Yesterday, Today, & Forever
Dear Friends & Family of Wesley,
This upcoming fall semester I will begin my 19th year as the Director of the ULM Wesley Foundation. Over the past 18 years, many students have been part of this ministry - bible studies, lunches, nights of worship, small groups, kayaks, leadership opportunities, testimonies, free burgers, mission trips, baptisms, retreats, intramural teams, cold plunges - all of these experiences & many others are part of the ongoing life of the Wesley Foundation.
For me, all of those experiences are tied to the faces and to the souls of the young men and women who have come to know Jesus better through this ministry. I have so many stories - some good, some not so good, but all are ongoing. The Apostle John writes at the end of his gospel that if everything Jesus did was written down, there wouldn’t be room in all the world for all the books. That’s sort of how I feel about this ministry…and I certainly can’t share everything in this letter. However, let me tell you about a senior named Abby. She recently started coming to our Monday night bible study with a couple of her friends. I eventually sat down with the three of them and asked what had recently sparked for them to open their lives up to Jesus. Abby told me that she had walked away from church years ago, but in the past couple months had felt like she needed to pray. She googled “what’s the most basic prayer” and started writing the Lord’s Prayer in her journal with her morning coffee. Over time, she said that many of the things that were holding her back from God or causing destruction in her life began to be “ripped” away. I asked her if she could tell me what follows the line “thy kingdom come” in that most famous prayer. She knew it - “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” I love Abby’s story. It’s one of the best ways I’ve seen the power of prayer in the life of a college student. God is bending Abby’s will to his. Her story is not over, but man is it heading in the right direction!
Wesley Foundation campus ministries were founded in the mid twentieth century by Methodists across our country. Local Methodist Churches in the Northeast Louisiana area worked together with the Louisiana Annual Conference of Methodists to charter the college ministry we know today as the ULM Wesley Foundation. For many years, nearly 1/3 of our annual budget has come in the form of a grant from the Louisiana Annual Conference of United Methodism (LA-UMC). The time has now come when that $75,000 grant will no longer be available to us. Apart from a potential $7000 grant (which would be 2.7% of our annual budget) the LA-UMC is no longer financially connected to our ministry.
This leaves us with quite a large gap in our funding. Our current board of directors has individually pledged a total of $14,250 in one time gifts to help us finish out the current year. They have also made increased annual pledges for 2026 totaling $15,000.
As a friend of this ministry, I am asking you for a one-time gift right now and a commitment to begin or increase your annual pledge for 2026. You can give online at http://ulmwesley.org/donate. If you would like to set up or update a bank draft, please email our Board Financial Officer at deliathewesley@gmail.com.
My 11th grade SS teacher, Mrs. Carol Cobb, quoted Hebrews 13:8 nearly every Sunday. The ULM Wesley Foundation & Alan Johnson will continue to share the Jesus that is the same yesterday, today, & forever with every college student we can for as long as we can. If you have any questions about our ministry, please contact me. I’d love to share more of the story!
Christ Reigns!
Rev. Alan Johnson