A Pilgrimage Down Amnesia Lane

A few weekends ago, I was joined by a number of college buddies for a reunion of sorts as a handful of Penn InterVarsity alumni living in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania met at our house to catch up with former Staff Workers Dave and Shannon Lamb, some of whom we hadn't seen for upwards of ten or so years.

It was a fun time of reminiscing about the past and sharing about the foibles of life as we currently knew it. We also took time to hear about what Shannon was doing as a director overseeing a large region of multiple states and campuses with InterVarsity chapters, and as we shared and prayed for her ministry, a common theme that emerged was that not only we recognize how God used those people and that season of our life to spiritually grow us profound ways, we really wanted to other college students to be able to experience the same. Shannon shared about how the college society has evolved since our days - the era of Twitter and Facebook are very much the epitome of the "no depth of relationship" and "no commitment" spirit - but on balance, students were still very much looking for deeper answers and meaning, in their own way. I'm comforted that God has transcended societal shifts, cultural revolutions and campus upheavals - Christ is no less relevant than he was 15 or 50 years ago, and those like Shannon who minister to these students will be faithfully well prepared.

The other thing that I couldn't help be introspective about during and after the event was how God demonstrated his faithfulness to each of us who, now 15 plus years out of college, are going through life as adults. The issues that each of us are going through are not necessarily the same - some of us have children, some of us don't, some of us are married, some of us are single, and all of us are diverse in terms of our current vocation - but to each person I'm greatly encouraged to see where we are. God has indeed been faithful.

Despite the fact that many of us hadn't talked for years, there was something deeper that bound all of us, sort of like the platoon from Vietnam that did battle together and had our shares of victories and heartache. These were friendships that were forged and deepened through shared learnings, shared vision and a shared Christ-focused mission. I can only hope and pray that my children are able to be blessed by a similar college discipleship experience as I did.