This past week was Freshman Orientation Week at the University of the South Pacific. We've been preparing for Orientation for a little over three weeks and were extremely excited when it finally arrived. Just like Freshman Orientations in America, there were several student organizations promoting themselves as well as a few local companies (banks, phone and internet companies). Here's our Student Life tent:
Setting up for the first day of Orientation!
The finished product
Leading up to Orientation week, our team had prepared 750 First Year Kits. These are simply paper bags that included a pen, highlighter, candy and materials about Jesus. Just like in the States, Fijian students love free stuff! Apparently some things transcend culture. We simply asked students to fill out a short survey in order get a bag of free stuff and to enter a drawing to win a prize. At the end of the day, we have a survey with student's contact information indicating if they're interested in hearing more about Jesus Christ or getting involved with a Christian organization on campus. After we sort through the cards that indicate interest in Jesus or Student Life, we'll have a great base to follow-up with this semester.
Our table containing First Year Kits (left), free candy which they call lollies (middle) and the draw box for the surveys (right)
The Grand Prizes! Twenty 8GB Flash Drives and Two Personal Video Players
I said before that some things transcend culture. Other things do not. As we set up the first day of Orientation, we wanted to be proactive in getting students to our booth, not just sit back and wait for them to come. As Americans, if we want something, we're used to going out and getting it. So we made a few signs and stationed a few people at busy sidewalks to hand out surveys as students walked by. Lots of students came straight to our booth while others filled them out in their own time and dropped them off later in the day. On the first day of Orientation, we were the only group that was proactively pursuing students. All of the other groups watched over five hundred students come to our booth in the course of one day. On the second day of Orientation, other groups, including corporate sponsors, were out on the sidewalks passing out materials to students. I guess we set the tone!
Rob talking with students about the survey
Student Leaders helping us pack more First Year Kits after running out two days in
If you're still reading and wondering how many students we came into contact with, I'm about to tell you. We originally packed 750 First Year Kits in hopes of collecting a thousand surveys. We had over a thousand students fill out surveys halfway through the week. When the week was all said and done, we had nearly 1,700 students fill out a survey! Yeah, that's right, seventeen hundred! Student Life did something similar last year during Orientation week and received 250 new contacts. This year, we increased six fold.
Realistically, there are some students who probably filled out more than one survey and not all of them will be interested in Student Life or Jesus. But that's 1,700 students who we now have contact information for and who now know of Student Life, which is still relatively small with about one hundred members. Everyone involved this week is incredibly excited and I hope that as you read about what God is doing in Fiji, you're excited to! If you're still reading, please pray for the students who filled out surveys. Beginning Monday, we'll start contacting them to share the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ. We definitely have our work cut out for us!
Mesa, this year's Student Life President, and Dave.... speechless!
We're relaxing a little bit this weekend and preparing for the greatest adventure of our lives to begin on Monday. Pray for us as the Gospel goes out on the Campus of the University of the South Pacific in the next few weeks!
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