August 2005

Join us in Battle Preparations

The next 2 weeks will be spent preparing for the fall semester. We will spend more time preparing this year as we take on more campuses. Here are the campuses where we have a movement or are seeking to start a movement:

University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, MI

Eastern Michigan University—Ypsilanti, MI

Adrian College—Adrian, MI

Albion College—Albion, MI

Western Michigan University—Kalamazoo, MI

Hillsdale College—Hillsdale, MI

We have included this calendar which indicates when each school starts. Please pray with us on that day for that school.

August 22

Albion—Pray for strong leaders, especially men. Also pray for Kurt, new staff, taking over the men’s ministry.

August 24

Hillsdale—Nate attempted to begin a ministry here 6 years ago but was rebuffed by the administration. Since then we have been able to begin an athletic ministry. Pray that our presence on campus will be positive in the administration’s eyes and that many students on this conservative campus will be challenged to step up in faith.

August 29

Western—Pray as we start this ministry, that key students will be found and that we will have a core group of students by Christmas. Also pray for strength the staff who will be going here because it is a 2-hour commute. Pray for logistics for their travel and possibly for a place to stay overnight.

Adrian—Pray for leaders, both men and women, who would truly be excited to share their faith and see others grow.

September 6

U-M—Pray that we would take strides to reach the whole campus this year, especially the Greek system. Also pray that God would allow us to reach non-churched students and would bring them into a relationship with him.

September 7

EMU—Pray for students to be committed to the vision of reaching students for Christ and for their willingness to share the gospel.

Can you help with our support?

Because we typically lose a little support each year, each spring we seek to meet new people to share our ministry with them and to ask them to consider supporting our ministry. This spring we did not have that many contacts to begin with and were unable to raise the support we needed. We currently need just over $1100 in additional monthly pledged support. We have also seen our account balance dip lower than we need it to be because of the loss of monthly support and because of our summer expenses.

Please pray about how God might use you to help raise the additional support we need either by increasing your monthly pledge (for those who already support us regularly), by beginning regular support of our ministry, or by some other financial gift.

I have already started calling many of you to see if you can help. Time is short because of the beginning of the school year, so it might take me awhile to reach each of you. If you are in a position to help, it would allow me to use my time most effectively if you contacted me first. You can email me at nate.ardle@uscm.org or call 734-528-4083 and let me know how you would like to help. You can also go directly to our online giving site at http://give.ccci.org/give/0484633

Ardle Family Update

Who knew that this summer would be such a lesson in geography? We had a good time looking at all the license plates on our way to Colorado. While there the kids and I went around our apartment and around the parking lot at the arena where we had our meetings. There were only 4 states whose license plates we did not see: Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii and Vermont. We saw plates from 46 states!! There were quite a few cars there from Canada, too. It was neat to think that we were rubbing shoulders with people from all over the country, literally.

The kids were very excited to get home and be reacquainted with their toys. Lindsey immediately got her doll stroller and pushed it all over the house. She also found that she could go up and down the stairs without any help so we are once again without gates for our stairs. Andrew and Lauren were so excited to see their friends again and to go to our “old church”, as Lauren called it.

Now we are planning for the fall and I am planning for our next year of school. Andrew will be in Kindergarten and Lauren will be in preschool. Andrew is looking forward especially to math, which was his favorite subject last year. Lauren is just excited to get to “do school”. Last year she begged to be able to “do school” like her big brother. Lindsey will get some rare time to play by herself while we are schooling. Maybe I’ll set her up on the computer!?

Maybe being a mountain man is not my true calling!

Shelly and Lauren in a meadow in Rocky Mountain National Park

Our little explorer who loved to lead when we went hiking

Lindsey’s not our little baby anymore