Hey all,

We are well into the new school year and a lot of good things have been happening around here. The Summer ended with a bang and the Fall started with a flurry of activity, so the last couple of months have been pretty exciting. The biggest event in August was Black Hills Bible Camp, which I directed again this year. Our theme was “Instruments Of Peace.” We had 168 folks from all ages come out to enjoy the week with us. It rained a lot, but we had a lovely week anyway. The singing and lessons were all quite fantastic and we ended up baptizing 4 students: Abbey, Caleb, Keanu, and Emma.

We had the special honor this year of having Bobby Ross Jr. from the “Christian Chronicle” come write an article on our camp. You can read his article at www.christianchronicle.org under the title “Amid Massive Biker Rally, Bible Camp Thrives,” or if you are reading an electronic copy of this updated, you can simply click the following link: http://www.christianchronicle.org/article/amid-massive-biker-rally-bible-camp-thrives. Next year is going to be our 50th anniversary as a camp, so that is going to be a really big deal.

After camp, we started sprucing the Christian Student Center up for the new year. We got a new sign ordered to replace the old faded one, got some bids for taking down four old dead trees in our side yard, and bought a new couch.

Then, the new school year was on us. Our first official event was the “Community Organization Fair,” which is where any organization from the community who wants to can sign up for a booth in the gym. All the incoming freshmen come through looking for free stuff and interesting organizations. We set up a booth with a bunch of coffee and a big sign. We brought ice coffee and hot coffee and filled the gym with the lovely aroma. It worked too. We had 30 people sign up for more information about our club. 30 people! Usually we only get about 10-15 interested folks. I was ecstatic!

I forgot to take a picture of that “Community Organization Fair,” but later we did another one out on the campus green, so here is a picture of Kris helping me man the booth and blow some bubbles:

Kris And I Blowing Bubbles And Working A Student Organization Booth

It all reminded me of Jesus' comment to the disciples in John 4 when he saw the Samaritans heading out of town and walking through the fields to see him:

“Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” - John 4:35

The next day we contacted everyone on the list and invited them to our first Bible study of the new semester. That night was a buzz. It was so exciting! We had a lot of our returning students who were all bubbly to see each other again and we ended up getting 3 new students from our list of 30. It was a little disappointing only getting 3 students, but we quickly got over that when we realized, hey, we got 3 new students. Of those 3 students, 2 of them have been back almost every night since, so at this point, I'm happy to announce that Brittany and Vanessa are officially part of our organization now. They are both great to have in the group and bring with them a deep love for Jesus and His words.

With the semester kicked off, the campus ministry board had our annual meeting and it was a good one. The board, as a whole, decided to kick their commitment up a notch and get some serious work done around here. They are on fire! They are casting bigger visions, making bigger plans, and tackling difficult jobs. They are investing more of their own time and energy and it shows.

Of course at the same meeting they decided to give me a raise, so I'm entirely biased right now, but in a good way. Even at that though, these guys are stepping up in a big way and I'm excited to see where they lead the ministry this year.

That's all for now. You have a great day!

-Silas