We would love to hear from you!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our Blog. We hope you will be encouraged through the stories from our family and ministry. We would love to hear from you, please feel free to post any of your thoughts, comments and even prayer requests on the Blog. We check it pretty regularly. You can post your comments simply by clicking on the underlined "comments"button at the bottom of each entry.

You can also email us at gary@iamnext.com and of course you are welcome to call us anytime.

God Bless you and thank you for your prayers and support of what God is doing through the Canadian Campus Ministries.

Sincerely,

Gary, Lynda, Maiya and Baby :)

Four Strategic Prayer Requests

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for being a part of our ministry team. God is moving through the Canadian Campus Ministry. We really appreciate your prayers as we continue to take Jesus to the leaders of tomorrow.

Here are 4 specific prayer requests:

1. I (Gary) will be giving a 30 minute talk on: "Why should we Share our Faith?" to our Campus for Christ students at Ignite this Friday (Oct. 20) Ignite is our weekly meeting where our students gather to worship and grow through God's Word. We usually have an average of 50-60 students attending (there are often some non believers as well) I am very excited for this opportunity to build into our students in this way. Please pray that the Lord will speak through me as I passionately share how they can truly change the World by stepping out and sharing their faith through the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. Please pray for our Salty Media Team. I am currently coaching 10 students on how to communicate God's love through writing articles on current events from a solid Christian perspective. Please pray that God would give all of us wisdom and inspiration as we seek to engage our campuses through thought provoking and relevant articles. Please pray for favour with SFU's student paper "The Peak" as we submit articles for October and November.

3. Please pray for our Ultimate Questions Podcast project. I am currently working on producing a video Podcast to engage students on the Truth about Pornography. In the new year we will be hosting an outreach at 4 Canadian Campuses called "Porn Nation"

Porn Nation is an interactive multi-media presentation revealing the Truth and Dangers of Pornography (you can find more info on the outreach at pornnation.org) I will be producing a series of podcasts to provide extra content for the outreaches. Please pray that God would help me develop a dynamic team to work with as I cannot do this on my own. Please also pray that he would give us favour, wisdom and creativity. My deadline is to have a 5 part series ready for January 07.

4. Balance. Please pray that the Lord would help me be wise with my time, and bless our work as I balance a very busy work schedule and a wonderful growing family.

Thank you so much for praying! please let us know how we can be praying for you!

Sincerely,

Gary, Lynda and Maiya

Maiya's Fan Club

(Right) Daddy and Maiya "Ha! Ha! Mom! I pulled out another barrett!"











(Middle Right) "Mom! Babies don't eat lettuce!"




(Left) This is Maiya's first haircut. She just won't put up with barrett's in her hair, so we had to do a trim! I didn't want to take responsibility for a crooked hairline on a squirmy kid, so I let the professionals do it for me! Oct. 2, 2006

P.S. "Did you know I am going to be a big sister at the end of March? I am so excited! Today I also started walking with a walking toy for for the first time. Before, I would only walk with mom and dad holding my hands. But this is fun!"

A 3 Hour Conversation

After our weekly meeting tonight a number of students gathered together to make follow-up calls for students who received Real Life Kits. As we shared some Pizza and prepared to make the phone calls, a number of Muslim students came into the office to use a room for prayer and break their Ramadan fast (we share space in the Interfaith Center). I recognized one of them from a few conversations we have had in the past. I asked Morshed about how Muslims pray and we engaged in a good conversation.

Otmane soon joined in the conversation and shared how he also received a Real Life Kit last year and seemed to really appreciate the New Testament. As our conversation continued, they invited me out to eat with them so that they could answer my questions about prayer. I humbly accepted their invitation and went to a local restaurant.

They quickly turned the conversation to trying to show me through my own Bible how Jesus was only a prophet. I was surprised on how familiar they were with Scripture. It reminded me of exchanges that I have had with Jehovah's Witnesses... often taking verses out of context and not waiting to give me a chance to give explanations to their misquotes and questions.

Their reaction to my testimony surprised me the most. They seemed very intrigued as I shared how I came to faith in Christ and my initial undeniable encounter with God. I then shared my Toe story (for those who have not heard it, God healed my badly injured Toe in a undeniable direct answer to prayer). At first they seemed stunned, but to my surprise they started to down-play supernatural healing, almost denying that it is possible. In their faith they are taught that prayer is answered only through patience and perseverance. There must have been some sort of logical explanation! That really surprised me as I thought Muslims had more faith than that. I was also surprised on their view of God's love and grace, their view of God is not at all a loving God as we know him to be.

We continued to talk a lot about Jesus. It seems that they have really been sold the lie of Jesus only being a Prophet. One of the verses that they used out of context to prove their point was Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind." Of course they would let me explain the context of the verse and seemed convinced that the Koran didn't need to be broken down and explained in context. "The meaning of the Koran is plain to all!" they say.

I was able to shed some light on the truth about Jesus. It was a good and pleasant exchange , however they just couldn't fathom God becoming Man. It was absurd to them. They pleasantly invited me to attend their Ramadan Fast-a-thon. We exchanged contact information and they invited me to email them explanations to their scripture contradictions.

Please pray that the Lord will reveal his love and truth to Otmane and Morshad, also please pray that the Lord would give me wisdom in how to witness more effectively to Muslims.

I will keep you posted on what God does in them as I continue our dialogue. Our adventure with God continues at SFU. Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

God Bless,

Gary

A few great links!

Here are a few great links to some of our current sites to get more information on what God is doing through the Campus Ministry at SFU:

www.everyonehasastory.ca Great student testimonies of their personal encounters with Jesus from our campus wide outreach ~ Jesus Week 2006. I am sure you will be encouraged!

sfu.campusforchrist.org Our SFU Ministry Home Page

www.Crusade.org Campus Crusade Canada's home page

iamnext.com Our evangelistic website for university students.

More Links to come !

Real Life Kit Follow Up Party

Hello everyone,

Sorry I have not posted for a while. I have been sooo busy it has been hard to find the time. I will try to post at least once per week from now on.

We had our first "RLK" follow up Pizza/Phone Party on Friday after our weekly meeting. 15 of our students were willing to give up their Friday night to call the 800 students who volunteered to receive a phone call when they picked up one of our Real Life Kits during the first week of school.

After enjoying some Pizza, we spent some time teaching students how to do the follow-up calls. They completed a survey which asked questions regarding the contents of the RLK, and whether or not it encouraged them to be thinking more about God and the spiritual aspect of their lives.

Usually I spend my time during the phone parties going around encouraging and coaching our students as they they make the phone calls. Since our students were doing a great job, I was able to make some phone calls as well.

I had a number of very encouraging conversations. I talked to a number of students who were very grateful for the free RLK, and were interested in learning more about God and Jesus. Many of the students I spoke with were feeling very overwhelmed with school assignments and studies and didn't think they could make time to meet on campus.

My most encouraging conversation was with Ian. When I asked Ian what he liked most about the kit he answered "The book with the diagrams about God". I was a little puzzled by what he was referring to.

"Do you mean the little blue booklet that explains how you can have a relationship with God?" I asked.

" Yes" he confirmed, "I really like how it is worded and its description of what stops us from knowing God in a real way."

It turned out that he was referring to the Gospel Tract. He says that the little booklet really peeked his interest in Jesus! Praise God! As we continued our conversation he said that he was also feeling overwhelmed with school and would like to meet maybe later in the semester.

Could you please pray the Lord would continue to give Shain, Ben, Devin, Roger and Ian an even deeper hunger to discover more about who Jesus really is and they would find time in their busy schedules to connect on campus. I was able to make 2 on-campus appointments that evening with 2 students who are excited about joining one of our Bible studies.

Thanks again for your prayers and support.

God Bless,

Gary, Lynda, Maiya, and Baby Stevenson