Happy New Year!

As we look back over 2012, we have so many blessings and things to be thankful for. Among all of those things, we are very thankful for all of you! We feel so honored and humbled by your support, prayers and love that you give to us. We truly love our job and serving the Lord along side you! We pray that as you enter 2013, that you will find encouragement, blessings and a renewed passion in the Lord. Thank you for your support in the Gospel and your passion for the lost! We look forward to serving with you in 2013! Happy New Year!

End of the Year Donation

If you are still interested in receiving a tax deduction on your end of the year giving, you can give online at https://give.cru.org/0539211 any time before 11:59 pm eastern time Dec. 31, 2012. If you would like to send in a check, it needs to be postmarked by Dec. 31, 2012.

The Tree Is Up

Decorated by little hands!

Life...

Life can be hard, stressful and sometimes depressing...especially this time of year as we remember the ones that we have lost and will be missed this season or the fact that the money is very tight and we are not sure how we will make it to the end of the month. But, I am so thankful for more than I can put in this post and we choose to make that our focus. I am fortunate to have a wonderful husband who puts us first. Children that I adore and two little ones I get to spend the day with while the older kiddos are school. Silas is such a little sweetheart and such an easy baby and Lola is creative, spunky and snugly. She loves Silas and he definitely gets the brunt of her energy...as you can see in the picture above! Plus, we are fortunate to have an extended family that loves, helps, and encourages us. But, most of all we are lucky to have a job that we love and all of you that support us in it! We are thankful that the Lord has called us to this ministry. We love working with college students! It is such a privilege to be able to share with the future leaders of the world the love of Christ and the importance of sharing that love with others! Thank you to all of you for your support and commitment to our ministry and to us personally. We appreciate your love, encouragement and prayers! Please let us know how we can be praying for you!

Spiritual Multiplication

Tony meets with his student leaders once a week. One of the topics they were discussing recently was Spiritual Multiplication. He shared this mathematical description of how effective we can be in sharing our faith. It really opened up the students eyes to how the Lord can use them and how strategic and effective they can be in ministry. But, this idea isn't only geared for students...it works with all walks of life in every capacity. Below is what Tony shared with his guys:

Let’s say you shared your faith with 1,000 people a day over the course of 21 years. How many people would have heard about Christ? Roughly 7.6 million people. Not bad, you deserve a vacation. But let’s say you led just 3 people to Christ this year, discipled them, taught them how to share their faith and then sent them out to do the same. The next year they each lead 3 people to Christ, disciple them, teach them to share their faith and send them out to do the same. Where are we with this process at the end of 21 years? 10.5 billion people. Guys, can you imagine what would happen if just the 7 of us decided to get serious about fulfilling the great commission? We could fulfill Christ’s mandate to the church to proclaim the gospel to the whole world in about 20 years!

October Newsletter

Tony sent another frantic text message, “Where is the bible study meeting in Emmetsburg?” I knew it was supposed to start in 15 minutes but I didn’t know where to find it. Finally a response, “Room 314c”. As our car pulled into the parking lot, I was glad to realize there was only one building on this campus, a few minutes of quick walking and a couple wrong turns, we found the study. There were 13 students this week at the new bible study on the Emmetsburg, IA campus of Iowa Lakes Community college. There are 50-60 total students involved in the Iowa Lakes ministry of Cru. The group I visited with one of our interns just started this year, but the main campus in Estherville, IA has hosted three strong studies for the last couple years. My co-leader Katie Smith and another intern visited that campus. Earlier in the week three of the interns visited the Cru ministry at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, IA which has about 15 students involved. In all three visits, the students, volunteer leaders, and pastors involved were very thankful for our offer to help in training their students in how to share their faith. And, both areas sent a record number of people to Fall Getaway this year! Iowa State will remain our main focus but over the coming years, Lord willing, we hope to start and coach ministries on every campus within a three hour drive of Ames! Thanks for helping to resource student leaders at Iowa State, Iowa Lakes, and Indian Hills!

Forgiveness

One thing that is true around this house is that we LOVE TobyMac! He is an awesome artist and great example of a musical artist that our sons can look up to! His new album, Eye on It, is amazing and there is one song on there that we all rock out to in the car on the way home from school. It is called Forgiveness ft. Lecrae. (If you haven't heard Lecrae, he is also an amazing Christian musical artist). I wanted to share it with you here. It has such a positive message about how we are never too far from forgiveness from the Lord. As we work on the college campus, we find ourselves sharing this concept with the students we meet. A lot of people want to have a relationship with the Lord, but feel like they have done too many bad things, that it just isn't possible. But, the great thing about God is that forgiveness is so easily given by Him, all we have to do is ask for it.

So, here you go! Enjoy the song:

September Newsletter

It was the first really cool day of fall as Tony met with Matt to pray. They bowed their heads as they asked the Lord to use them as they followed up some surveys from spiritually interested students. (Matt is one of our five full time interns this year at ISU) Just a few minutes later they were welcomed into Colby’s dorm room in Roberts hall. Colby said “I want to be a real Christian and go to heaven but I don’t know what the qualifications are!” Talk about an answer to prayer! Tony explained the Gospel to him by using the Would You Like To Know God Personally booklet and invited him to put his faith in Christ and to declare his decision by praying out loud. Colby gladly did, and just two days later Matt met a couple other guys on Colby’s floor and they said that Colby had been talking to them about their need for Jesus! Praise God for this changed life. Thank you for helping us to reach Colby and the other 12 students who have indicated a decision to receive Christ for the first time this year!  Please pray for us to capitalize on the momentum from our Fall Getaway Oct. 5-7, we will have almost 100 students total from three different campuses!

Fall Getaway

We had a great time at Fall Getaway this year! The kids always look forward to it! They love the camp, but most of all they love spending time with the college students. And, we love how much the college students love our kids! Fall Getaway was at Twin Lake Bible Camp in Manson, Ia. We had 6 campuses represented this year: Iowa State, Iowa Lakes Community College (Estherville, Emmettsburg, Spencer), UNI, and Indian Hills Community college in Ottumwa. We had around 100 students attend our retreat! We were really excited about those numbers!

 Our speaker this year was Kris Neider. He is a youth pastor at Grandview Baptist Church in Estherville, Ia. He also volunteers with CRU on the Iowa Lakes Community College campuses in Estherville and Emmettsburg. He spoke to the students about who God is and what the Gospel is, who we are in Christ, dating and what is our purpose.

  The students had a great time of connecting with one another, building community and connecting with the Lord. Along side our speaker and campus times, students were able to attend a seminar: How to Reach Your Campus, How to Share Your Faith, How to Multiply Your Life and How to Have A Quiet Time. Below is a picture of all that attended Fall Getaway (except for Clare and the kids as the kids were resting). 

A New Look!

We are giving many things a new look! You may have noticed that our newsletter is now a postcard. Our hope is that you will hang it on your fridge and remember to pray for us and our ministry with CRU. You can also come to our blog to get new stories and prayer requests all month long! We will also be posting our staff and intern newsletters here as well so you can get a bigger view of life on campus. We have a calendar to keep you connected to what is going on each month and a way to connect with us financially, a way to connect with our region and a way to connect with us world wide! We are excited about these changes and hope that you enjoy our new look! We look forward to hearing from you!