I cried on campus today. The police bombarded the campus with tear gas (bombas lacrimogenas) for several hours. We had planned to have a party on campus today. We are trying a variety of things to see what works and what doesn't to gather students.
For two weeks now there have been protests by students in secondary education because of increasing charge for the PSU (like ACT of SAT) and inefficiency in distributing the transportation ID for low cost transportation. The police showed up at campus to try and disperse the crowd of students with tear gas and other tactics.
Four days in the past two weeks I have showed up to campus to find the main entrance closed. There is always another way in. For the most part we have been able to keep doing things on campus. Today I spent four hours on campus. It was sweet to be able to interact with lots of students. Our exposure of the freshman class and other efforts to get connected on campus are paying off. We are constantly running into students we know.
Schedule seems to be one of the major obstacles. We hope to start a number of groups so students that really want to get involved can find a spot that fits their schedule. These groups, which we call "Punto de Encuentro", will be the basic community where students can build or explore a relationship with God.
