by John Chase

June was a month of graduations, celebrations, and change for our college community. As I watched several of our college group walk across the stage at SPU, my heart burst with a tender mixture of pride, joy and sadness. We grew close over the year, and the time together passed quickly. I look forward to hearing more about the journeys that each of us will take in the coming year, and years, ahead.

To everyone who helped out with the College Age Fellowship this year, I want to say “thank you.” Many of you served the group by preparing wonderful Sunday dinners, cleaning up messy kitchens, organizing games and activities, leading in worship and prayer, helping with transportation, sharing special presentations, and planning special events. Thank you for lending your unique personalities and talents to our fellowship. It’s been an amazing year, and one where we have grown in faith and fellowship together. Thanks be to God!

I asked several in our group to express their thoughts and feelings about the College Age Fellowship this year. Here is what they wrote:

• I am so thankful for this group and what it has been in my life. I still remember the first evening I came to college group--I felt welcomed and instantly at home, which is not how I usually feel in the midst of a large group of new people.
  
  I sensed from the moment I walked in the door that God had called me to that place, and in the months since then I have seen why, through the countless ways He has worked in my life through the people I've met in the group and the times we have spent together.
  
  As a newcomer to Seattle, I found in the college group lasting friendships and deep support in my faith, both through conversations on Sundays and through several small groups that formed out of the Sunday fellowship.
  
  It is hard to express everything that the fellowship has meant to me, except to say that it has been a life-giving gift from an incomprehensibly loving Father.
  
• Ever since I came to the Bethany college group, I have experienced an overflow of joy. The College group is more than just a group, but is more like a second family to me. Every time we get together, I experience the presence of God's love. I am very happy and grateful that God led me to the college group.
  
• I have encountered Jesus and learned more about Him through this year of going to the College Group at Bethany Presbyterian by the guidance and encouragement of John Chase and the other people I met at the group. I felt comfortable sharing myself and my faith with the others there because of their openness, and thereby learned more about God and my faith.”

Our group plans to meet and eat dinner through the summer. Sprague Minger (spragueminger@mac.com) is the contact person during my absence (June 20-July 16). Watch for details as we head into the fall.