Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Better late...very, very, very late... than never!

Hello friends and family! I am sick today. And after browsing BBC and Nordstroms.com, and responding to old, old e-mails, it popped into my mind to update my blog! Here is what has been going on via a month-by-month update...

1. May 2008- said good-bye to most of the students for the summer, took a course at Wheaton College towards a Masters degreed called: Spiritual Formation and Witness. Had the joy of studying and experiencing God with students from Uganda, Rwanda, Brazil, and Boston, MA! We spent 5 days dialogging over prayer, how not to always be so busy, American materialism, and how to engage with what God is always doing around us. After that I took a vacation with my dad and my best friend Betsy to Nevada! Dad played poker and Betsy and I enjoyed all the lights, swimming pools, good food and a Cirque de Soleil show that Vegas had to offer.

2. June 1st 2008- drove to Orlando, FL for Campus Outreach's Summer Project. Here we had 150 students (31 from UNC and NC STATE!) come to learn about God and work at Disney World for 2 months! Students live in a hotel and we get them a job working 40 hours a week at Disney. In the evenings, they attended meetings where they learned how to grow in their relationship with Christ. There were also a ton of social activities for them.
I was there with the students for 2 months! I was a team-leader. My friend Stephen and I led a team of 35 students. We helped the different rooms on our team get to know each other, grow in their faith by meeting with them one-on-one-- often showing them how to study the Bible, and sought to develop in their planning and leadership skills by putting together a big weekly meeting! (the big weekly meeting includes skits, worship music, and a talk... the students learn how to do these over the summer then they do them on their different campuses throughout the school year!)

3. August 1st 2008- left Orlando (Very, very sad after all the new friendships I made) and drove to Chapel Hill! Two of my roommates from last year got engaged and I had to find a new living arrangement. God is so faithful. The house I live in this year is even closer to campus and bigger. I rent a room in this house along with 4 other girls. 2 are also on staff with campus outreach and the other 2 are graduate students at UNC.

4. August 22nd- 1st day of class! We helped students move into the dorms and showed our sophomore student leaders (those who want to learn how to minister to their peers here at UNC) how to reach out and build friendships with those around them. We asked many of them to go to the dorms with us and meet freshman. We have been following up with the new people we've met ever since... cooking meals for them, inviting them and their friends to tailgate with us, bringing them to our campus meetings, we held a retreat for the students, visited them in the dorms, eat with them in the cafeterias, asking them to our awesome church (www.summitchurch.cc) , but overall building friendships with them and asking God to give us boldness and creativity as we point these students to the purpose life they can find in a relationship with Jesus.

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