Fall Encounter Student Retreat 2026: Are you Born Again?

Watch the Chicago UBF TV News: https://youtu.be/LMnBlFz9_08?si=yL0Nc7SRbXH7JWoq

The Fall Encounter Student Retreat took place at the Streator Baptist Camp, September 25-27 with 72 students and 29 adults.To start things off, God blessed the gospel presentation based on John 3:16 by Grace Min, followed by John 3's message, ”Are you born again?” by Chris Hoffman and a Panel discussion on who the Holy Spirit is and how to walk in the Holy Spirit with Dylan Burke, Zach Ninan and moderator Grace Park, and on the last day a powerful John 4 message by P. Mark Vucekovich. A prayer team across campuses met every Tuesday for 2 months and prayed for every part of the program and most of all for 70 students to be born again. God touched each student by the work of the word of God and the Holy Spirit. During the retreat God raised up prayer servants every hour to pray for each student by name faithfully throughout the retreat. God blessed the student Group Bible Study leaders to prepare wonderful Bible studies and students wrote and shared testimonies with repentance and faith. Followed by this were the praise and worship teams by Joshua Perez and his wife, Isaiah Heurta, Alinne Tapia, Charis & Kristal. 

The highlight was the Holy Spirit panel discussion with Dylan Burke, Zach Ninan and Grace Park where they learned about the Holy Spirit, how he moves to give birth and then works into our lives practically. Then there were practical testimonies of how the Holy Spirit works in people's lives personally. Afterwards, all people signed a covenant with God the Holy Spirit. On Sunday, Makayla shared her baptism testimony and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through Pastor Mark Vucekovich. Congratulations to Makayla!! There were many fun activities, such as archery, axe throwing, boating, soccer, basketball, gun range shooting and hay riding.  After the retreat, each attendant received daily post retreat devotions to help them keep walking in the Spirit and overcome post-retreat blues. 

In the end God blessed the unity of mid-West ministries; Milwaukee, IIT, U of I Urbana Champaign, Central Illinois, DePaul, College of Dupage, NEIU, UIC, Indianapolis, Loyola, College of Lake county, Harper and Washington University. A collection of offerings to send to Ukraine brothers and sisters was done. There was a prayer room for those who want to have personal prayer.

The encounter retreat gave an opportunity for all college students to learn of the Gospel, prepare their hearts through prayer and to be born again.