Newsletters

September 2004

The Apparent Movement of God

Sometimes God works behind the scenes and it is hard to see what He is doing. Other times it is very apparent that God is working. I feel like this school year is one of those times.

From the University of Michigan, to Eastern Michigan University, to Albion College, Adrian College and Hillsdale University God is moving on our campuses. Here are a few snapshots of the hand of God on these campuses.

¨ At Adrian College we did around 300 surveys on a campus of around 1000 students. Almost all of them indicated an interest in Bible studies and we had 65 show up at the first study (at a school whose largest meeting in the past 5 years has been 20).

¨ At Western Michigan University where we do not yet have a ministry, Campus Crusade regional staff passed out freshmen survival kits to 200 students and 140 of those students expressed interest in starting Campus Crusade on their campus. Western Michigan is one of the campuses now a part of the scope of our team and we hope to send staff there by next year.

¨ At Eastern they had 75 students come to their first weekly meeting in spite of competition from the end of the opening football game (the largest meeting of last year was around 50).

¨ In Alice Lloyd Residence Hall at U-M we had 42 students come to the first Bible study. As recently as two years ago we had under 10 students involved in Bible studies in this dorm.

¨ On the first day of classes at U-M we did over 6000 spiritual interest questionnaires. It seemed as if a much greater percentage of students expressed interest in a Bible discussion or in participating in an interview than ever before.

¨ At U-M we had 350 students come to the first Bible studies, held in each of the dorms. 185 of these students were freshmen! We also had 400 students come to our first large group meeting called Cru.

These are just a few examples of God’s movement on these campuses. These next couple weeks are the most critical weeks of our year as we follow up these thousands of cards, having an opportunity to share Christ with hundreds of students and prayerfully seeing a first wave of students begin a relationship with Christ.

One of 6000 spiritual interest questionnaires filled out at U-M on the first day of classes. This is from Couzens, one of Nate’s dorms.

Our staff team. This year two couples joined our team who are working at Eastern Michigan University. Nate will be training one of these men as he begins his ministry at Eastern. We also have three staff placed on our team who are raising their financial support.

Kids' Corner

I started school a couple weeks ago. It is so much fun! I am learning how to write lower-case letters. Math is my favorite, though, because I get to work with different colored blocks. Lauren plays while I do school. This is my second year in Cubbies in AWANA. I am in a different class than Lauren so I can’t keep my eye on her.

-Andrew

I am 3! Mommy made a big cookie for my birthday and I heard “Happy Birthday” a lot that day. I even got a balloon from the grocery store! One very fun thing on my birthday was getting to start Cubbies. Andrew went all last year and I cried because I couldn’t go. So now it’s my turn too! It was so much fun! We were talking about God on our way to Cubbies and I told Mommy, “I want to hug Him.” She thought that was cute.

-Lauren

I am getting around by myself now! I love to stand, but Mommy doesn’t seem to agree that she needs to be hanging onto my hands constantly. I have to resort to getting around some other way. I heard that Andrew army crawled when he was a baby and I absolutely adore him, so I decided to follow in his footsteps and army crawl. Did you ever think about all the exciting things there are to get into? Suddenly my Mommy and Daddy are walking around taking away all the really fun small things, though.

-Lindsey

Andrew's Arthritis Update

Have we had a whirlwind experience with Drew’s arthritis! It got really bad in Florida, to the point where he was crawling around in the mornings. Once on steroids it improved temporarily. Then he had a steroid injection directly into the knee and had no limping whatsoever for 1 week. The next week he was back to limping so I called and got him an appointment and we asked everybody to pray for him. The following week the limping stopped! Praise the Lord! When I called to cancel the appointment, the nurse said, “Oh, so he had a miraculous healing?” How else can you explain it? Our God is powerful and He hears our prayers. We thank Him for the improvement in Andrew and we thank you for your prayers!

The kids have loved playing outside during this late summer and early fall. The especially like riding their bikes and, most recently, playing soccer. Andrew especially loves to play keep away from Daddy and is beginning to gain some proficiency in  kicking the ball. Lindsey’s favorite thing is crawling through the grass and eating the leaves that have begun to fall.

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