2002 Olympics

Before I begin I have to give you a little background about me. During high school I had been involved in a generation X church group called SOUL CAFE. I began attending when it all started and when I got to college I began to miss the worship and community I felt when I was there.

The summer before my freshman year of college, the Soul Cafe missions pastor, Stacy Rogers, began advertising a trip to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics. This trip interested me and so I talked to a couple important people in my life at the time, my boyfriend and my best friend. Both of them seemed to think the trip was a waste of my time and money, so I didn’t sign up right away. But eventually I moved to school, made a new best friend and met my current boyfriend. My roommate Lacey said she would go with me so we signed up.

As the months went by we became more and more excited. “Hey Becca, we’re going to the Olympics!” “Hey Lacey, we are going to see snow and mountains!” became regular sayings in our dorm room.

Finally the 19th arrived and we were on our way.

19th:
“We have arrieved! I remember beginning the day with a prayer that God would keep us safe on our journey today and He has been faithful. Except for the loss of my luggage, today has been a good opener for what I think will be an awesome week.”

20th:
Our official ‘job’ was to work in a CoffeeHouse/Church Plant in the square downtown. We were told to try to strike up conversations with people and see if we could work them around to talking about thier faith. If this was possible we were to give them some information and hopefully plant the seed of Christianity. In the morning, we went downtown and got our IDs, then arrived at the Coffeehouse around 6. We went prayer walking until 9, then come back and help in the coffeehouse until 1.
Right away I met a guy named Emron from Arizona. He was Islamic and we talked about our faith for a short time as he joined us in our prayer walking.

Later that night Lacey and I were standing on the sidewalk outside of the coffee house when a girl walked up to me and asked what I was doing. I told her I was working with Global Outreach and just trying to talk to people. Right away she said, “Well, I’m an atheist, outreach to me!”. Wow! God had answered my prayers. We spoke for awhile and we gave her a bible. I do not know if I influenced her or not, but she said she was going to read the scripture. Please pray for her (Heather).

21st, 22nd, 23rd:
In the days that followed, we did pretty much the same routine. Others in the group had similar experiences meeting people and making new friends. I played chess with two Mormon guys around my age and we talked a little about their faith.

My group went skiing at ALTAon Friday and it was beautiful. God’s creation is so wonderful.

The last night, Lacey and I spoke with a guy named Christopher who said he was Greek Orthodox, but did not attend church regularly. He complained that the bible was too hard to read and after probing found out that he had a King James Version. We gave him the New Revised Version that we had to hand out. He also asked to be added to a e-mail devotion list which I did when I returned home.

We met up with Emron a couple more times during the week and he seemed to like our company.

On the last night, there was a riot in the square. I think it started when some guys who had been drinking too much got into a fight. But by the time we were trying to get on a trian back to our van, it was in full swing. The police had showed up and told us there was no way we were getting on a train any time soon. We tried to detour about the riot to the next train stop, but it seemed to be going in the same direction as we were and we soon got detoured by the police again. Nathan (a guy in our group) called his parents who live in Salt Lake and they were nice enough to come pick us up at 2:00 in the morning, because we had no other way out of downtown. It was a very scary and exciting experience.

Conclusion:
The scripture verse Revelation 7:9 has always been a favorite of mine as I imagine what it will be like when Christ returns. I think I got to catch a glimpse of what this verse is talking about as I worked in Salt Lake. I met many people who were not from the US and many people who spoke many different languages. I am grateful that most of them spoke English because I would not have been about to reach out to them.
This trip seems to have been more of a learning experience for me. I learned about some different faiths: Mormonism, Islam, and talked to some who thought they were atheist. I spoke with people from around the world and learned about subtle cultural differences and some that weren’t so subtle. All in all, I think God worked through me and I saw the Holy Spirit at work throughout the week.