Conspiracy of Kindnes
Our job is to be seed flingers, not seed protectors watching over God’s business as though He had a limited supply.
We are students from Gordon College who just want to show God’s love in a practical way; so we did. We decided to venture to Endicott College, Gordon’s rival school down the street, and simply bring the joy and love to the students and campus. We started out with 80 bars of candy with the tag “We are students from Gordon College who just want to show God’s love in practical way” taped to the top. We also made up a good amount of post-it-notes with simple words of encouragement on them. We went with humility, love, flexibility and a complete unawareness of what God would do and how people would respond.
Upon arriving at Endicott, we prayed for God’s hand and blessing to be upon our time and for hearts to be opened and softened. We knew that with the relationship between Gordon and Endicott not being exactly friendly or positive, that a spirit of humility and love would be necessary, along with open hearts of the receivers. Our hopes were that we would be able to in some way repair the previous damage on our school’s reputation as Christians at Endicott and simply show that we care and God loves them.
While walking around campus and handing out the candy for close to an hour, we received a plethora of responses and reactions. They varied from simply being confused as to why were on their campus and giving out seemingly “free” treats, to rejecting us completely after the mention of the words “Gordon” and “Christian”, to joyfully accepting and responding with phrases such as “Wow, this is nice” and “You just made my day”. We had responses that were as extreme as asking if this was some sort of joke or if the candy contained razor blades. We also had a few people apologize for being so skeptical because they weren’t “used to people being so nice”. A major highlight from our time on campus was praying with a staff member who was Christian and quite an encouragement to us in our endeavors as she stated things like “You are advancing His kingdom and territory”.
The responses that we received were somewhat expected but somewhat not at the same time. We anticipated being rejected but felt that more people were open to the message we brought than we had planned or at least weren’t as expressive in disagreeing or denying our beliefs. However, it did seem that the majority of the people that were more accepting and appreciative of us were members of the faculty and/or staff. It was easy to get the impression though that some of the adults may have felt a little uneasy, unsure or even intimidated by the fact that we (students) were so confidently and casually approaching figures of authority with such “personal” and “private” issues as religion.
The students that we came into contact with gave off a feeling of being caught off guard and just being uncomfortable in general. We felt this was probably because being approached with religion in such a manner wasn’t a normal or regular experience for many of them. It was definitely apparent that ones beliefs were something that wasn’t expressed or talked about often on Endicott’s campus. These feelings became especially apparent to us when we asked if there was anyway that we could be praying for them throughout the week. This was definitely something that some of them had probably never been asked before. Many of the students seemed to feel vulnerable when being asked to admit their need for prayer in general. Some people didn’t know what to say and brushed us off while others responded with requests such as “tests, good health, and getting through the semester” with the notion that they didn’t even know what one would pray for. Others, however, opened up and asked for more personal and specific prayer requests and on the other extreme, replied that they were in no need of prayer because their lives were “good right now”. Regardless, we were able to write down a good amount of prayer requests and just make it known that we were lifting them up in prayer.
While handing out candy, we left post-it-notes of encouragement around the campus in places such as on doors, bathroom mirrors, bulletin boards and even cars. We felt that even a simple note could brighten someone’s day without confrontation. It was also another way for us to leave something that would last longer than our hour on campus and could reach more people.
Approximately after one hour of stepping foot on campus, we were asked to leave. We were slightly taken aback when a man, seemingly a staff member, told us that being from Gordon, we needed permission to hand out candy and be on their campus. We were not aware that permission would be needed to hand out free things, but respectively apologized and made our way back to Gordon.
In the end, we were able to hand out 67 out of 80 pieces of candy, and reach out to a great deal more. We’ve learned what a difference a simple act of kindness can make in everyone’s lives, staff member, student, Christian or unbeliever included. Even if our underlying message and reason for being on campus wasn’t openly or enthusiastically accepted, it was obvious that a warm smile and kind word went a long way and brightened many days. We definitely enjoyed loving and serving the students and faculty at Endicott and plan on continuing to share God’s love there in any way that we can, with permission of course.
