October

Blocking For Us

As I (Shelly) was reading through Philippians for my ladies’ Bible study, it was brought to my mind how much this reflected our relationship with you, our supporters. And of course the fall always turns our minds to football (Go Bucks!) and to the importance of a team.

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now… both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me.” 1:3-5, 7

Not that we have been imprisoned for the sake of the Gospel, but when we do have tough times we know that you are all there with us, upholding us before the Lord. How thankful we are for you! I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to go about reaching the campus for Christ if we had no team behind us, helping us run the plays and block the people trying to trip us up. Let us together rejoice at what God does and seek Him in prayer and guidance as we face the “defense”.

And would you pray for us that we would follow Paul’s instruction to the Philippians in verses 27-28.

“Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents…”

We need to be focused on the end zone, our goal. How easy it would be to stop running a play when we see huge linemen coming toward us. But we are not in the game alone. God has provided linemen to protect us and allow us to get the play off successfully.

God Moving Ahead of Us

Sometimes you pray and plan and wait for God to show up. Other times you don’t do anything and God shows up anyway. That is what has happened at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) in Saginaw, Michigan. While our team at U-M had a long-term desire to go to this campus, we had nobody to send there and no time to start anything. But our regional team gave Freshmen Survival Kits to distribute on the campus and we agreed to provide the labor to hand them out. Three of our staff spent an afternoon passing them out. We couldn’t believe how many students were interested in being a part of our ministry! So, our staff went to the campus the next week, met with key students, began a weekly meeting and developed a leadership team—all in just a few hours. Now we are a recognized student organization, are completely run by students and have an established weekly meeting.

To give you a sense of how these students feel about what is going on read this email sent by our key male leader:

“For any of you guys whom may want to grow more in leadership, or considering running point (i.e. prayer groups, activities, outreaches, retreats) these are all things that are just waiting to be taken off the shelf by someone and running with it. Its up to US.

We've got the team! It’s YOU,  we have each other for support, and to encourage… What more can we ask, everything we've got is a God-send. SVSU is HIT!

Whoa...LOOK OUT!  This campus won't know what hit it when the SVSU-Cru gets going full force, having fun, doing outreaches, praying with other people...there are soo many possibilities here. Think about it!

See ya tonight—God Bless.

Jason”

350 students came to our annual Barndance, swinging in some square dancing, line dancing and Texas two step. Events like this are critical in helping students feel connected to our group and in being willing to come with us for an entire weekend on our Fall Retreat (coming up Nov. 4-6).

Kids' Column

Fall is here! We have gone to pick apples. We are wearing long-sleeved shirts. We had the barn dance. And Ohio State is playing football! Daddy and I are going to go to a football game at Eastern Michigan next weekend. I have been wanting to go to a football game for awhile. It will be fun!

I had fun picking apples. We also got to play on the straw bales, ride the tractor tricycles and pet the goats. The goats only wanted food so they weren’t too happy with us. We are going to the fall retreat in a few weeks and Andrew and I get to use our new sleeping bags. We may get to sleep in a bunk bed, too!

Mommy keeps talking about the baby starting to kick her. I don’t know what she means—I am not kicking her. Last week she held a 3 week-old baby. I sure love babies, but I wasn’t too sure about Mommy holding him at first. But she shared him with me, so maybe it was okay. I like to dance around the house. Any music I hear gets me started. That’s why the barn dance was so much fun—there was a lot of music!

Nate Headed to Our Partnership Country in Far Western Asia/Middle East

I will be traveling to the large city in that country from November 7-12 to connect with our short term missionaries working in that city to reach college students. I will help them to process how they are feeling about their cultural adjustment, how their ministry is going, and how their team relationships are growing. More about my trip in next month’s newsletter.