Manlove with his fellow classmates. Manlove is on the back row, fifth from the right.
This summer I had the privilege to spend nine weeks in the very beautiful Destin, Florida. I did this with a program called Kaleo, which was sponsored by Student Mobilization, or STUMO, a campus ministry. Kaleo is a summer project where students from the University of Arkansas and other college campuses are challenged and stretched to further their relationship with Christ. While in Destin, a group of four students live and learn together in what we call a discipleship group or D-group.
One of the most beneficial aspects of Kaleo is that you aren’t given a large amount of free time. Every participant is required to hold a full-time job on top of classes, bible studies and individual prep of material. Having a job allowed me to really learn to have a Christ-centered life, while following a busy schedule.
One of my favorite skills I learned at Kaleo was the “inductive bible study” method, which was a way to really break down the meaning of the bible. Using this inductive study, members in each D-group rotated leading a bible study for the group. We also studied facts backing up the validity of the bible, learned to defend our faith and learned to evangelize.
The evangelism part of the program was by far the most difficult and challenging part of the summer for me, but at the same time it was the most memorable. Throughout the summer, we would spend each Sunday on a beach sharing the gospel with strangers through an illustration called “the bridge.”
For me, already being a fairly shy individual, walking up to a random person on the beach and asking them to talk about God wasn’t my idea of an exciting time, but as the summer progressed I was able to clearly see how God was helping me grow in this area.
Although learning and developing these skills in a group of other believers was an awesome, unforgettable experience, it would mean nothing if it were to stop after the summer. So, the last week of the summer was spent exploring and planning ways we could share what we had learned at Kaleo with the rest of the U of A campus, our fraternity houses, sorority houses and dorms, in hopes to make an impact on those around us.
