“I don’t know”, I said. “Are there any ideas?”

This was the conversation we had at one of our leadership meetings only one week before Easter week.

It hardly seemed like the time to be planning some big event. We didn’t have the time to pull it off. We should’ve talked about this months ago.

Yet that initial question started an avalanche of ideas within the group.

One person suggested the Body Piercing theme, based on an ad we had seen.

“But the person in the ad has no body piercings!”, someone said. “Is there anyone in our group with a unique body piercing?”

A student named Chris came to mind because he has a pierced tongue. I suggested that we take a picture of Chris and put the picture with the slogan on t-shirts. A student in the group has a relative who does silk screening. We called and asked how soon he could produce a shirt. We were told that he could do a rush job and get it to us within 5 days.

The next day we took the picture, turned it into a graphic and e-mailed it to the t-shirt guy.

Another student started making a 6 foot high by 8 foot wide graffiti board for the use during the outreach week.

Within a few days we had the shirts, the graffiti board was ready, signs were made, fliers were put up, articles were ordered and we were ready to go.

That next week 60 students were wearing yellow T-shirts that said “Body Piercing Saved My Life”.

The graffiti wall was up everyday and students gave their response to the question, “Who do you think Jesus is?”.

Students were asked the meaning of the shirt and they were able to share Isaiah 53: 5, which states, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities..”

The whole week ended with our Thursday meeting where Chris shared his testimony and I gave a message entitled How Body Piercing Can Save Your Life.

Nine students indicated that they received Christ as a result of the program.

Through our team effort, we were not only able to pull off a large event in a short amount of time, but our outreach received national attention by being featured on Crosswalk.com.

(see PRAISES for site address)

Also, many campuses are now expressing an interest in using the theme to reach out to students on their campus.

As a result of your partnership, you are helping to reach students at UC Davis and beyond!

A few weeks after our last letter, Jennifer and I received an exciting phone call telling us about a birth mother who wanted to meet with us.

We met with her and an adoption match was made. For about a month, we were making plans to become parents when the baby arrived in mid-May.

However, a few weeks ago, we received a call from the birth mother informing us that she had decided to keep the baby.

We were of course very sad and are still in the grieving process. Please pray for us and with us as we grieve the loss of this child and hope for another child.

Later that week we held our First annual Fellowship Dinner. The event was a big success and we raised over $30,000 in commitments over the next year.

We are excited about the opportunities we will have to reach out to students in new and creative ways! Thank you for your continued prayers!

• Students rallied to pull off our “Body Piercing” outreach. Many students had the opportunity to share their faith. Nine students indicated a decision to accept Christ.
• Our “Body Piercing” outreach garnered national attention on the Crosswalk.com website.
• http://news.crosswalk.com/religion/item/0,1875,339460,00.htm
• The Body Piercing outreach has the potential to reach students all over the country, as many campuses have expressed an interest in using the theme as an outreach on their campus.
• The Lord really blessed our first Fellowship Dinner. We saw over $30,000 in commitments for the next year.