Last week, Hebron Church blessed my college campus ministry, Reformed University Fellowship at Penn State University, by hosting us while we participated in a spring break work project. RUF is a Christian organization formed by the Presbyterian Church in America with a goal to reach college students across the country with the Gospel. Fourteen students, a campus minister, and an intern arrived in Pittsburgh from PSU the night of Sunday the 6th and stayed at the Barclay building until Friday night. Our team partnered with an organization called Open Hand Ministries, a group focused on finding and building homes for those who are under the poverty line and are not financially literate. We worked for a week on a home in East Liberty building a fence for the backyard, a front porch, and doing a lot of siding.
Our evenings consisted of discussions about how Christians should view poverty, generosity, and how to care for our neighbors. We spent an afternoon and evening in the city touring the Strip District and going to view Pittsburgh from Mount Washington. Our evening dinners were assisted by my mother, Kelly Knapp, who all the students, of course, loved getting to meet. My dad wrote our morning devotionals—studying how the Psalms view desiring God. Jerry was also incredibly wonderful to us, asking if we needed anything and taking great care of the building. Words cannot express our overall thanks to everyone at Hebron who dropped off snacks, provided desserts, baked cookies for us, and most of all—prayed for us.
The trip could not have gone better, and we were incredibly thankful for such a wonderful place to stay and an example of a hospitable church family. From all of us at Penn State RUF, thank you so much.
