Late Night Thinking Spree

It's past 2 in the morning, and I'm feeling wide awake. There's so much going on in my head!

Tonight, I received a folder full of creative notes/cards that my Project students from this summer

made for me! Apparently, Kylan organized it and got as many of our teammates as possible to send in cards and notes of gratitude for Heather and me for leading their Project. Matt Pfaff collected them and gave them to me tonight and every note was just SO encouraging and SOOOO humbling! The way God uses us without our knowing it is kind of unfathomably awesome... isn't it?? (check out my blog from Project here to read stories from Project/meet the team)

Then as I've been bumming on facebook, I've come across pictures of people who were in my life back in my high school/skating days. It's really weird to think about who I was back then, but it's also a fantastic reminder of the work God has done in my life to redeem and save me. It definitely hurts thinking about how I used to live my life, and it hurts even more thinking about the people I knew back then who are still living without the joy and hope I've come to know... but I praise God for His wondrous work of pursuing my heart til He had it, and for the transforming healing He's brought to it.

As I then continued bumming on facebook, I came to this completely separate realization:
I am SO excited about next summer! As far as I can tell, it seems that the Lord is leading me to join full-time staff with CCC, and that means that as long as I get accepted and God doesn't change my path, I'm spending next summer at Rollins College in Orlando, FL, getting trained! I hear it's a pretty phenom experience those 5 weeks. I mean, between getting the frosh dorm/dining hall experience with new staff from around the country, taking sweet seminary classes, and (hopefully) growing close to new people and even closer to the Lord, I'm sure it's gonna be GREAT. ON TOP OF THAT, it's a hop, skip and a jump away from DisneyWorld!
So this

will be happening a lot more! :)

I'd talk about how excited I am about the specific location I feel called to serve at next year as well (especially since I've been googling, google imaging, google maping, and even craigslisting the place this last hour or so), but I haven't even mentioned this stuff in any of my prayer letters yet so this seems an inappropriate way to announce it to my team of ministry partners :)
But that'll all come soon.

I should try to go to bed... But really, I've been soaking in the joy of the encouragement from reading the notes from my Project kids, reflecting on my past and praising God for His saving work as I consider my present, and getting excited about what He has for me next- how can you possibly expect me to be sleepy?? :)

(Having said this, I will probably fall asleep within minutes...seconds?... of when I lay may head down on my pillow. I have QUITE the gift of falling asleep)

Winter "Break"

So we ended our campus semester on Tuesday, December 8. But I've certainly not been "done". Between wrapping up with discipleship guys, taking care of support stuff, doing emcee training for winter conference, and helping prepare a few different aspects of the conference (especially this hip hop dance we're having), it's been pretty busy.

Speaking of Winter Conference, SO EXCITED!!!
I canNOT believe that we (staff) are showing up to San Diego in 9 days and the students show up the day after! Talk about time flying... I'm so beyond excited and honored and nervous and every other emotion about being the emcee too! AAAH! I really just pray that the Lord would use me on stage to bring spiritual focus and direction to the Conference, and that my guiding and transitioning and such would bring the focus onto Him- not to me, not to the speakers, but to HIM.

Also this hiphop dance is gonna be kind of awesome. It's about community, and how when one lives his life all out for Christ, it can be contagious to those around him, when he invites them to live the full-on Spirit-filled life. Thanks to my friend Kristy Pyke and my little bro Jonathan Langley for choreographing! :)

I hope you are all having a great Christmas season, and that, whether you're in a happy and easy season of life, or going through a storm/desert, you are experiencing the inexplicable joy and peace we have because the Creator of the universe willingly became a poor baby boy, born in a stable 2000 years ago (well, He did a ton more than that to bring us that joy and peace, but it all started with the birth).

Seen Around Cru This Fall...

A Photo Entry...
As we're wrapping up the semester (we're in the last week of classes for 2009), I thought I'd post some pictures taken from around Cru happenings.

Students catching up with each other and meeting new students at the Cru Welcome BBQ, Sunday, August 23




Our first weekly meeting on Wednesday, August 26.
Meeting people...

Listening to the speaker...

This year's emcee, Teddy, with guest co-emcee, Heather


My good friend Emily Gustafson (Senior) having discipleship with Susan-Marie (Sophomore). Caught them in action at Coffee Bean on campus :)


The Cru group at Moorpark College, where we have been trying to help establish a strong movement- Matt Swaney and I have been working there this semester, and next semester it'll be Heather and myself


Greg's fiancee, Amanda, visited us on a Wednesday night for weekly meeting


Two of our Greek Life meetings from this semester
Our September meeting...

Our October meeting...


Winter Conference planning weekend with the team (Bob and Jill Fuhs- LA City Focus Directors, Jenny Dorazio- 2nd yr Intern @ ASU, Lis Engen- Staff @ SDSU, Amanda Gagnon- Staff @ UCLA, and myself) minus Amanda in October




Winter Conference planning days with the whole team in November

Having Dinner at the PCH Grill in Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel to celebrate finishing planning!



Heather and myself with our Cross '09 visitors from the University of Illinois- Peter Lichtenberger (1st yr Intern) and Josh and Allie Johnson (Staff)- who helped us launch a Destino movement at Los Angeles City College. Photo taken inside Los Angeles' beautiful Union Station


Staff Conference
Our first day meeting, outdoors in the beautiful SoCal November weather

In the breakfast hall- it's so fun seeing the whole Pacific Southwest Region Staff Family, and getting to hear about what God is doing all over CA, AZ, HI, and Las Vegas! And together getting trained more deeply on evangelism and other ministry tools


So there you have it! I don't always have my camera on me, but I hope you enjoyed looking at some shots of cool things going on in CCC Life :)

SO MUCH CRAZINESS!

So here I am, sitting in the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel in Orange, unwinding for a few minutes. See, we just finished day 2 of Winter Conference planning, but let me tell you- it's been a lot more than that going on lately...

Two weeks ago, I had to say "see you in December" to all the guys I do discipleship with. Last week was what's called Cross '09. All campus staff in the US crossed cultures to do ministry. Here in LA, we focused on starting Destino movements (the branch of Cru focused on reaching Latino students). It was FANTASTIC! I was assigned to Los Angeles City College with Heather, Paul, and Trina from our campus team, Bob and Jill Fuhs who are on our regional team, 5 staff from Korean CCC, Peter the intern from Illinois, and Josh and Allie Johnson, also from Illinois. We spent those days going non-stop initiating conversations with Latino students, sharing the Gospel with them when needed, but also trying to find potential student leaders for a Destino group at LACC. We had so many awesome, eye-opening conversations with Latino students who really made us come face-to-face with the realities of their poverty, their lack of education, the frustration they feel with the lack of motivation their peers have, etc. So many of them got to hear the truth about Christ for the first time, and we definitely got in touch with some students who are interested in helping us out with starting Destino. Praise God!

But it was an absolutely draining week. Throw in an urban hike through downtown, Matt Swaney's final weekly meeting, and a day of staff/shepherd team meetings, and you get a draining week.

I got a little bit of time to recover over the weekend, and then yesterday morning at 10, it was time to check in to the Doubletree for the next 7 days! Yesterday and today, allllll day, I've been working in our team of 6 staff/interns to plan our Winter Conference! Again, it's SUCH a privilege and honor to get to work on this team to plan such a big conference that historically has been used by the Lord repeatedly to change lives. But it's been intense. Planning from 10-10 fries your brain good.

So that brings me to now. We finished all our planning for all the meetings- we just need to meet tomorrow morning for about an hour and a half to finalize a couple of details. But then half an hour later, check-in starts for our regional staff conference where staff from the entire region (Hawaii, California, Arizona, and Las Vegas) gets together for encouragement and trainig. Intern lunch at 12, meetings start at 2pm, and the conference goes until Friday noon-ish. Then it's time to prep for ~230 students to show up for our Crossroads Conference, where students will be trained on how to make decisions to glorify God as they prepare for graduation- so that they will live missionally no matter what career path they choose to take. That'll go until Sunday.

CRAZY! Fortunately, we get next week off (we'd get most of it off anyway because of Thanksgiving) to regroup before going into our final week on campus for 2009.

But it's all been so good! God's been so good to us in helping us plan the Conference, Cross '09 was so encouraging, and we're excited to have the biggest number of students registered for Crossroads ever. But please do be praying!

There's no way...

Week 9 is halfway done. As in, we're a week into the second half of the semester. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Where did the first half go?!

Yesterday was my 7th or 8th 12-hour long Tuesday of the semester. 10-10 straight. And it's been amazing, but I guess it makes sense that the semester seems to be flying by when so much is going on that I barely have time to breathe. I'm absolutely loving it though. And I'm super excited about this weekend- I go down to Orange County and stay down there from Fri-Mon to work with 8 or 9 other Staff/Interns from the region to plan our Winter Conference! Can't wait!

So here's what I have to look forward to in the coming 2nd half:
Week 9- Weekly meeting tonight where students will share about how "Jesus Loves USC Kickoff Week" went. Friday I leave for Winter Conference planning til Monday morning.
Week 10- Trina{1} speaks at 727{2} for the first time ever!
Week 11- The last "normal" week of the year.
Week 12- Sun night-Wed is "Cross 09" when all staff in all the US cross cultures. LA staff will focus on reading Latino students and helping them start Destino{3}movements on different campuses.
Week 13- Sun-Wed is more Winter Conference planning, Wed-Fri is Regional Staff Conference, and Fri-Sun is Crossroads Conference! SOOO busy but SOOO fun! Regional Conference is our Semi-Annual staff family reunion where all the staff of the Pacific Southwest Region (CA, AZ, HI, Vegas) get together to talk about what God's doing everywhere, and get more training/vision from our regional directors. Crossroads Conference is a conference we put on for Juinors and Seniors in the region, where they get to hear talks and go to workshops about transitioning into life outside of college, with the focus of living missionally whether in the secular working world or in vocational ministry. It's SO good.
Week 14- Thanksgiving!
Week 15- Last week of the semester and Spring Planning.

YIKES!
I'm so excited but I can't believe it's going by so fast and with all that's coming up, the second half's gonna go even faster!

Footnotes:
{1}- Trina Litwin is on my staff team. She went to TCU for her undergrad and spent her first few years on staff in the Red River Region working at the regional office in Texas. She stayed there until she married Paul Litwin (a Bruin) and they both came out here and started at SC in the fall of my senior year. She's fantastic!
{2}- 727 is USC Cru's weekly meeting. It happens on Wednesday nights at 7:27pm (nuanced enough that one remembers it better than the frequent "is it at 7 or 730? i forget..." cliche. Anywhere from 70-170 students get together for a night of worship, fellowship, and teaching.
{3}- Destino is the branch of Campus Crusade for Christ's US Campus Ministry that focuses on reaching the Latino community. They recognize that Latino students often face different cultural barriers when it comes to dealing with faith and spirituality, and so Destino serves to meet Latinos where they are and bring Christ to them in a contextualized way.

A Strategic Withdrawal

September 18-20, 2009 ended up being quite the memorable weekend.

USC Cru Fall Retreats have a tradition of being awesome weekends where students really get to grow in their spiritual journey with God and develop a tight community of fellow Christians to live life with at USC. And they each have their own special nuances that make them stand out. But in my six years involved with USC Cru, I have never experienced so much satisfaction and awe at watching God work at a Fall Retreat as I did this year. There was soooo much that happened that I could write about, but what really blew me away was how God answered specific prayers that Christina{1} and I were praying as we planned the retreat.

**-Side Note- Speaking of our planning, Christina and I had three major planning meetings for Fall Retreat, and each time, one of us fell pretty ill. Whether it was sudden digestion problems, nausea and vomiting, or a debilitating cold, at least one of us was always feeling really unwell. It wasn't until the day before Retreat that my friend Beau{2} told me that it was probably spiritual attack and that God was likely planning some big things for our weekend. So once I had my eyes open to that perspective, I got so much more excited for what was about to happen!**

Prayer #1- That not everybody at Retreat would be a Christian
I'd met Andrew Chen (AC) at the Involvement Fair where he stopped by the Cru table. It was after Fair hours, and all the other groups had packed up and left, but because it was such a miserably hot day, and we'd brought a tent for shade, we were feeling far too lazy to pack up and leave. AC and I only talked for a little bit, as I gave him all the main info for Cru and said that I hoped to see him at the Wednesday night meeting. He came to Wednesday meetings on and off, but showed up in one of the first cars to arrive at Fall Retreat. The first night, as discussion groups were going on, he explained to his group that he wasn't really a Christian but was checking things out. One of the girls in his discussion group came and told me that right after, and Christina and I rejoiced that one of the prayers was already answered!

Prayer #2- That people at Retreat who don't know God would enter into a relationship with Him
After the meeting on Friday night, my buddy Derek took him aside to explain things about God to him. Another guy, Jason, joined the conversation, and soon they were sitting outside at a table on the porch, talking the evening away. Jason eloquently explained the full Gospel to him, and AC was ready to accept it, so he prayed right there and invited Jesus into his life, to be his Lord and Savior!!

Prayer #3- (Ok, so this prayer was more personal, and wasn't exactly about Retreat, but I was just praying it for myself, four days before Retreat, as I was on a prayer walk with two of my staff teammates) That I would soon have the opportunity to baptize someone
I don't know why I prayed it. But it was a desire God placed on my heart and so I verbalized it. Well, two girls from Christina's sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, were planning on getting baptized{3} at Retreat during Saturday afternoon free time, and so we announced at men's time on Saturday that if any guys were interested, they could be baptized too. As we were hiking (sliding) down the hill (near vertical slope of soft soil and leaves haha) Andrew Grace, a junior in Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, approached me and said that he wanted to be baptized, and asked me if I would do it. WOW. A few minutes later, Derek (who had just helped lead AC to Christ the night before) also decided to get baptized, and when we were by the river, asked me to baptize him! So Saturday afternoon free time turned into a blessing beyond blessings as Kelsey, Holly, Derek, Andrew, AND AC decided to be baptized. Most everyone who was at Retreat left what they were doing and came to the river to watch the five of them be baptized. People spoke words of encouragement to the students who were about to make this public declaration of their decision to follow God. The five were baptized one by one.
Kelsey


Holly


Andrew


Derek

Derek, a minute after getting out of the water himself, turned right around and helped baptize AC.

AC


Kevin (the worship leader during Retreat) brought his guitar and we all worshiped for a long time. Then during worship, three more girls decided to be baptized! So Kristy, Annalisha, and Cassie did!

Kristy


Annalisha


Cassie


Kristy also got out of the water, turned right around and baptized Annalisha. More worship. It was a most beautiful afternoon- lots of beaming smiles, tears of joy, voices raised to our King...


Prayer #4- That students would be excited about the adventurous life God has called us to
I guess you kind of have to have been here for the last few years to realize the true bigness of this prayer being answered- but our students were at Retreat so excited about God, and so excited to bring His Kingdom to our campus. On Sunday morning we had an "open mic" time of sharing what God's doing, and we found out that freshmen are getting together at 1am on Thursday in the main quad to do some worship, that Greeks are getting together and praying for the row, that students are pairing up and going out on campus talking to people about God, that our students led 4 people to Christ the previous weekend, crazy stuff! AND on Saturday, when we found out that USC had lost to UW, we were in the middle of worship following the baptisms, and everyone decided to keep on partying! Greg, our campus director, put it best on Sunday morning when he said to the group, "You guys were more excited about 8 people getting baptized than you were bummed about a USC football loss!" That is a MIRACLE here.

It was an amazing weekend, full of God's blessings- big and small. But the best part about it was that we knew it wasn't going to be a mountain-top experience where everything we learned gets left up in the mountains. The students came back excited to take on the campus and impact it with Christ's love, and they are still doing so.

Christina and I, having planned and run the Retreat, couldn't be happier with how things went- because, in the end, it was ALL God. :)

Group Pic


Footnotes:
{1}- Christina Carey is one of my best friends at USC. She is a Senior in ADPi, and serves on Shepherd Team. We got really close when we both went on Tokyo Summer Project back in 2007 as teammates, and ended up being assigned as the team leaders for one of the campus teams, and so we bonded a lot through that.
{2}- Beau Wirick is one of my best friends. He was in AGO with me, we were roommates our Senior year, and we also both went on Tokyo Summer Project back in 2007 and were roommates there as well.
{3}- Baptism is a symbolic ceremony where one declares his choice to follow God by being immersed in water. The dunking symbolizes a "death" to our old ways and our sins and our old life, and the coming back out of the water symbolizes the new life we enter, as we let Christ's sacrifice wash away our sins and our old selves. Of course, baptism is not saying that we will never ever have a single sin again, but it is a way of publicly declaring that we are repenting/turning from sin and turning towards God and accepting His free gift of salvation. Wanna know more about that gift of salvation and how you can have it? Interested in learning more about being baptized? Talk to me! :)
ALSO, special thanks to Andrew Chia for his awesome photography at Fall Retreat. Check out his Fall Retreat album on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=108609&id=504471444

Welcome!

So this is where I'll be posting updates and thoughts as I go through my second year as an intern here at SC. If you're on my support team, you'll still be getting my prayer letters which will be a digest of the major goings on, but this is where you can come to get more of my thoughts as I experience full-time ministry again.

To start off, here's a journal entry from 9/17, where I was reflecting on this year so far (parenthetical explanations added, clarifying footnotes at the end):

4 Weeks In...

Insane, isn't it? I blinked and now we're finishing up week four of the semester, and Fall Retreat is TOMORROW! But as much as this first month has flown by, it also makes sense that it's felt this fast considering how insanely busy a semester it's been.

Last fall, I was coaching Community Team, helping
Matt (Potter- now a senior on Shepherd team{1}, he was one of my pledges when I was pledgemaster of AGO back in Fall '06) and
Matt (Pfaff- now a senior, he's been on our Shepherd team since last fall and is currently pledging AGO, so his name{2} is "mowgli") with frosh guys' study, and discipling{3}
Nick (Rice- now a junior in AGO, also on Shepherd team) and
Eric (Dressler- now a junior in AGO, on lead team{4}). Oh! and helping plan
Fall Retreat with
Heather (Brainerd- one of my closest friends, I knew her from her freshman year and she is now raising support to intern with me) and
Laura (Reynolds- was on staff with us last year, has moved on to lead the team at Cal States Fullerton and Long Beach). This semester, I'm coaching Greek Life, leading soph guys study with mowgli, overseeing/coaching small groups as a whole, discipling Nick, Eric, Andrew, Trevor and Teddy, meeting with mowgli, planning Fall Retreat with Christina, and serving on the Winter Conference{5} planning committee!

I have indeed let it overwhelm me some, which is no good at all, but the truth is, I absolutely love it! (which IS great) See, I loved my job last year but there was so much that was undefined and difficult to figure out then. Now I feel like I've found my groove a lot more. And I love being busy. I'm just having to relearn finding rest int he LORD and letting Him carry my burdens.

But yeah, it's a blast. My meetings with my guys are going fantastically well. It seems like God is giving each of my d-ship (discipleship) relationships a purpose, and that makes it exciting. I LOVE IT! Each one is so different and yet God totally shows up.

I wanna talk about Greek Life, Small Groups, Fall Retreat, and Winter Conference too, but I gotta head out in a minute so for now, I'll just leave it with a shout out to my Abba, Father:

I LOVE YOU

Footnotes:
{1}- Shepherd team is a small group of students who are basically the leaders of our leaders. They meet with the staff every week to help set direction for Cru with us, and are almost a sort of "junior staff". This year, there are 7 Shepherd teamers- 4 guys and 3 girls, each of whom oversees a different part our movement.
{2}- In AGO, when you are going through pledgeship, you are given a name that you have to go by throughout the 9-week pledge process (except with professors and in legal documents). Mine was "spandexstrider".
{3}- Discipleship is basically the name we use for spiritual mentoring. We meet with younger students of our gender and guide them along in spiritual growth and train them in evangelism, discipleship, other forms of ministry, etc.
{4}- The lead team is a collection of students (juniors and seniors) who lead specifically areas of Cru. Bible study leaders, Community Team leaders, and Greek Life leaders are just some of the examples of lead team roles. They are led by Shepherd team members and staff.
{5}- Each region of Campus Crusade puts on a Winter Conference at the end of December. Ours is in the last four days of the year, leading into New Year's Day. This takes place in San Diego and we gather hundreds of students from Hawaii, California, Arizona, and Las Vegas (together they form the Pacific Southwest Region of CCC). This year, I have been asked to join a team of about 8 staff and interns who will plan and run Winter Conference! SO EXCITED!