Collide Retreat - Student Testimonies

This retreat weekend was amazing. I got to know a lot of different people and learn about who I am through the spiritual gift test. I had one of my spiritual gifts be ministry/server/helper. I thought that was pretty cool because I do that in my church already with AWANA. I thank God for bringing me here this weekend. I hope to stay friends with the students I met here.
-Samantha King

I just want to think AustinLIT for their vision and ministry to ACC students. I had been feelings a bit stuck in life until I came to this retreat, since I am 20 and just starting out at ACC. It seemed really hard to meet believers at ACC and I was desperately trying not to have to do the Christian thing on my own. Everyone at the retreat was so welcoming and I had so much fun meeting people who truly want to be a community of Christ-followers. I was really inspired by Josh’s message to seek to be a giver in community and I thank God for the opportunity to fellowship with the people I have met here,
-Katie Hoffman

I came to the Collide retreat not knowing what to expect and I was nervous about the people I would meet. I wasn’t sure how God was going to use me of He even was at all. I almost felt useless before I came to the retreat, but by the second night as we were sitting around the bonfire I realized God made no one to feel or be useless. WE all have a purpose and are most definitely not all going to reach our purpose in the same way, In all of our differences though we created a loving community full of God’s promise. The second night of the retreat God moved us all, we experienced his presence and felt His love.
-Kodi Keese

I didn’t want to come this weekend. I have felt far from God, yet there is something about getting away from the “world” for a while. In Ephesians it says stand firm over and over again. I try daily to stand firm in this this battle that rages around me. This weekend brought me back to solid ground and helped me stand firm. I read in Ecclesiastes about dry bones yesterday. While I wasn’t dead anymore I still felt “dry” and the Lord restored my heart this weekend, putting flesh and tendons back on my dry bones.
-Haleigh Pier

It is such an encouragement to see ACC students coming together and focusing on the same mission. I know it can be daunting endeavor to reach fellow classmates and students with Christ, but I hope that through Collide students can be challenged and encouraged to change the culture of ACC one step at a time.
-Dustin Cox

God has challenged me to use my gifts as a leader and a wise young man in everything I do. I feel as if God has come into my life this weekend and spoke words of wisdom to me. He wants me to be brave and have courage as I move into manhood and lead others to do as I did and live a life more Christ-like. God is an almighty God and life without him is a life no one wants to live. I’ve come to realize this lately and life now has more meaning to me.  Even the more unappreciated things such as waking up with a smile on my face has meaning to me now.  So I testify that every moment of my life from now until my end will be spent with God first in my life. God is good and I love God.
-Larry Durand

I have a gift of faith- weakness is wrong . It’s lack of faith when Satan attacks
I have a gift of boldness- weakness and timidity is how Satan attacks me
I have a gift of Joy- sadness and depression are Satan’s atempts of robbing me of my joy
I have gift of compassion- I often judge others but over the last few months I have been seeking God and running after him. He has installed extreme and radical faith, boldness, joy and compassion without weakness because God is the center of my life!
-Aubrey Walling

I came into this weekend just ready to play basketball, kickball, and basically looking forward to just goofing around. But Saturday night I really got a wake up call when we did the fireside worship. I realized that God was calling me to be a leader and to make sure that I don’t let this feeling die in a week. Looking back I can really tell that God was here the whole time. I am really just glad I came on this trip and I just get jealous when I think about the group that gets to come next year.
-Phillip Remore

This weekend was just what God ordered! I knew coming into the semester that God had big plans for ACC and LIT this semester. Little did I know he was raising up a city-wide army of passionate, Jesus loving world changers!  This weekend I saw God stoking fires of passion and purpose inside the hearts of college students. I’m pumped to see us carry that fire back to campus and watch it spread like wildfire!  The community founded this weekend encouraged me that I’m not alone and that we can be the change we want to see. The best part is God is just getting started….
-Zac Tinney

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Startling Facts on Abortion

January 18th, 2010 - The following is a personal letter I sent to all of my closest family and friends last week. It contains facts and truths that I was horrified to discover earlier this year and I pray that as you read it God would stir in your heart as well.
-Joe Elliott, Director of Austin Lit

Do you know the roots of the abortion movement in the US? Educate yourself.

Maafa 21 Documentary Excerpt from Jyra Films on Vimeo.

To my family whom I love,

I cannot sleep tonight.  I got out of bed at 4am this morning to begin this email that I am compelled to write.  I love you all too much not to make you aware of the truth and give you an opportunity to respond to it. This weekend I am gearing up to take a few van loads of folks from Austin to Houston to participate in an MLK Day Walk in downtown's third ward.  I consider this the most important public stand I have ever been apart of and will be joining thousands and thousands in the Houston area who have been awakened to the truth of what I am about to share with you.

Before I go into detail on what is happening this weekend I want to tell you that 12 months ago I saw abortion as a political issue, that although I was against in principal, did not impact me and was a battle that I need not get involved in.  Over the past year I have had the opportunity to be educated on what is really going on in the abortion industry, how it operates and how our culture has been deceived.  To put it simply, I was shocked and embarrassed that a "Christian" such as myself had no idea about any of this and had been passive on the issue for so long.  Now that has changed and here is a brief snapshot of what I have learned that has awakened my heart and fueled my passion to go from passively to ACTIVELY Pro-life:


First, it is important to understand the founding of any movement and in the case of abortion you need to know Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood (America's #1 Abortion Provider that kills 4,000 babies a day), was an extreme racist.  Sanger was an avid supporter of eugenics and shared the same common beliefs about jews, blacks, hispanics and other minorities as Adolf Hitler and the Klu Klux Klan.  The motivation behind the pro-choice movement from the beginning was about targeting minorities and killing them as fast as possible.  Here are some quotes from her publications and letters:

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with
social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most
successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.
We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro
population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if
it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
-- Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255
Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts.

"[Slavs, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are] human weeds ... a
deadweight of human waste ... [Blacks, soldiers, and Jews are a] menace to
the race."
"Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent
Multiplication of this bad stock."
-- Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review .

... The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members
is to kill it."
-- Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel , Volume I, Number 1.
Reprinted in Woman and the New Race . New York: Brentanos Publishers,
1922.

"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
-- Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control . New York: New
York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.


"The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless
ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose
religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers.
Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper
element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their
support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the
procreation of this group should be stopped."
-- Margaret Sanger. Speech quoted in Birth Control: What It Is, How It
Works, What It Will Do. The Proceedings of the First American Birth
Control Conference . Held at the Hotel Plaza, New York City, November 11-
12, 1921.

1. Clever marketing has led to the advancement of the abortion industry.  Make no mistake, as former abortionists and abortion facility workers such as Abbey Johnson, Jill Stanek and countless others will tell you, what drives the abortion industry today is MONEY!  The simple human motivation of greed has been masked under a marketing banner of Womens Rights, Women's Choice, Womens Health for decades now.  Former abortion clinic owner Carrol Everett in her book 'Blood Money: Getting Rich Off a Woman's Right to Choose' describes how they had sales meetings which targeted ways to get women to come back for multiple abortions and the deceiving tactics they used to draw women in for free sonograms and other services only to push them on having abortions. 
2. 98% of all abortions occur not because of womens health concerns or cases of rape and incest but simply because having a baby is inconvenient for the woman at that time.  Of the top reasons cited by women as to why they were having an abortion they said:  Can't afford it right now, not ready to be a mom, being pressured from a boyfriend or close family members, and other similar social concerns. 
3. Fact: Women have abortions not because they are Pro-Choice but because they feel as if they have No Choice.  When surveyed, over 60% of women who had an abortion said they would have kept the baby if just 1 person in their life had urged them to do so.
4. Today, abortion clinics make women who are deciding on whether to have abortions feel Heroic for making the decision and affirm them by telling them it is the responsible thing to do and is in their best health interest.  Not only is this part of the sales strategy but it is simply not true.  The physical and emotional scares run deep and never go away.  Not only is breast cancer and other various diseases more common in post abortion women, but the likelihood of becoming sterile is significantly higher as well.  They are also 6 times more likely to commit suicide or suffer from clinical depression. There are 2 women alone in my small 300 member church who have had to start a ministry for post abortion women because of all the emotional trauma that still exists for so many even decades after the abortion!
5. Most abortion facilities will not let women see the sonogram or hear the heartbeat on a monitor when they go in for a free screening because those who do are more likely to realize its a live human being inside them and opt not to abort, which of course is lost revenue. 
6. Abortion clinics intentionally use terms like cells or embryo to refer to the baby inside them as these words help women believe that what they are killing inside them is not a human but a bunch of undeveloped cells.
7. Most abortions occur after the 7th week of a pregnancy when the baby has already developed arms, legs, fingers, toes, circulatory and major muscle systems.  The heart at this point has been beating for 4 weeks already!
8. 100% of the people I have surveyed so far have said that they were glad they were born and if given the choice while in the womb they would vote to be born, not die.