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"Trashy" Stories!
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  In the Fall 1996 issue of Student Leadership journal, we printed a brief story about students at UNC-Greensboro who went door to door in their dorm collecting their neighbors' trash as a way to live out their faith. Recently we have heard about several other chapters who are also doing "trash can evangelism." Could it be that chapter leaders are actually reading SLJ, and picking up useful ideas from our stories? We hope so, but we'd love to collect more evidence.

Anyway, here are more trashy stories for those in our audience who like this sort of thing.--Ed.

Kevin Love and Mark Early live on the fourth floor of Tonopah Hall at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. As chapter leaders, they have been looking for ways to serve the students on their dorm floor. So they borrowed a large trash can and taped a sign on it that said, "Jesus takes the trash out of your life." Their staff worker, Shawn Young, says, "It's a little cheesy, but such is the charm of these two. They make everything fun, including ministry."

According to Shawn, students in the dorm throw their trash into the large can in the hall and Mark and Kevin take it down to the dumpster each week. Sometimes they go by each room and offer to take out people's garbage for them.

Mark says the response has been varied. "Several people have asked about the trash can, or commented about the sign. My R.A. was sarcastic at first because he expected us to do it for a week and then give it up.trash But we still do it every week." By serving their fellow students and expecting nothing in return, says Shawn, they demonstrate the servant nature of Jesus in their lives. After all, Mark and Kevin know that "trash removal" was an important part of Jesus' ministry, too.

At the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, dorm residents answered a knock on their door and were surprised to find one black student and one white student asking for their trash. The trash collection project was a joint effort of InterVarsity's two UT-K undergraduate groups: CBC (Collegiate Black Christian) and TCF (Tennessee Christian Fellowship).

According to staff worker Jeannie Musick, members of both groups were paired up to make each trash-collection team interracial. This gave an opportunity for the two sister organizations to work together to share the gospel by serving fellow students in a very tangible way.

Some dorm students asked, "Why are you doing this?", giving an opportunity for a brief conversation. Others just stared in stunned silence, eventually leading the way to their trash can and watching in amazement as the InterVarsity students emptied their trash into large plastic bags. Jeannie says that the garbage-collecting teams always left a note describing the meeting times and places of the chapters' small groups. Each note included 1 John 3:18 (NIV): "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth." These UT-K students are praying that their daily actions will speak about the reality of Jesus to their campus neighbors-and not just on trash day.

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