing new aspects to Moses' story. He was raised bi-culturally (both by Pharoah and a Hebrew nurse), which is exactly what God used in his plan (leading the Jews, his people, yet gaining access to the Pharoah, a setting he was very familiar with). The ethnic backgrounds of figures like Esther, Nehemiah, Timothy and even Jesus were also very important to God's plan.

We also talked about how people in different ethnic groups have different perspectives on the Gospel. For example, many Christian minority groups will emphasize the social justice calls that Jesus makes, while white Christians will tend to focus more on personal godliness (prayer, devotions, etc.). The challenge is how to integrate all perspectives for a full picture of the Gospel, while being sensitive to the various backgrounds and cultures students come from.

On the topic of vision, we first discussed what the purpose of vision is (focus, gives mission to your life, motivates and inspires). The we talked about having godly dissatisfaction and turning that into a visioning process. We broke into groups and practiced visioning for a theoretical campus. We talked about what it would be like to focus on evangelism and put on a huge outreach event, or focus on our personal relationships with God and encourage regular prayer, Sabbaths and retreats for our fellowship.

Not surprisingly, most of our free time was spent on the beaches nearby. The water at Balboa beach was almost as warm as I remembered it in Hawaii, and the waves just as strong. On our last day before our drive back north we went to Disneyland and felt like kids again.

WHAT I CAME AWAY WITH

The intern trek left me feeling empowered and equipped for this coming year. The visioning teaching and hands-on case studies helped me to see that I have a lot to offer the University of Oregon. When we learned about evangelism it struck a cord in me, confirming my heart for those who don't know Jesus. Focusing on abiding in Jesus was like food for my soul, reminding me of the foundation I need to stand on.

I came away with many new friendships with other passionate Christians in the same phase of life as me, going through the same transition and having similar purpose and vision. And I just had a lot of fun. :)