Creating Community at Mission Bay
UCSF ministry has really challenged me this past year. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to grow and change so fast in just one year. We moved into Mission Bay Housing at the end of February, which I didn’t even want to do. But as I prayed, I found my heart was changing. God was reminding me, “Hey, this is what you signed up to do when you came to UCSF.”
We moved into Mission Bay and shortly thereafter, one brother got the grand idea of starting a community organization. I didn't expect people to show up in droves, but they did. God again convicted me that he can do immeasurably more than anything I ask or imagine. It’s really incredible that this place has gone from a cold monolithic block of housing units where people complained that they couldn’t meet anybody to a thriving place where it’s hard to walk through the courtyard or go into the laundry room without seeing someone I know. This spirit has spread so much that it’s getting hard to reserve the community room for our weekly bible studies because so many residents are holding their own community events.
Although we expected to reach the UCSF community by living at Mission Bay, it’s turned out that we’ve reached a far more diverse crowd--students from Hastings, Golden Gate University, and several local arts campuses in addition to UCSF. The Thursday night bible study isn’t just a taste of San Francisco but of the world, as we have students and postdocs from China, Taiwan, Mozambique, Singapore, and Korea. It’s amazing to think that although we might not be able to physically go to those countries right now, perhaps the seeds that we sow here in Mission Bay might make their way back there and beyond because that is the way God works. God has been faithful, repeatedly reminding me that he is able to do far more than I have ever asked or imagined.