Six years ago I started my college career at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. As a 19-year-old girl from Wausau, Wis., I had no idea what I was in for as I headed off to the university and to a campus whose population is larger than that of my entire hometown.
 
One thing I quickly learned as a student is that you can find just about everything on campus—every culture, every religion, every belief, and, of course, every opinion. Something else that I quickly realized is that with such a large number of students, the population of Christians on campus quickly can appear diluted.

When I was a microbiology undergraduate, I’m sure that many times I was the Christian population of one in the classroom. In fact, the microbiology professor with whom I did research throughout my undergraduate career asked me numerous times how I could be a microbiologist and doing well in my classes yet at the same time be stupid enough to believe in a Creator instead of the big bang theory. While this was not always easy to deal with, it certainly did challenge me to constantly be prepared to give an answer for the faith that I have.

As I transitioned into a graduate nursing program at the same university, little changed. Several of my current classmates have shadowed a nurse practitioner who performs abortions in Minneapolis, a career choice that they are proudly considering. Again, it has not always been easy to be the one with the opposing and sometimes unpopular viewpoint, but it is also a constant reminder of the work that God has placed all Christian students here to do. As Christians, if we were not there in that classroom, there might only be one viewpoint heard, only one value voiced. Even worse, there may be no one who aligns with the real truth.

But even if we happen to be the only believer in the classroom, we should not hide on campus because we are of Christ. Hebrews 10:39 states, “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” We are the blessed recipients of the amazing gift of salvation and the consequential peace that accompanies it. In light of what that gift means to us, what an opportunity to be the only Christian in a classroom!

Each Christian on any campus has the amazing opportunity of coming into contact with hundreds—even thousands—of unbelievers every day. How many people have that same opportunity? Every day we walk by new people; each semester we meet new classmates. There is always an abundance of new faces at the student union, libraries, and sporting events. The harvest is ripe, and the opportunities to share with others the glory of God’s love are bountiful! We have been commissioned to go into the world to win disciples for Christ.