One Step At a Time: Greater Things Are Yet to Come

I remember my first couple weeks on campus at The University of Iowa as a freshman. I kept asking myself what the heck I was doing. I was homesick. More than anything, I felt the loss of hope that this city has.

Iowa City is a dark place. It's known for the drinking and the partying and everything of this world. I've heard it called the Sin City of the Midwest...that's a pretty good description of it. Finding other genuine believers was close to impossible and even in my first few weeks I was well aware of the tension between the ministries on campus. Everyone who went to one believed their ministry was the best and not the other. You could check out other ministries if you wanted to but, really, don't because the other ministries aren't as good as the one trying to sell you on them. I hated it. I was so discouraged, especially coming from the shelter of being home schooled as well as having been raised in a super solid church and having been blessed with solid believing friends for the previous several years of my life.

One fine day much like the last two days where it was starting to be Fall but still sunny and warm, I found myself with some time to kill before my environmental science lab. I had my iPod on shuffle and I didn't know what all songs were on there since my brother had put them on it. I was just kinda wandering around the T. Anne Cleary walkway area listening to my worship music and asking the Lord to give me a taste of joy in such a dark place. It was in that moment that the song "God of This City" by Chris Tomlin came on. I had never heard it before but it was incredible.

If you don't know it, it goes a like this:

You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

Oh my goodness. I was all the sudden caught up in a moment with God. I remember so clearly how the words drown out all the noise of the people rushing from class to class and I just felt like God had reached down and put His hand on my shoulder and was like, "Have hope Fern, I've got plans for this place. Great plans. There's going to be a change." I was all the sudden overcome with joy and hope. I kept thinking, "Yeah, God's going to do great things in this place. The darker this place is, the brighter God's light will shine." It was so good! After I got out of my lab I had another time gap(Freshman schedule planning..) and decided to listen to the song some more because it was so encouraging to me.
I then found my sitting on a chair in the lobby of Burge pleasantly listening away. A white guy with a crazy afro just plopped himself down in the chair across from me and motioned at me that he wanted to say something. I took my earphones out and looked at him the way any confused and suddenly awkward-feeling person would and he was like:
"Nice shirt! Are you a Christian??," with a lot of enthusiasm.
So I looked down and realized I was wearing a "Christian" shirt that had a crown of thorns on it and so I looked back at him still feeling a little taken aback and said:
"Thank you. Why yes I am!"
He smiled and he seemed like he just had a crazy amount of energy and was like:
"That is AWESOME! Me too!! And I just feel like God is gonna do something great in this City. He's just gonna do awesome things!"
" :O! No way! I was just listening to a song about that!"
"Really?? That's so cool! What's your name?"
"My name is Fern Kohl. What's yours?"
"Gerry Redlinger."
"Where do you go to church?"
"Parkview"
"What? Me too!"
"That's so awesome! God is awesome!"

I think we chatted for a little bit after that and we exchanged phone numbers. Or.. sorta we did. I gave him mine and he called me to give me his but my phone was dead so all that I actually got as proof that the conversation had actually happened and I hadn't imagined it was the voicemail he left me while i was still sitting across from him. I was *so* encouraged by the dude and I didn't see him for a long time after that actually. Not for at least a whole year. But that brief encounter was SO great. I just gave me hope and joy because there was someone else in Iowa City that loved Jesus and believed that God was gonna do great things here. It wasn't too much later that I heard a rumor that Salt Company at Iowa State was gonna plant in Iowa City. (God is SO faithful!)

I joined Salt when it came a year later but that was a messy awful troublesome business. Remember I said how the ministries didn't get along? Well, they didn't take too kindly to any new ones showing up on their already-claimed turf. The transitioning from one ministry to another was painful on account of how many "friends" I no longer had as a result. It was painful because I was literally boo'd and criticized and scorned. It was painful because these were believers that were not being accepting and their was a great sense of disunity in the ministries across campus. More than that, there was animosity.

I remember attending Monday Morning Prayer and just praying that there would be a change. That the animosity would leave and that unity would someday happen.

Did I mention God is faithful?? He is SO faithful! :) :) Let me tell you about my friend Jessica. I met her freshman year and she was so legit about her faith. Sophomore year she felt like God had laid it on her heart to lead See You At the Pole. So she did!And she did it the next year too! I was always to amazed to see her passion in seeing the ministries come together. She wanted to see unity and she worked at it.
This year she has transferred to another school and one day she texted me and asked if I wouldn't mind heading it up this year. I agreed not totally sure what I was getting myself into. Little did I know, God was inviting me on an adventure! :) :)

Jessica suggested I find myself a sophomore who could help to take over next year on account of I'm a senior. I thought that was a good idea. I prayed about it a little and I kept thinking of this one legit sophomore dude who is a natural leader but I was like, "Nahh...I can't ask him. I'm probs only thinking he'd be great because he's one of my new friends" So instead, I just decided to ask all the leaders in Salt if any of them would like to help out. God is so funny. The legit sophomore dude was like "I'm in" within, like, 5 minutes of my post. Ahh.. God is just.. great. So anyways, not only did I have someone to help me lead, I was able to find students in other ministries that were so on board with it too and were willing to help lead in various ways. Unity. Thats what we wanted. That's what we were striving for.

After much advertising and prepping and attempts at organizing, the day finally arrived!! My alarm went off at 5:50am and I don't think I've ever been more excited to get up so early. God was going to do something great!!

Oh my goodness! If you weren't there, I wish you could have been. I was standing on the Old Capitol steps as it was getting close to 7am and people just starting coming from all directions in groups of twos and threes and 5s and more! People just kept showing up. In the end there ending up being over 60 believers gathered together to pray for an awakening. They prayed for the students. They prayed for the faculty. They prayed for the professors and teachers. And! They prayed for eachother. (I just got Holy Spirit chills). Ministry prayed over ministry. Encouragement was spoken, joy was there. God was with us doing great things!

There is no one like our God!