September 2007

"God is stepping things up!"

This is the common response these past two weeks as God moves in a special way across our campuses. After much planning and prayer the fall finally arrived, students returned and we began the busiest time of our year.

God had been preparing for a special movement on our campuses through the entire summer as he worked in the lives of our students. We had many students attending summer projects with CCC this summer. A few of our students joined 16,000 others from around the world in Seoul, South Korea for the Campus Mission 2007 conference which was centered on preparation and prayer for pursuing thousands of unreached campuses around the world.

These students as well as our students who attended U.S. projects were deeply impacted by God this summer and came back with a tremendous desire to reach the campus! Their excitement, their heart for prayer and their desire to reach the lost has been contagious, and the entire movement seems to have been infected with a passion to reach the students of Michigan. God has honored their prayers and been gracious to respond to their excitement by moving in special ways these first couple weeks. Here are just a couple notes to give you a flavor of what has been happening.

An email from a U-M leader:

Hey Guys!

Praise God, I was able to get lunch with a freshman guy named Josh from Markley who I met at the pizza party and then took [to do posters] with me after the ice cream social! During lunch I asked him where he was at spiritual, and-reader's digest version-I shared the gospel with him and he prayed with me to accept Christ! So praise God for that!

Perhaps as exciting, one of the last things he said to me was “I can't wait to tell my girlfriend about this, we have spent so much time talking about what our purpose is!”

Continue to pray that our movement is not just being filled with Christians and swelling, but that God moves people to know Christ and glorify Him!

Love you all, I am so privileged to serve with you guys

In Christ,

Nick

By the Numbers

Numbers do not tell the whole story, but they can be an indication of how God is moving. Please pray for the students that make up these numbers! Pray that many of them would begin a relationship with Christ. Pray that they would be changed into Christ-exalting laborers on their campus.

4200 spiritual interest questionnaires passed out between U-M and EMU

300 at the U-M Late Night Cru meeting for freshmen (the largest attendance ever for this meeting)

83 at EMU’s first Cru meeting (equaling the largest meeting of last year)

320 involved in Bible studies the first day of classes at U-M (70 more than were involved last year in Bible studies)

50 students at SVSU’s first meeting (the largest meeting they have had in their three years of existence)

3 students who began a relationship with Christ during the first week back on campus

Kids' Column

I am learning about Mexico now. I made a geography game for North America and now Mommy is learning the names of the countries, too, so that I don’t keep beating her!

We are going to start swimming lessons next month. I can already swim underwater a little bit. But it is getting too cold to swim outside.

I am 6! I had a princess party with chocolate cake and strawberry icing—it was so much fun! I have been very busy making lots of crafts and jewelry. I just started reading words with long vowel sounds. I sure can read a lot more now.

We have been having fun playing outside. I “help” Caleb a lot since Lauren is busy digging a hole to China. I had forgotten about my bike but I am learning how to ride it faster now.

Balloons! I never knew they came with birthdays! And Lauren is sharing them with me.

I like playing outside, too. I can go down the little slide without help now. And Lindsey and I got to ride in the bike trailer on a bike ride to the school—Mommy had a hard time getting me out of it!

Caleb

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