Before & After

    If you are friends with even a few U of I students you may be noticing a wave of green flooding your Facebook!  No, it is not Unofficial St. Patrick's Day. It is Cru's Before and After week.

     In November, Cru students started thinking through their stories to identify two words: one to describe them before they knew Jesus and one to describe them after. By using these two words they were challenged to think through how a relationship with God had transformed them and how they could communicate that to their friends, family, and classmates. One of the main things we have discussed is that sharing our stories about Jesus isn't for the sake of people knowing us better, or just doing it because everyone is doing it. We are motivated to share our stories by love. We understand that nothing we ever did earned us the love and transformation of Jesus and we want to offer that same love of His to others. 

     Months of preparation, training, and practicing have gone by and the week is finally here. This week, 200 Cru staff and students put on their green shirts, uploaded their green facebook picture, and hung posters throughout campus all with their unique choice of words.

     It has been amazing to see students take steps of faith this week and share how Jesus has transformed their lives. Many students have had a chance to share face to face with people in their classes and dorms, but the craziest way we have seen students take the initiative is through posting their stories on Facebook and Youtube.  After only 3 days of students posting videos there have been 5,451 views!!! There are over 55 videos posted (with more to come), all telling unique stories about people who were hopeless, insufficient, insecure,  empty, and restless, are now, through the redemptive and transforming work of Jesus, hopeful, free, approved, full, and secure. 

  

All of this reminds me of this verse:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sin against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.- 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

    If you are not reconciled with God and some of these stories have sparked some questions, please email me. I would love to talk more about it.

     If you have experienced Jesus and your life has been changed, be an ambassador for reconciliation!  I would love to share the worksheets with you that students used to prepare their stories!  They are easy to work through and helpful for getting the words out. Email me or leave a comment if you want me to send them your way.

Here is the link to watch more stories:

Cru Before & After Videos

And here are mine and Alex's:

Where Have I Been!?

   A few hours ago, I sat on my bed for the first time in 3 weeks without thinking of where I will be traveling the next day.

    My last blog post was on Nov 4th. At that time, we were at 70% of our monthly support goals, living in my friend's basement in Metamora, and traveling every weekend for support appointments.  I could, and maybe still will, write a blog post on every week of the month of December since something big happened every few days, but I will spare you for now and update you through pictures.

100 is a Beautiful Number

We Made It!!!

       The Lord provided 100% of our initial support in December! We absolutely cannot  praise Him enough for this provision! In August, we started praying to be finished in December, but it felt like one of those prayers that seems impossible.  In man's wisdom it honestly was impossible, but only 4 months after starting to meet with people and invite them to join our team, He has provided.  The thing we keep reflecting on is how incredibly blessed we feel. We have met so many people who love Jesus and have hearts like we do, to see more people come to know His saving grace. We often read through our list of prayer and financial partners and just praise God for each and every one of them. We will continue to invite people to partner with us as we are planning on doing this as our career and will have fluctuating needs depending on our family growing (someday), ministry needs, etc.  Thank you so much for allowing the Lord to use you and your resources to further His kingdom!

Bruna Ghelardini Facker

Our last picture with Nonna a couple months ago

    On a much sadder note, the second week of December brought the death of my Nonna. She suffered a stroke, and then we spent a couple of days in the hospital with her as she passed away. She was 90 years old and had lived a very full life. We have always been close, but in the last few years have gotten even closer as we loved talking about our faith with each other.  I enjoyed many conversations with my Nonna discussing how through Jesus we can have access to God, be free of guilt, and be confident of spending eternity in heaven. This summer she got sick and I asked her how she felt about death. It is so sweet of the Lord that we had this conversation and I can remember her words so well. She responded, "I am not afraid to die because I know where I am going. I will be with Jesus."
   The visitation and funeral were sad, but I kept reminding myself of how the Bible says she is now full of more joy, more life, more peace, and more happiness than she ever had here on earth.  She was not in heaven because she was a good person or tried her best to do the right thing. She was very loving and very loyal, but that was not why she was in Heaven either. She was in heaven with Jesus because she recognized she could never be good enough for God on her own and needed to accept Christ's payment for her sins. Christ, the only perfect one, took Nonna's punishment. He suffered death so that even though Nonna left her physical body she could have eternal Life. Undeserved Eternal Life, but a Life that was freely given her through her faith in Jesus.
  It has been tearful but fun to go through her belongings and see the cards she saved from us as kids, her postcard to her parents after she took a train to New York to elope with my Grandpa, and birthday candles from the 1920's.

 

    Our New Home

There is a guest bedroom inside waiting just for YOU! :)

     We serve an amazing, unconditionally loving, thoughtful God. I have been praying since last January, when I knew we would someday need to move back to Champaign, that God would provide a place to rent with 3 bedrooms, a backyard, and a place that felt like a home for us so it could feel like a home for students.  When we were close to finishing support we spent a day in Champaign looking at places. This house is more than we could have ever asked for, but God knew all along He was going to provide it! It has 4 bedrooms, a garage, basement, backyard, and the landlord brought his asking price way down so it would fit into our budget!!!!!  We moved in a few days before Christmas but have only spent 3 nights sleeping here due to all of our traveling! It was much sadder than I thought to leave my family in Metamora. I still cry sometimes when I am unpacking knowing that I can't just run over to my parents house to say hello or see my two best friends in that area, Morgan and Catherine, every week. However, I am blessed that an hour and a half is not too far, and they are all only a phone call away.

IndyCC

This picture is from last year, but it gives you an idea of the conference.

    After celebrating 4 family Christmases in 3 different cities, we headed to IndyCC. Cru's annual winter conference where 2000+ students from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio come together to be taught from God's word, worship Him, take meals and the Gospel to poor areas of Indianapolis, and pray and worship in the New Year. We had so much fun connecting with the over 100 U of I students there and hearing how God was really transforming them.

A Wedding and a Party

Happy New Year!!!

   And that leads us up to last night, where we celebrated the wedding of 2 of our best friends and the New Year!  Chris and Kaiti are some of our closest friends. Alex was best man and I was a bridesmaid along with a very fun wedding party full of some of our best friends of college. It was definitely a New Year's Eve party to remember. As I looked around the room at the rehearsal dinner, and then the next day on the dance floor, I saw almost every single one of my best friends from college. Praise God that we have all stayed very close and well connected post college. (It helps since we almost all married each other!) Chris and Kaiti love Jesus with all of their hearts and we are so excited to see where God takes them as a couple.

Thanks for hanging in there for the update! January is looking like a much more restful month, so I look forward to updating you soon!

Love and blessings for the New Year,
Jess

Felice's Baptism

Praying with Felice at her baptism

   Last weekend I had the most incredible opportunity to take part in a dear friend's baptism. I teared up so many times while she was sharing her testimony with the church because her story has been one that I always look at and think, "I can know God is real because the transformation in her life could not be just by human efforts".

One of our first pictures together. :)

    Felice and I met when she was a freshman and I was a senior. We were in the same Chinese class together. She was so cute and bubbly, but I was a definitely intimidated by her.  A few weeks into class she found out Alex and I were dating (he was in class too). I told her we used to be just friends, but now he had been my boyfriend for 2 months. Her first question was, "Woah, isn't it totally weird to make out with your best guy friend!?"  I loved how real she was, and still is, with me. I shared with her that Alex and I had actually never even kissed and we weren't going to until we got married. I remember the look on her face. She was shocked! She asked why we would do something like that, and I got to share how our relationship with Christ made us want to keep our relationship pure and honoring to God. After being scolded by our Chinese teacher for talking in English a few times we decided to meet up for lunch to talk more.

     What followed was a deep and vulnerable friendship. Felice had grown up in a non-religious home and had experienced a lot of hurt in her life. She had never really been to a church and wasn't really sure who Jesus was. Over a year's worth of lunches and coffee dates we got to talk in depth about the Good News of Christ and how he wanted to have a relationship with her regardless of anything she had ever done!! I could see her heart wrestling with what the Bible said every time we got together.

   Almost a year after Felice and I first started talking about Jesus, we got lunch together at Potbelly's and she told me that she had accepted Christ into her life. As she describes it, she really felt like God put his arm around her and was with her as she prayed to Him. I will never forget that day and the joy and tears in her eyes and she finally believed God loved her and would never leave her.

   Felice has grown in her faith so much since that day at Potbelly's.  She is vulnerable, teachable, and desires to have every part of her life aligned with God. It has been an incredible privilege to be her friend through these years and watch God transform her into a woman that is genuine, humble, loving, and others focused.  She really is one of those sisters I know I will have for life.

   After sharing Felice's story in my words, she gave me permission to share with you her profession of faith that she read before her baptism. It brings me to tears every time I read it. The power of God is undeniable.

Baptism is an incredible symbol of dieing to ourselves and becoming alive in Christ and an outward expression of our relationship with God.

Felice's Profession of Faith

"My understanding of the Gospel is that it is the greatest love story ever. Where God created humans to experience a personal relationship of joy and love with him. But because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, the world became cursed and the rest of humankind were born in sin. As a result, we were separated from God and were captive to our sin which only brought us death. This is because God is a righteous judge, therefore the wages of sin must be death. However, because God so loved the world, he gave his only Son to take on flesh and live a perfect life that we couldn’t live. And out of perfect love and obedience, Jesus took on physical and spiritual suffering in crucifixion and by pouring the righteous wrath of God that was meant for us in payment for our sin on himself. In doing so, he died only to be raised on the 3rd day, for the grave could not hold him. And by conquering death, Jesus paid for our sins so that those that would repent, believe, and receive him would have Jesus’ righteousness placed upon them and be completely forgiven for their iniquities. But most of all, those who receive the free gift would have eternal life and a perfect relationship with God.

This is the good news, that enables me to confidently proclaim that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. And it was through my emptiness and brokeness that God graciously revealed himself to me. After all the loneliness I felt as a child, to the coming and going of friendships, to short satisfaction in partying, drinking, and drugs, to a boyfriend saying he loved me then abusing me verbally and physically, my heart became so hardened that I had no hope that I would ever be truly desired, loved, and completely satisfied in life. However, through God’s people, especially Jess and Matt, and God’s word, God softened my heart and opened my eyes to the life I was living and the hope that was in Jesus. It was during my Sophomore year, while in the shower, I decided to pray to God. I said to him, “God, I’ve had so many people come into my life that have told me they cared or loved me, only to leave me in the end. If I place my faith in you, would you always love me and never leave?” And it was right after that I felt God’s presence and what felt like hand pressing on my shoulders, and I was completely overcome with a warmth that filled me with a peace and overwhelming joy. God’s response to my question was so definite and firm, that I knew he was telling me I will never stop loving you and never abandon you. I immediately fell to my knees and cried and couldn’t stop; because for the first time, I felt completely loved and every fear and pain I had was wiped away.

Since then, God has continued to show me grace through my shortfalls. Before, I was the type of person that swore almost every sentence, tried to pick a fight with a lot of people, was super competitive, partied a lot, dressed provocatively, and I didn’t have the desire to help those that were in need. But God did a good work in me. He softened my tongue, convicted me from causing strife and tempting men to feel desirable, helped me graciously accept my losses, revealed the emptiness of partying, and gave me a heart to love others outside my inner circle. Most of all, by God’s grace, the walls and bitterness that I had built from the pain I have experienced were taken from me and placed on Jesus. He taught me how to forgive those that have hurt me, because he has forgiven me for the sins that I have committed against him.

It has been two years since that day that I received Jesus as savior and Lord of my life, and I can honestly say that God is truly worth it. He is worthy of all my love and suffering. He has paid for my sins, so that I could be free and experience the blessing of a relationship with him in heaven. I desire to pick up my cross and follow Jesus daily, and that means to die to myself and be born again to the living hope of Jesus’ resurrection. That is why I am here today, so that you all can bear witness to my declaration that Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior."

She was wet and I was sleepy from driving at 4am to get there, but what a happy, happy day!

I was MADE for this!

You know when you are doing something that you absolutely love to do, and your heart is beating fast, your energy is flowing, and you feel confident and alive.  This was EXACTLY how I felt last night.

I had the privilege of sitting down with 10 high school girls from Metamora and discussing how Jesus changes everything.  I had met a few of their moms recently, and they asked me if I could lead their daughters' Bible study.  These girls have been meeting together since 4th grade to learn from God's word!

To be honest, I was nervous all day thinking about leading this study. I am used to hanging out with 18-22 year olds, talking about sorority life, tough professors, and changing majors for the 3rd time. I can barely remember what it was like to go to Senior Prom, so I wasn't sure if I would know how to relate to 14 year olds. 

As the girls started gathering in the basement I prayed for confidence, reminded myself that I have been approved and accepted through the blood of Jesus, and that His Word would go forth to these girls. 

Over gummy bears and candy corn, they chatted about tennis practice, yearbook committees, and tough german tests. The conversation swirled with laughter and inside jokes just like when I am sitting with my sorority girls at U of I.  Many years and life experiences sit in between these 14 year olds and my sorority Bible Study, but the beautiful thing about women is that we never grow old of laughing, sharing stories, and valuing girlfriends.

As we opened up the Word and began discussing John 4, the adulterous woman Jesus sweetly approaches at the well, that feeling overwhelmed me.  I felt alive, full of joy, energy, and passion. There was no where else I would have rather been than in that moment, dialoguing with women about the love and grace of our Savior and Friend.  As they shared their hearts, and we related over how our flesh thirsts for acceptance and security in so many other places rather than Christ, I thought, "I was made for this". I was made to connect with women, to go deep about our Lord, to look at His Word and discuss what it means for today.

There are many things God did not wire me for: keeping a clean closet, anything with numbers, sitting still, and camping to name a few, but connecting with women over Jesus is one thick wire that runs from my head to my toes. 

As I look forward to my future career in ministry, I cannot help but joyfully praise God for leading me to a place where I experience His power in my giftings. By His grace, I will still be sitting around with women, gray haired and wrinkled, years in the future, conversing about the Life we have in Jesus Christ.

"What is Cru" Video

Sometimes I feel like I have so much stuff to share about our lives, but then when I sit down to write it all slips my mind. Here are a few things:

-We hit 50% of our monthly goals last week!!!! Alex and I did a little 50% dance that looked a lot like us making 5's and 0's with our limbs while jumping around. We know the next 50% might take a little longer since we have so much new support to raise, but we are still trusting God with December 1st to be finished.


-I have really been missing my Greek girls and other sweet friends down at U of I!  My sister and I made a quick stop down there last week and I was able to see a few of them, and today I had a long phone date with one that I haven't seen for months!  As much as we are enjoying this support raising process and the time the Lord is giving us here, I wish so badly I could sit down for coffee with each of those girls and get to hear what God has been doing in their lives this Fall!  I suppose Facebook, phones, and emails will have to satisfy me for now.

-Alex and I have been meaning to share this video that they showed at the first Cru Large Group meeting this year. We really feel it gives a great picture of U of I Cru.  Enjoy!

Dwelling in the Land

This weekend we went to Champaign, and as we sat with our future teammates and some students, I realized that as much as I can't wait to be in that world, doing ministry amongst those people, I really am quite happy in the world we are in! It reminded me of a verse that Alex and I often reflected on during engagement:

  "Trust in the LORD, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness." - Psalm 37:3

I normally struggle with wanting whatever stage in life is next, thinking it will undoubtedly be better than the stage I am in. The Holy Spirit constantly brings this verse to mind, reminding me to "live in the land I am in and to cultivate faithfulness while I am in it".

However, in this first month of support raising, by God's grace alone, I really feel as if I have been dwelling! God has provided so many blessings that it has been easy to dwell here and befriend his faithfulness.

In no particular order, here are 10 reasons why I love the land we are in:


1. Living minutes from my family- especially my adorable nephews! Out of everything, I miss my family the most when I am living in Champaign.

2. Living with one of my best friends , and getting to hear fun medical stories at 8am when she is getting off from working the night shift as a labor and delivery nurse.

3. Lou's Rootbeer, Mike's Italian Feast, Avanti's bread, Emo's Ice Cream, and Cyd's Sangria- Peoria favorites that you can't find anywhere else!

4. Being the "Fun Aunt" to 2 new dogs. We basically get all the fun of 2 labs without the work!

5. Cooking dinner half the time, but double the food!  Its such a treat when Morgan cooks, and feeding 4 people is way more fun than just cooking for 2.  I look forward to our dinner convos every night.

6. My workout class at Kaufman's gym. M,W, F we do cardio/sculpting to upbeat worship music!  The women have welcomed me in and I have so much fun with them!

7. Spending an incredible amount of time with my husband!!! I love our relaxed mornings, productive afternoons, and evenings spent with supporters hearing him talk about his passions!

8. Having unlimited amount of time to spend reading my Bible and spending time with God. I cozy up with a blanket, the dogs, and don't have to rush to get anywhere!

9. Spending time with our ministry partners and experiencing Gods grace and faithfulness through them!  I love getting to know people so this part of the job is so refreshing!

10. Living 15 minutes from another best friend who also worked with U of I Cru the last 2 years and is now also transitioning to the Peoria area.

  Of course, we are still praying that God would raise our support quickly and we could get back to the students and ministry we love as soon as possible, but it is so sweet of Him to provide an abundant amount of blessings in this season.   

Grace-
Jess

"Well, We're on the Support Trail"

This is a quote Alex says after every single support appointment. His repetition and statement of the obvious cracks me up every time, but its true! We really are making headway on the trail!! Many people are wondering how we are doing and I would love to fill you in:

-Family Reunion: The last 3 weeks have been so encouraging! We are amazed at how God is providing and how generous people are!  We have been mostly meeting with current supporters and its been so fun for Alex to meet supporters from my area and I have loved getting to know his supporters from Aledo.  It feels like we are reconnecting with family every night.

-Group Project: I did not expect how fun and growing support raising would be for our marriage. I love listening to Alex share his passion and watching his eyes light up as he talks about equipping men to walk with Christ for a lifetime. We spend so many hours together working on this one goal that I feel like we are working on a college group project. We are learning how to critique each other in loving ways, affirm each other in areas where we are doing well, and delegate tasks depending on our specific strengths. I have been so thankful for Alex's unique giftings everyday because he is just good at things I am not good at!  He is the better writer, organizer, administrator, and finance manager!  The best part of this "group project" is that I got to pick my partner...

-Driving our Stake into the Ground:  Last night we sat on the quad at U of I and were amazed at how surreal it felt to be there. We have been talking about this place, these students, for close to 50 hours with people over the last 3 weeks!  Support raising is tough and definitely a sacrifice, but the Lord is really using it to deepen our passion to do campus ministry. Sitting there last night, praying for the U of I students, I realized I have never wanted anything more in my life.

 As you can see, a lot has been happening! We know things will get harder as the weeks and months go on, but for now I couldn't help but share how much we are loving this "Support Trail" so far.