Change Your World - An Update from Brazil

Investigative Retreat 2012 - by Demps and Kristy Dempsey      This is always one of my favorite weekends of the year as we get away from the busyness of the city with the American and Brazilian college students and take a couple of days to encourage them to personally investigate the life of Christ. We always use some form of media (movies or music) to build our sessions and discussion groups around, and it's always an important step for many of the students in their personal spiritual journey.      This year in following our theme of, "Change Your World", we talked about our personal search to change our world both personally and globally and how that search needs to include the consideration of God as the source of our purpose and meaning. Next, in considering God, our challenge to the students was to consider the historical Jesus as one who declared himself to be God. There are many biased views of the person of Jesus among college students in Brazil because of such a variety of religious influences and we sought to address these "cultural" views of Jesus and encouraged honest, sincere investigation of the historical Jesus.      One of the Brazilian students in my discussion group at the end of the retreat said, "I was baptized Buddhist by my parents but never knew it until later after they had abandoned buddhism. After that my parents always encouraged me to find my own path spiritually but I was turned off by what I considered fanatical religion that I saw in my neighbors. After this weekend, I realize that I have never really investigated for myself and I think that I need to consider the person of Jesus".This made me smile because that's the whole point of this weekend, for students to leave placing many of their biases aside and investigating who Jesus was and his relevance in their lives today. Prayer Request: Pray for many new Brazilian students to continue investigating the life of Christ even as the American students leave the first week of July. Pray for God to open students' hearts to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior

Requesting Prayers for Friends

I would like to ask you to pray for Jeff and Missy Underwood and their three boys. Jeff and Missy are dear friends of mine and Wendy's from college and fellow Campus Outreach alumni.

Earlier this week while vacationing with their family at a state park in Arkansas Missy had an accident where she fell from a cliff onto rocks below. It was miraculous that she survived the fall, but even more miraculous how God has watched over her and cared for her throughout this whole situation. She has broken two vertebra in her back, most of her ribs, and has a tear on her liver.

Through God's grace Missy has not only stabilized this week, but has improved enough to be moved out of ICU to a normal hospital room. Please pray for Missy and her family. This will be a long road to recovery. Jeff asks that we pray...

• Pray for protection from infection!
• Pray for her lungs to clear up!
• Pray for God to work in the lives of others through these series of events to make Himself know!

In the words of Jeff, "I stand amazed at the feet of a truly awesome God, full of love and grace."

Follow the updates on Missy condition on Jeff's Facebook: Jeff Underwood