When I walked into the Christian Student Fellowship house for the first time, it was a totally random thing that I was regretting even as I walked in the door.

I knew I should go to church. I had actually felt bad last Sunday as I sat in my bed, not knowing where I was going to go. A friend of mine from home had suggested a church somewhere not too far away, but I had been unable to find it, and for once in my life my family wasn’t there to take me to a church. So there I was sitting on my bed, Bible in hand trying to find something, anything to guide me. I remember reading something and thinking that I just wasn’t understanding it. I knew that I needed someone to help guide me through this book in front of me.

So on Wednesday night I went for a run and ended up running right by this building that I remembered seeing on one of the fliers my mom had left with me. The CSF house. It was like 9 o’clock and there were people heading inside so I figured, why not. I didn’t know it at the time, but God was leading me to a new family.

I didn’t know the new leader of the group I was put in would introduce me to some of my best friends and fellow student leaders. I didn’t know that the two men who were introduced as the “campus ministers” would give sermons that would speak right to my heart and lead me to new places in my walk with Christ that I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t know that all these people and many more would come together to help me to follow God’s will, not just because it was the right thing to do, but because I really wanted to. I didn’t know I had come to college not just to find a future job, but a new lifestyle as well.

It’s been a little over a year and a half now since God led me to CSF. In that time I have grown from accidentally following the path God has set out for me to purposely seeking out where he wants lead my life. Christianity is no longer something that is part of my life, it is my life. I feel I have grown in my faith and love of God more in the last year than I had ever imagined as possible when I first walked through the doors of the campus house.

I’m not going to lie, I still make mistakes and have many aspects of my faith that I still need to work on and grow in. But I know I am in a place that will help me in those areas. CSF isn’t some magic place that will take you right to heaven, but it is full of people who are willing to help you back up when you fall down, give you a shoulder to cry on, help keep you accountable when you need it, and help you understand and search the Bible.

I am currently a student leader at CSF and hoping pursues a career in missions when I graduate. If you had told me when I came here that I would be following a path that I don’t exactly know where it will lead, I would have laughed. Yet here I am blindly following my heavenly father where ever he may lead me.

-Allison Christener