Orientation Week

We started off the new 2012-2013 academic year with our usual Orientation Week mission on campus from the 24th to the 28th of September. As the first years were having their campus orientation and returning students were registering we took the opportunity to reach out to the students, sharing the gospel with them and inviting them to join our fellowship. Armed with flyers, information brochures and questionnaires, we had one-on-one chats with up to 200 students throughout the week. Most of the students we approached were receptive but, we did get a couple of cold shoulders.

The week activities culminated in our Welcome Event held at the City Presbyterian Church. We were looking forward to a good turnout based on our interactions during the week but much to our disappointment not a single 1st year student came. This was however compensated by some new returning students who joined us. We have since been following up on the contacts we collected through the questionnaires and attendance is building up for the Friday Bible studies code named “Vital Connections”.

Welcome Event Part 2.

If you can’t bring the 1st year students to the Welcome Event you will have to bring the Welcome Event to the students! This is exactly what we did when we organised a follow up event on Friday the 12th of October at a student residence in Selbourne Park that houses about 60 students. We first made a visit on Wednesday evening, briefly introducing ourselves and the ministry and then explaining what will be rocking on Friday evening and inviting them to the event.

Come Friday we had a good turnout. The event started off on a social note with the staff and committee chatting informally with the students. This was followed by a formal presentation of Student U made by Willard Mudzimiri as he outlined the core values of Student U, our ministry focus and activities. This followed by more sosh time over sandwiches before knocking. Looking ahead we have great expectations for this new academic year.

By Gift Gana

Introducing Student U

The start of the 2012 to 2013 academic year at NUST came about with the name change and rebranding of our ministry. From the University Christian Students Fellowship, UCSF, we have now become Student UCSF. More simply called Student U. Beyond the name change, we have also adopted a new logo. Both the new name and logo have been adopted from the Student Y in Cape Town, South Africa, with their permission through the relationship we share with them. For Student U, the similarities we now share with Student Y feel so natural as the founding documents and ministry model that UCSF was established upon were adopted from Student Y. As the years have gone by, we continue to benefit much from Student Y’s many years of ministry experience as we interact with them.

The name change was inspired by the serious struggle that many seemed to have in saying out our abbreviation ‘UCSF’ correctly. From USFC, USF, UCF, you name it, many just could not get it right. It was mostly people new to our ministry who struggled with it but it also included some who had interacted with our ministry right from its inception. This we felt was such a handicap for our ministry especially considering that we desire our name to spread in our mission field so that many would know us by name and would consider joining us. In the new name we have sort to preserve our old identity as UCSF which most of our alumni would best identify with and also simplify it in its short form so that it is easy to catch.