All the way from

NEW YORK to OREGON Read about an impacting time that Bethany had from national outreach

Our school went to Portland, Oregon a couple weeks ago for National Outreach.  We worked with an organization called Bridgetown Ministries.  

Among many things I learned, one of the biggest is this…

I am realizing that I lived life so consumed by my schedule; and I have missed a lot of opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people who are screaming out for someone to confirm that there is hope in Him.

Bridgetown’s vision for their ministries is simply “to love people, because people matter.” I heard this many times while working with them and it grew on me more and more. This doesn’t always take the face of a homeless man or woman, though they do need a lot of love poured into them! This takes the face of tons of different kinds of people. There’s no specific age, race, gender, or type of people who need me to show them love every day. People are everywhere, just start doing it!

It probably won’t happen by me preaching to them all the time. Conversations can lead there, which is great and can result in powerful things. BUT there needs to be conversation before that can even come up.

What bad can come from showing someone God’s love by simple things?

Am I scared because I might get a bad reaction or make a fool of myself? So what? My reaching out to someone, introducing myself, and just showing that I want to listen… it might make someone’s day, or even change their entire outlook for that week… or it might have even bigger impact than that. I’ll never know until I talk to them.  So among lots of things, this has had the biggest impact on me recently :)  Even in the midst of a busy schedule, I am taking the time to be purposeful with starting these conversations.