The Lord is good and faithful indeed. That is all that can really sum up just how we feel about what God is doing with Wonderfully Made recently! Allie and I are at Pepperdine University in Malibu this week during their New Student Orientation (NSO), getting the campus excited about the brand new WM chapter. Nothing to do with this chapter has been of our own efforts–all of it has to be attributed to the Lord. He has prepared the way in so many ways… Allie founded Wonderfully Made while she was a student at Pepperdine, and I first got in touch with Allie and learned about Wonderfully Made because of a poster I saw on campus during my sophomore year at Pepperdine–a time when I had to leave my overseas program because I was struggling with an eating disorder. Although at that time it didn’t work out to have a chapter there, Allie and I stayed in touch and Wonderfully Made was always in the back of my mind. The Lord brought me back to Malibu after graduation to be in ministry to the Pepperdine girls through Malibu Presbyterian Church’s University Ministries, and through that He connected me with the godly women who he later would have in leadership for our chapter on the campus. I joined the Wonderfully Made team in January, and during our first team retreat, God made it clear to us that we needed to start a WM chapter at Pepperdine. In His faithfulness, he has continually paved the way through the willing and eager hearts of students and faculty at Pepperdine to make this chapter possible. Wonderfully Made is now a student-led ministry on campus, and we have a full team of wise female mentors to support the girls as they create safe, loving community at Pepperdine. While Pepperdine was once a place of darkness for both Allie and myself (as well as many of our student leaders), He is now redeeming it and shining His light upon it. With Wonderfully Made on campus, girls will now have a community where they can be free to be honest about their brokenness, and resources to help them discover their true value in the Lord. On a beautiful campus where so many feel hopeless, God is tenderly calling us into His arms, providing a door of hope for all who are weary.
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. ‘In that day,’ declares the LORD, ‘you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.'” (Hosea 2:14-16)
To meet the team and learn more about Wonderfully Made @ Pepperdine, please visit our new website.
