by C.P., Villanova

My university is a predominately Roman Catholic private university. I never thought that the Lord could use me or anyone else to move in this university. However, I was taken aback when what started as a Day of Spiritual Refreshment turned into a campus operation between three saints: an upper classman, my roommate, and me. On the Day of Spiritual Refreshment the Lord touched me at a meeting where the topic was to preach the gospel. At the end of the day, I took a stack of gospel tracts back to my dorm, because I wanted to slip them under the doors of my hallmates. This small start gave the upper classman, a brother named Phil, an idea. Phil contacted my roommate and I and said that he was going to order a case of 650 Bibles for America door hangers, because he felt that the students at Villanova really needed the Lord. When the door hangers came, we assembled all of them.

We had no idea where to start, what to do, or when to do it, so we started by meeting up for lunch and planning on where to start. We decided to start at Stanford—the biggest dorm on campus—which houses around 500 freshmen. We called our move Operation Big Mountain because of the size of the dorm and because of the idea that after this first dorm, the others would be more enjoyable. It was difficult deciding on what day and time to make our move. Our classes conflicted with each other, and on top of that, we all had homework, papers, and meetings to attend. Honestly, it was frustrating to have the plan pushed back week after week. We must have rescheduled the day about three times! We finally settled on starting on a Tuesday when the enemy struck. My roommate got really sick Monday night and had to go to the health center. We thought the operation would have to be pushed back yet again, but my roommate took the day off to get better, and by the end of the day, she was better. We were finally going to distribute some seeds!

After my last class was over, we went back to our dorm to get the door hangers. We were walking out of our dorm when we saw policemen in the hallway and wondered what they were doing. It turned out that on that day, the school was testing the fire alarms for all of the dorms! A few seconds later, the fire alarm went off, and hurrying out of the dorm, we narrowly escaped the stampede of people who were going to rush out. Noting that we had limited time, we made our way to Stanford, found a lounge to pray in, and then made our way to the fifth and topmost floor of the dorm so that we could work our way downward. We went through each hallway together and hung door hangers on all the doors except those of the residence assistants and the Campus Ministry students (who are Catholic and probably wouldn't have been happy to find our door hangers on their doorknobs). A few residents opened their doors, which led to questions and conversations with them. One of the male residents saw Phil putting a door hanger on his door and asked, "What are you putting on my door?" When Phil told him, he said, "That's good. I need a Bible. I left mine at home," and when Phil handed him a brochure, he immediately started filling out the form for a Bible. In one of the hallways, I passed by an open door and saw five students inside. I handed a brochure to one of them, and the others asked me what it was. When I told them, the other four asked me for one too. Praise the Lord! When we got to the ground floor, we saw the campus officers making their way inside. The three of us split up, and each of us took a hallway and finished our distribution. We finally finished and made our way to the exit. It was amazing how we left the dorm just as the officers came in to set off the fire alarm.

The Lord really covered us during this move. It took a lot of prayer and support to carry out Operation Big Mountain. Even though the three of us were tired, sweaty, and a bit scared of being caught, I had never felt so happy since arriving on campus. A total of about 250 BFA door hangers were distributed to the students in Stanford, and later we distributed another 65 to our dorm (that is how small our dorm is compared to Stanford) . Through this mass sowing of seeds, we saw how merciful the Lord is. May He continue to cover us as we move with Him!