October, 2011

Great Retreat with a Diverse Group


I am always amazed at who will pay to go to a tiny city four hours away with people that they have known for a month, in a group whose purpose is to share Jesus. There are so many people opposed to what we do on campus, and that is understandable because our beliefs are in complete contradiction with the University's secular humanism.


But when they come with us, it's really exciting, because they start to realize that all Christians don't match up to their stereotypes and that we may be on to something. One quote from the weekend was from a girl who is wrestling with her sexual orientation. She said, "It's really cool how you guys believe everything in the Bible. I've never really thought of it that way before."


There are the students that we are reaching. She is part of the group and we're going to love her, but not be afraid to share with her.


For worship, we exhausted all of our contacts and Thursday night, the day before we were supposed to leave, we still had no one. The morning we left, God had provided a freshman who was willing to lead for us and it was awesome. We did some campfire worship and gave the students some time to spend one on One time with God, challenging them to surrender.


After the message, the girls met by themselves and each of them took something different that they needed to surrender. The guys connected as well and one freshman stood out as a leader. My nightmare of Ryan and Kelsey graduating is approaching, but as I'm seeing new leadership develop, it is really encouraging. 


Please pray for the students that God was working with on this retreat and for the new students that we are reaching this semester. 





New Bible Study!


We now have two quality Bible studies going at ASU Downtown. Thursday has been operating as a large group and we are starting to bring in guest speakers. The GCU students are coming as part of them and have been helping out. Because both universities have big nursing schools, it's been a natural fit.  


Maria has been doing an excellent job and has made it through James with the students. She has lead Bible studies before, but is now really getting the hang of it and sharing some good insight. We have some students coming to her study that couldn't make it to the other Bible study, like J who has been a great servant and who is planning to be a missionary. 


We've also had a hand in helping a girl start a Bible study who couldn't come to either of ours. We encouraged her to do it , then gave her some material to use and she is planning on coming to our Bible study leader training. 










Powers Update


Dallas still loves Kindergarten. He became a "Spark" in Awanas at our church and he loves that! I (Jamie) get to teach a few of the Council times and Dallas and I are very excited about that.


The "Little Boys" are also in Awanas. They are Puggles! The two year old class is sooooo cute! It's so much fun getting to hear more and more words and understanding from them. They are SO excited when they say a word and we understand. Dallas enjoys teaching them new words and is still the most amazing, kind, patient, loving and attentive big brother  that we could have asked for. He genuinely enjoys them and being around them.


We are venturing out more to museums, the zoo, libraries, parks, etc. The little guys aren't just wild 18 month olds running around! They know that they have to obey, they just want to see how soon and how often! SO they try to run off every once in a while, but for the most part, they're more portable(!), which is MORE FUN! But please pray for patience for Bryan and me as we are training up the TWO's! They are so precious...and so mischievous! 

At the zoo:

I was shocked when I went into the twins' room and saw this empty crib!

Then I looked over at the other crib and saw this:

Thank you for your prayers! 
Please pray:


-Maria, our new Bible study leader
-Ryan and Kelsey
-New church!
-Handling two campuses
-Kids in Mexico
-Healing with losing our Madison Grace
-Us to train our boys up in a Godly way
-Our financial support
-Sanctuary Church
-More salvations