Winter Wonderland at UConn

“4 Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail" - Job 38:4, 22

I haven't seen the storehouses of snow, to be sure, but I sure have seen where the snow is deposited after it's been taken out of those storehouses! We have had a record-setting amount of snowfall this year in Connecticut and it's both beautiful and frustrating. I'm not talking about removing the snow...we have a snowblower and two teenage boys with shovels. I'm talking about UConn canceling classes! The students are happy with that, of course, but whenever classes are canceled for the day, all student activities are canceled as well. Within the past 9 days we have had two of our key weekly meetings - last Tuesday's UConn Students for Christ meeting, and tonight's reGeneration meeting - canceled due to the snow.

I like the snow, especially when I'm skiing downhill on it, but it's wreaking a bit of havoc with our ministry activities to start the semester.

Well, everything in stride...it's all in God's hands.

AIA restart

Last night we had our first Athletes in Action meeting. It was terrific, with two of our students leading the way. We had a very creative way of expressing the reality of sin in our lives. Three groups took turns acting out different scenarios that these students regularly deal with, and the idea is that the element of sin shows itself in different ways in each of these scenarios. Each group did a great job! My group was the ultra competitive group (perfect for AIA), and we simulated a ping-pong game, where the winners were full of braggadocio, and the losers were poor sports and whiners. It really highlighted how a godly attitude can and should manifest itself, but instead we see sin rear its ugly head.

That led to a really good discussion about sin and God's solution for our sin: Jesus Christ. One of the students then took time to talk about how to grow closer to God in a relationship of trust, using Proverbs 3:5 as the key text: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." For such talented individuals, these men and women are growing in their dependence upon the One who gifted them so much.

Overall, a very encouraging start to the semester with Athletes in Action!

UConn Alumni Making a Difference

For the last year or two we've had a little "Where Are They Now?" blurb in our prayer letter, keeping people up to date with some folks that have been involved with Campus Crusade for Christ at UConn and perhaps even have been highlighted in our prayer letter at one time or another. Well, one of the great blessings of being in campus ministry is that we graduate students who then go into the world and live out the very principles we seek to build into them while they're in school.

One weekend in December, four alumni and their respective spouses came to visit for dinner: Brandi Coburn, Cynthia Risch, Jason Mitchell, and Mindy Carter. It was a blast catching up with them all, talking about marriage, kids, the future, and reminiscing about life "back in the day" at UConn.

Brandi and her husband Matt serve on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ at Yale University, Mindy graduated and went into ministry in Vietnam for years, returned, and became a pharmacist. She got married this summer. Jason has worked for Pratt & Whitney as an engineer, and Cynthia is a high school chemistry teacher. All of them were there when we first arrived at UConn in the spring of 1996, back when the ministry had about 15 students involved. They were so faithful and their prayers and labor built the foundation for what we have today. They have been encouraged to see the growth of the UConn ministry over the years.

We thank God for friendships that last far beyond the few years that we get to spend with them here!

Visit from an Italian friend

In the summer of 2006, we took our first vision trip to Milan, Italy. There, we met a student at the University of Milan named Davide (on the right). Through the wonders of facebook, we stayed in touch, and every subsequent trip we made to Milan we would spend time with him, introducing him to the latest batch of students we took there. Well, this past month, Davide and a friend came to visit the United States. He is a Civil War fanatic (really!) and toured Gettysburg and other Civil War sites, and we got to spend several days with him. We gave him a tour of UConn, which is completely different from his university back home. What a blessing to have Davide on our side of the Atlantic, and we hope to see him again soon!

Aslan and Samaritan's Purse

Exciting Developments with Student Venture and FCA

When people ask me about what God is doing at UConn, and what gets me fired up, it’s a very easy question to answer these days. I know we’ve shared a lot the past year about our work with middle school students here in Mansfield, and some of you may be wondering why we – who work at UConn with college students – have invested so much in a ministry to kids.

We launched SV at Mansfield Middle School because God opened a door for us through our existing relationships, and the new organizational structure within campus Crusade for Christ (high school and middle school ministry now falls under the Campus Ministry) allowed it to fit within our UConn campus ministry scope.

So here we are, working with middle school kids (and now high school kids under the name of Fellowship of Christian Athletes) and having a blast. During the past few weeks, we’ve had a fun Christmas Party, a guys’ night out to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and raised money to support underprivileged families in Africa and Latin America, through the ministry of Samaritan’s Purse.

Talking with the kids through the process of raising money for Samaritan’s Purse and purchasing things like books, blankets, shoes, and Bibles for kids, was incredible. The kids were excited to think about the impact we they were making in the lives of kids who have next to nothing (materially speaking). The kids were eager to help and be involved in such an important ministry.

In This Letter

The guys’ outing to see the latest installment in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia provided some outstanding discussion. At the end of the movie, Lucy asks Aslan if she will ever see him in her own world. Aslan says yes, and when she asks how, he replies, “Because there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

After the movie, we talked about who Aslan is in this world, and I reminded the kids about Aslan’s sacrifice for Edmund in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, where he gave his life for another, only to rise again. I asked the kids who that sounds like, and they answered, “Jesus!” To have these conversations with the kids is absolutely priceless.