Tomasini Family: First week of School!

Well let's see what all has happened in the last week or so. We started off the term with a retreat for the students who serve with us on Campus. It was alot of fun. We have this great 3 story house out in the woods that is loaned to us and we take lots of food, games, and pillows. We spent the weekend eating, sitting by the fireplace watching movies, and brainstorming about how we wanted to share the love that we have for Jesus with other students on campus. It was great! Then all week long on campus we had an information table set up. It was really amazing to see how many students we met that we had never even seen before. Most were very interested in knowing more about what NCM "Northwest Collegiate Ministries" had to offer. One of the days we were on campus we ran into one of the few people that really doesn't like us. In fact I would come close to saying she loathes us. I'll tell you a quick story about her and then we can move on..... So last term we were handing out candy on campus during finals week and each piece of candy that we passed out had a little note of encouragement on it with a scripture verse and a note that said, "hope you are blessed this week, we are praying for you". Well Sage is always a great helper and since I didn't have a babysitter that day I thought it would be a good day for her to tag along. To make a very long story short, she gave a piece of candy to a lady who was not as appreciative as everyone else. This woman came and found me a few minutes later and proceeded with what we have now called "The Altercation". She informed me that she was very offended that I would, "Use my child to peddle my God Crap!" Needless to say I was so shocked I didn't know what to say so I did what came naturally, I laughed....and said, "I'm so sorry! But have a great day anyway!!!" And before I could say anything else she walked off. It was quite a shocking day. Well now this last week Von also was blessed enough to have an "Altercation" of his own with this woman. He was setting up our info table in the student center and she walked past him grumbling and he said, "Hey have a good day". but unfortunately he didn't stop there and he happened to throw in a "God Bless You!" at the end of his greeting. Well her reply was quite humorous and a little confusing. She said "He'd better not! That's taking away my rights!" And she stomped off down the hall. Later that morning she passed by our table and conveniently enough happened to pick up her phone right as she passed by and say, "The Damn Christians are Here Again!!!" It gave us a good chuckle but Von and I talked and we decided that from now on we will not provoke this poor woman with any greeting of blessing or random act of kindness involving candy or scripture, we won't invite her to our bible studies or worship services, we will just say hello and silently pray for her. As frustrating a situation as this was we later found out from a friend that this woman who happens to be a lesbian has suffered much ridicule at the hand of what she thinks are Christians. Apparently she has walked out to her truck on campus multiple times and found it tagged with things like "Jesus Hates Homo's". It was saddening to find this out and to think that she associates us and what we do with those same idiots that would write something as heartless and un-christian as that. But it does motivate us to pray for her and to have compassion instead of being offended when she walks by and makes rude comments just loud enough for us to hear.

After Von found out what this woman had endured at the hand of so-called "Christians" he said he wants to make a shirt that says "Jesus hates those that hate homo's" but we all know that's not true either. He said maybe we could just make one that says, "Did you know that hating Homosexuals could get you to hell". But thankfully he decided that wouldn't get us anywhere either. Thankfully Jesus loves us all! Even the stupid, hateful, people that write stuff on peoples cars to be jerks. If only I could learn that same kind of love. So if you think about it pray for this "unnamed" woman and pray that we would happen to have the opportunity some day to show her how much we care for her and how much Jesus loves her!

It's been a crazy start to the term but we are blessed to be here!