Excuses, excuses. That’s what I have to offer you today. I was out of town for the entire weekend, and it slipped my mind that I was supposed to write a column for today. That was disastrous. I also forgot to bring any of the homework that was actually due this week (though of course I did remember to bring the research books for the paper due at midterms.) Go figure. But if nothing else, after a measured 32 seconds of sheer terror at missing a deadline, I decided that I might as well make the best of things and write about this weekend.
So what happened? Where did I go? Home? No, of course not. I took a little trip up to Brainerd, Minn., to a place called Cragun’s with the Winona State Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for Breakaway 2006. At last count, a highly informal poll conducted by searching for “people who enjoy Intervarsity” on Facebook, (which we all know as the fount of all meaningful knowledge and life goals), 109 people had Intervarsity on their list of interests.
Intervarsity is a Christian fellowship that meets on campus in Somsen Hall auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. It’s full of cool people, diverse denominational affiliations, political beliefs and just about everything else. If you’re interested in Christianity, are a Christian or just want a place to hang out with friendly people, drop on by.
But I digress slightly. Breakaway is a bit of an intense weekend. We studied. We didn’t sleep much, though I plead mea culpa on that point since we were up playing card games. We prayed. We worshipped God our way—with instruments that people over forty often cannot identify.
I spent it with the same people I wrote about last week, and no one died, much to my surprise given the banana-mashing and water-pouring of the last few weeks and especially given a somewhat dangerous form of entertainment at Breakaway involving an individual in a wheelchair, two individuals on ice skates, and a frozen lake... but that’s not what it was about. We had fun with our friends, but we were there to meet God, and we did.
Now, I’m not a preachy person by nature, and I won’t preach to you now. I’m a Christian and a believer and I won’t apologize for that either, it’s just who I am. But you’ve got to admit that there’s something spectacular about a group who was asked to raise $4,500 for a sister program in Russia. The schools represented didn’t quite raise $4,500; they raised over $6,000 instead.
I’ll give anyone at least a little bit of credit for strongly holding any reasonable belief, even an old friend who insists that man never landed on the moon. But the power of Intervarsity’s faith, love and generosity? That’s special.

Reach Samuel KeaneRudolph at SKeaneRu4088@winona.edu.