December 2016

Hey everybody!

I hope the New Year is treating you well and I hope you have your New Year's Resolutions firmly in hand. Around here, things are going swimmingly. Students are back from Christmas Break and plowing headlong into the new school year. Before we get too far into that though, here is a look at how December went around here.

December kicked off with a youth Lock-In in at the Faith congregation. They had all kinds of games and activities planned and they invited our preacher Thomas Pruett and I to come out and do a tag-team lesson for the teens. It was a good deal! We planned our points to revolve around each other and then took turns standing up and talking. I've never done a lesson quite like that before, but it went off swimmingly. The teens seemed to enjoy it too, probably because we kept switching the presentation up on them so much.

We ran some games and hung out with the teens until around midnight and then drove our weary way home. All in all, I would call the night a success. The relationships we are building with these young people are causing them to be more interested in our youth rally next month, which in turn is getting them more interested in what we are doing with the college ministry, which in turn will hopefully guide their hearts towards serving God in greater ways in this area someday. It is admittedly a long game we are playing with this one, but investing time and energy in the young people of our churches is always a good move. It reminds me of Abraham and his tamarisk tree. Genesis 21:33 says:

“Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.”

Tamarisk trees make wonderful shade trees. They can grow up to 50 ft tall and, through massive amounts of evaporation, they actually have a cooling effect on the air around them. However, they take a long time to grow, some say as long as 400 years. You don't invest your time in a tamarisk shade tree unless you plan for you or your descendants to be around for awhile. Telling teenagers about Jesus is our tamarisk tree.

For the next couple of weeks it was pretty low key. We enjoyed our last couple of group Bible studies of the semester and wrapped up our study on the Gospel of Luke. The students wrestled their way through finals and took off for Christmas break. They were all sad to see each other go though; our little group has grown pretty close this semester.

I helped a couple of our students with car troubles, which seems to be a regular occurrence around here. We could probably support a whole ministry team devoted to keeping our college student's cars running. We had another area preacher meeting, which continues to be an encouraging and unifying time every month. Our church's preschool presented their annual Christmas Program to a packed house, which is always a good time.

Eventually, things quieted down and I started putting more time towards planning some of our big upcoming events. We are hosting our third annual youth rally the last weekend in February and it is going to be a good one. The theme is “Crazy Love” based on the book by Francis Chan. The big idea is to talk about how crazy God is about us and how, in turn, we can be crazy about Him too. We always try to base these youth rallies on some sort of encouraging or challenging book and this one is both. We have a variety of speakers coming from many of the congregations in the area and we are working hard to make this a truly area-wide event. In fact, for those of you in the area, I've included a flier, so feel free to sign up and head our way. Our flier looks like a bigger versions of this:

I also spent some time making plans for our upcoming mission trip. Two years ago, we sent a team of four students and I to Natal, Brazil with the “Let's Start Talking” program. It was a fantastic trip and an extremely formative time for the faith of our young people. It was so good that I want to do it every two years, so this summer we are sending off another team. This time we are sending two of our students, Rachel and Bailey. They both went last time and it changed their lives. Both of these young ladies are considering how missions are going to play into their lives and careers moving forward and can't wait to head back out and get some more experience sharing their faiths in one-on-one Bible studies.

In fact, both of our young ladies still have a ways to go in their fund raising efforts. They each have at least $3,900 left to raise, so if you feel moved to support them prayerfully or financially it would be very much appreciated and put to good work. Those kinds of numbers are terrifying for our broke college students, but they are making me proud depending on God and submitting to Him in all ways. So let me know if you have any interest helping out and you have a great day!

-Silas

November 2016

Hey everybody! November 2016

I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy today. We've enjoyed a nice long Fall, but now that Winter is finally here, it is a mess. We have colds, sneezes, and fender-benders as far as the eye can see. You all be careful out there! However, despite all that, we have had another good month around here with a God-honoring activities.

One of the things I've been excited about recently is a slight up-tick in the number of students making it from the campus ministry to the church building. We have several of our students who come all the time, but this month we had a couple of new faces visit. I'm trying to foster as much overlap between the congregation and the campus ministry as I can, so it is great to see that start to come together in a small way.

Our biggest event in November was the Gillette Youth Rally. I got the honor of being the keynote speaker this year. D.j. Hayden, Kyle Rogers, and Pete Idema taught classes as well and Josh Walker lead us in worship. The theme was “Spiritual Spinach: Looking at the Scriptures with Popeye the Sailor Man.” You can see some giant cans of spinach in the first picture and some of their costumes in the second one.

Here I Am Thoughtfully Sniffing My Finger

The Gillette Youth Rally Popeye Gang

It was a fantastic time; those Gillette folks throw a great youth rally. And I now know way more about Popeye than ever before. The theme verses was 1 Corinthians 15:10 which says:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

- 1 Corinthians 15:10

The idea was to use Popeye's old saying,“I y'am what I y'am and that's all that I y'am, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man” to illustrate what Paul was talking about when he said, “But by the grace of God, I am what I am.” Both guys had a clear vision of who they were and what gives them strength.

So Friday we talked about finding our strength in the grace that Jesus gives us. Saturday we talked about avoiding evil and practicing spiritual disciplines as a way to grow closer to God and cultivate that strength. And Sunday we talked about how no one lives up to the picture-perfect “Good Christian” image that we have built for ourselves, but that God still uses us despite and through our failings. It was all very grace-oriented and I was happy to be a part of it.

As a side note, the Sunday of the youth rally, my car was destroyed. There were no injuries, thankfully. I was asleep in the house while my car was parked on a quiet residential side road on a clear and sunny Sunday morning. A 17-year-old in a Hummer, with no insurance, came around the corner going fast enough to total my car, throw it into the car in front of me, and throw that car 30 or 40 ft down the road into a fourth car. It was a mess. I wanted to end the youth rally with a bang, but that wasn't at all what I had in mind. The Gillette folks were very gracious though and invited me to come back and crash at their place any time I liked. The moral of the story is, be careful when parking on quiet residential side streets.

Bumper Cars

After that, things quieted down around here a bit and it was business as usual. I helped out with the Faith youth night again, which is going great. There are a lot of folks with big hearts out there and they are working hard for those teens. They started planning a Teen Lock-In for December and are talking about having Thomas and I head out that way for that one too. I ran another Bible study or two with our group and we are just about done with the book of Luke. Our “Let's Start Talking” team started putting their fund raising plans into action. Then everyone headed to their homes for Thanksgiving and I got in some quality family time, which it also important.

Around the same time, the students and I were planning our “End Of The Semester/Christmas Party.” We were having trouble scheduling it since December gets super crowded with finals and parties and travel and all that. Several of our students couldn't make it no matter when we put it in December. So we decided to have it on the last Monday of November and it was a lot a fun. We played that gift exchange game and, for the first time ever, no one stole a single gift from anyone else and most everyone was happy about what they got. It was crazy!

The coolest part of these little parties is watching the atheists, the believers, and the unsure all hanging out playing happy wholesome games together. There is something holy about that.

Anyway, thanks for reading and you have a great day!

-Silas

October 2016

Hey everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so excited about it! This is easily my favorite holiday and I hope it finds you with family and friends and big piece of pumpkin pie. Just before we plunge into the holiday season though, here is a report on the campus ministry events last month.

October was a fairly standard month for us around here. We had four of our weekly Bible studies and they all went over well. We are reading through the Gospel of Luke this semester and trying hard to get the rest of the book in before finals next month (it is hard to cover 24 long chapters in one semester). We are averaging about 10 people at each for our studies right now and building a pretty tight-knit group. Vanessa is still making us desserts each week and everyone is enjoying that immensely. Here she is posing with her triple chocolate cake and three hungry students:

Vanessa's Triple Chocolate Cake

We also enjoyed a costume party around Halloween. We got all dressed up and shared some good laughs. Here is a bunch of us smiling for the camera. If you have a hard time figuring out what we are dressed as, that's okay, several of us didn't know either.

Costume Party

We hosted another area church leader eating meeting that was enjoyed by all and I headed back out to Faith to help with their youth night again. Both of these standing monthly events are being received well and I think together they are doing great things for the unity of the area.

We did have three new and exciting things happen in October. One of our students, Jayce, did a radio interview with me about the campus ministry for one of her classes. We got together and recorded a little interview and it turned out really well. There is some talk of airing it on the local college radio station, but whether or not that works out, I got a copy and put it on our website's home page. It was a lot of fun to put together.

Our Students

The second new and exciting thing was the official start of our next big mission trip. This summer we are sending a team of college students on another “Let's Start Talking” mission trip. I plan to make that something we do every two years from here on out. We are still finalizing our team, but it is currently Bailey Hoeft and Rachel Munce. These two young ladies went last time and are core members of our ministry. They can't wait to go again and I have no doubt they are going to do great things in the name of Jesus, both on this trip and after. They are headed back to the same site as well, Natal, Brazil, so they will be well-prepared to hit the ground running when they get there.

Last time we had a team of five, so fund raising was a difficult challenge for us. This year the smaller team is going to make fund raising significantly easier, but if you feel so moved to support these young ladies, I'm sure they would appreciate the help. They each have to raise $3,900 and are stepping out in faith that God will provide it. In fact, would you mind taking a moment right now and praying for Bailey and Rachel, that God may use them for His glory on this trip? Thanks!

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

The third new and exciting thing was my very first trip out to the Prairie City Church of Christ, which was a fun experience. The Prairie City Church of Christ is great a little country church located two hours off into the plains. It is so remote that Dwayne and Zona Vig kindly met us at the interstate to guide us in. Their building is an old one room school house and they have probably 10 or 20 members. They talked about years ago when they only had three members and they were celebrating a recent baptism or two. Sarah and my boys came with me and that church was so sweet to us. It was a wonderful day for encouraging and being encouraged.

The Prairie City Church Of Christ

Thanks for reading and you have a great day!

-Silas

September 2016

Hey everybody!

September was a pretty straight-forward month around here. We've been finding our stride in the new school year and it is starting to fly by fast. The students are already talking about mid-terms, which is surprising all of us.

The Christian Student Center is looking good. We cut down some dead trees, replaced the sign and brought in a new water heater. I've included a couple of “Before And After Pictures” of our sign for you, but they don't really capture the change that well. The old sign was completely faded on one side and half faded on the other while the new sign is black and sharp and professional looking. We have loved our old sign and it has served us well, but we are excited about the new one. It pops!

Our Old Sign

Our New Sign

We had our second Student Organization Fair and it went fairly well. It was outside and super windy, so there weren't as many people braving the wind to come see us, but we still had a handful of folks stop by to check us out. We had 11 students sign up for more information, including a young lady who recognized me from the events I've helped with in Faith, SD. It was really encouraging!

In fact, that serves as a great segue into another new thing we are trying this year. Every Fall the church in Faith sends a handful of graduating high school Seniors to Black Hills State University for their Freshmen year of college. They have a rocking youth program up there. They are in a town of 500 people, but their after-school Bible program has upwards of 30 teens in it.

So we are making a more intentional effort to build a stronger relationship between the young folks in Faith and our ministry. Now, once a month, I drive up to Faith and help out with their youth program. My first trip was in September and it was a great time. The teens are fun and it threw me back to my youth ministry days. I think it is going to be a really good thing for our ministry in the long run and it is good just to spend some time with the church folks over there. Nothing but a bunch of sweeties around those parts.

We took a couple months off from our Area Church Leader Eating Meetings this summer due to everyone being busy and gone. We started it up again in September and it was nice to be back in the swing of things. We had a couple guys drive in from a hundred miles east, a couple guys drive in from a hundred miles west, and a half a dozen guys or so from the middle. This little meeting is half Bible study, half therapy, and entirely fantastic for the unity of the area congregations.

In fact, our preacher man Thomas Pruett, used our meetings as a launching pad for an area-wide Preacher Swap a couple weeks ago. The preachers from six or seven area churches visited other congregations, some for the first time ever. It was a coup for strengthening the ties between our congregations, I couldn't be happier with it, and they have already scheduled the next one.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:34-35

Another cool thing that happened in September was Bailey teaching a teen girl's class at church. Bailey Hoeft was Northern Hill's intern this past summer and, now this Fall, is sort of still our intern. Apparently, Bailey loved her internship so much she didn't want it to end and the elders felt the same way, so they all just kept the intern times rolling.

Her latest responsibility is teaching this young ladies class. One of our teen girls brings two of her friends most every Wednesday night, so we started this class just for them. Bailey was nervous at first, having never taught a Bible class before, but she did a great job. We talked about it the next day and, I'm telling you, she knocked it out of the park. Bailey is considering a career in ministry or mission work in some way, so I'm extremely excited to see her stepping up to the plate like this and getting this kind of experience.

In other news, one of our new students is a young lady named Vanessa. She loves cooking and went to national cooking competitions in high school, so she is pretty good at it. She mentioned that desserts are her favorite thing to cook, so I asked her if she would make desserts for us (if I reimbursed her). Vanessa took me up on it and, so far, she has made us a lemon cheesecake and a birthday cake for our other new student Brittany. So that's been a great way to get them both involved and has launched our dessert selection to a whole new level.

We also had a great elder's meeting where we just prayed for folks the whole time, I started one-on-one Bible studies again, and we had a Hobo Stew out in the woods at my in-laws house. However, I'm about out of room for this one, so I'm going to wrap it up.

You have a great day!

-Silas

July 2016

Hey everybody!

July around the campus ministry was dominated by one all-consuming effort: Camp. We have been preparing for camp left and right around here. We have done some other things as well, Bible studies, preparing for the new school year, and meeting new students, and all that, but the big deal was camp prep.

I'm directing Black Hills Bible Camp again this year and our theme is “Instruments Of Peace.” It actually start this Sunday and I'm pretty excited about it! The way the scheduling works, this particular year is really close to the start of school, so last year we thought our numbers would be way, way down, but that has not been the case. We are a little lower than usual, but we still have well over 150 folks coming to camp this year. So we have been working hard to make this camp shine.

Our Camp Logo This Year

Our logo this year is this dove with the fig leaf and the words written across its wings. I started painting up a big banner with the logo on it and Albert Harty came over one day and saw it. He said, “You know I used to teach art a little in high school?” and sprang into action. He was shading and painting left and right and it turned out pretty sharp, if I do say so myself. With all his construction background and bid-overalls, I had no idea Albert was an artistic guy, but check out what he made for us:

Our Camp Banner In The Making

That guy is one multi-talented fellow and I look forward to seeing these messages of peace being shared through out camp.

“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” - Psalm 34:14

In other news, we've kept our weekly Bible studies going through the summer, but we ended our Hell study in the middle of July. Too hot for that kind of discussion any more I guess. Haha! However, we have had some good talks.

We have actually started two Bible studies on Mondays now, out of necessity. Kris and Brandi both work the evening shift on Mondays, but they also both want to know what we are studying. So I sit down with them in the afternoon and teach the material and then a couple hours later I sit down with Gabe, Bailey, Chanel, and whoever else is available and we study the material a second time. So that's been fun.

In other news, one of our students, Bailey Hoeft, is Northern Hills Church Of Christ's Summer Intern. She is doing all kinds of good things. She is helping with teen classes, having Bible studies with our elders, hermeneutics classes with our preacher, and being mentored by some of the ladies in the congregation. She is growing in leaps and bounds.

The other day she was frustrated and said, “I feel like I'm getting all this praise for studying my Bible well, but I'm not doing anything special. I'm just reading it and trying to get the context for each verse.” It did my little heart good to hear that. I laughed and said, “Bailey, that is something special. How wonderful would it be if everyone read the Bible in context?” That would change the world.

Bailey also headed up a Summer Bible School, which was basically a Vacation Bible School spread out over a couple Sunday afternoons. She picked the theme, wrote the material, organized teachers, and everything. Even handmade the decorations. I led the songs (which were ridiculous) and got to watch as all her hard work came together, so that was cool. I would throw in some pictures, but I can't seem to find any right now, so I'll just give you the banner art for it.

Besides that, July also held a bit of preparation for the new school year. We are cleaning up the Christian Student Center, getting a new sign out front, watering the lawn, pulling weeds, and maybe doing a little redecorating. Meetings are being set up and plans made for the Fall semester. I even met a potential new student. Scott Laird, a preacher from Montana, has a nephew (if I have my story straight), that goes to school here at BHSU. I got to meet the nephew, Isaiah Birkel, and we chatted about school. Turns out Isaiah is on the football team, so I mentioned one of our students, Eli, is on the football team. Isaiah laughed and said, “That's my roommate!” Then we talked about how cool it is that Eli is coming back this Fall and bringing his “little” brother, who is bigger than he is and also joining the football team. I think we hit it off fairly well and there was some interest there.

So there is a decent chance that this Fall, our group may include Eli, Isaiah, and maybe even Eli's “little” brother. If that happens, we will 3 college football players in our Bible study group. Which means we will probably have quadruple our food budget and widen the walls a bit, but how cool would that be? We will have to start going to games and things and cheering, I suppose.

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

-Silas

August 2016

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.

Fun At Camp

Some Of Our Brave Staff

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

June 2016

Hey all,

The school year approacheth! The summer is flying by, as per the usual. Here is a quick summary of the events of the summer around here, starting with June.

First, I wrapped up Wednesday night lesson series on “The Art Of Neighboring” with an in-depth study on communion. Sarah was teaching a ladies class on “The Theology Of Food,” so for the last class we combined them and talked about where food and neighbors meet, which is communion. It went great and was a good end to that series.

Then I launched into a funny kind of a series with our college students for the summer. Summers are always hit-or-miss with attendance, but we have a half dozen or so students still in town, so we kept our weekly studies rolling. I asked what they wanted to talk about the answer was “Hell,” of all things. They also wanted to know how Dante's “Inferno” colors our view of Hell today, which is a random sort of a study, but that's what they wanted to know. So, as quirky as it is, I ran with that ball and we had a “Hit Or Miss Dante's Inferno Vs The Biblical Description Of Hell Summer Series.”

It was just as weird as you are imagining right now, but it did serve as a good springboard into tackling the topics of God's justice, God's mercy, free will, and the whole negative side of eternity, which is a hot topic with young folks today. Our “Everyone Gets A Medal” culture often runs into trouble with Hell, so it was a good study.

The real big news from June was Faith's Vacation Bible School. Every year Faith puts on a Vacation Bible School that draws around 100 people in a town of 500, so it is always a big event. They drive a big hay wagon around town and pick the kids up at the start of the evening, then they have classes, skits, songs, homemade snacks, and then they load them up on the hay wagon again and drive around town dropping everybody back off. It is loads of fun!

The Shiloh Road Church Of Christ youth group came up again this year and helped out. They brought their new youth minister, Kyle Graham, on his first trip to Faith's VBS. I taught the teens again this year with the help of Cody Skogen and Tony Garza. The topic was Joseph's rise “From Prison To Palace” and covered the themes of trust and hope.

We had a pretty good time of it. For one class, I brought out some flash paper. We all wrote things that we've done that we wished we hadn't, sins and failures and that sort of thing, and watched them disappear in an instant in the face of God's grace (and a lighter). You've never seen kids so engaged with a class. One girl jumped up and screamed when her paper flared up, burned bright, and disappeared without a trace, just like our sins. And isn't that a lovely thought for all of us?

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

-Psalm 103:11-12

After the VBS, it was a fairly quiet month. I took some vacation time and headed off for a family reunion for Sarah's side of the family. I started a “GoFundMe” page for our campus ministry and attached that to our new website, which is looking good by the way.

We also hosted a youth group from Topeka, KS for a couple of days. Every three years or so, the youth group from the Central Church Of Christ head up to Canada for a mission trip and stop over in the Black Hills for a couple of days on the way up. We set them up with beds and couches for a day or two while they stretch their legs, sight-see, and get ready for the last half of the trip north. We hosted around 20 people, so it was a bit of a job, but is always nice to reconnect with the body of Christ from elsewhere. One of the quirks of our belief in local church autonomy (that is, we don't believe there should be one big church that tells all the others what to do), is that we tend to get little removed from each other sometimes. We tend to get caught up in the here-and-now, so it is wonderful to be reminded that the body of Christ reaches across the globe. Even as far away as Kansas and Canada!

Anyway, that's all for now. You have a great day!

-Silas

May 2016

Hey everybody! May 2016

Here is a quick review of our campus ministry events in May. It was a quieter month than usual as everyone transitioned out of the school year and into the summer, but there were a couple banner events.

The first big deal of May were the graduations of Miss Chanel Wiggans and Mr. Victor Hernandez. Chanel has been one of our core members for 3 years, the entire time she attended BHSU. She was among the first students I ever officially recruited. She has been a constant source of joy for us and we are happy to announce that she is staying in town for the summer as well. She double-majored with a Bachelors of Arts and a Bachelors of English and wants to pursue a career as an book illustrator.

Victor Hernandez is also one of the first students I ever recruited. Victor is a great guy and we are blessed to have him in our group. Every time we enters the room everyone yells, “Victor!” and he shakes his head like he doesn't know what to do with us. He graduated with an Associates Of Science in Engineering Technology and plans to further his education by heading to South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City this Fall. My prayer for them both comes from Philippians:

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 1:4-6

In other news, we celebrated the end of the school year and the graduation of Chanel and Victor with a party at the campus house. Amy Pruett made dinner for us and spoiled us with homemade cupcakes which were delicious.

After that, students took off to the four winds, but about half of our group stay in town for the summer. We decided to continue with our weekly Bible studies and movie nights, but as the rest of May shook out, we were pretty hit-or-miss with them. That is kind of the way of it with summers and church events though. We are still doing our Bible Studies when we have enough folks in who can make it, but the weekly movie nights are done. Instead, we are combining them with the monthly movie night the church puts on, so maybe that will help build some a stronger connection between the campus ministry and the church.

And speaking of strengthening those bonds, I'm happy to announce that one of our girls, Bailey Hoeft, was hired on at the Northern Hills Church of Christ as our Summer Intern. We haven't had a Summer Intern in ages, but Bailey was asking around about how to get more involved and stretch her faith and an internship came out of it. I'm certain Bailey will do a fantastic job and I can't wait to see how this unfolds.

Another exciting event in May, was the creation of this website.  I have been trying to get this website going for ages and I'm extremely proud of it.  We are going for a clean, simple, minimalistic design, with updated pictures and our logo. We have this blog page, a fully functional donation page, and of course, all the usual maps and “About us” pages and things like that. I have plans to expand the content even further in the future, so stay tuned for that.

-Silas

April 2016

Hey everybody!

Here is the mail-out for April. We ended the school year strong with loads of good activities and several big first-time events. It was an action-packed month!

The first big first of April was our trip to the Tulsa Soul Winning Workshop. The Levy Church of Christ in Little Rock, AR generously offered to send Sarah and I and any interested college students to the workshop. We were so excited! Up to that point, we had never taken students to any kind of conference.

Our students were pretty excited as well, but when it came down to it, we only had one student who was able to come, Rachel Munce. So we rented a white mini van for the trip, but the car rental place upgraded us to this super cool black Suburban loaded with heated seats and all kinds of gizmos. I'm still excited when I get in a car with automatic windows, so this rolling Armada was a treat. It easily accommodated Rachel, Sarah, the boys and I, and all our gear.

Once we got there, we were happy to discover the workshop speakers were fantastic and the singing was incredible. We all had a great time and ended up getting the recordings. My favorite quote from the conference was from a guy named Bob Goff. He talked about how he carries around little award buttons in his pocket and whenever someone does something good, he pauses and gives them a little speech. He says, “You are good, here is why, and here is a medal to prove it” and pins a button to their shirt. Then he talked about the power of speaking good into the lives of the people around you. It made a pretty big impact on me, so I think now I need to go find some buttons.

“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”

- Proverbs 16:24

We also hosted our first official on-campus, student government-supported, event. We put on a “Chalk Art Fundraiser For The Artemis House.” The Artemis House is a local non-profit organization that helps out victims of abuse and domestic violence. They help folks find new homes and restart their lives. We volunteered to help them in any way we could and they said they could use help moving folks from place to place and they could always use basic living supplies. So we helped them move a bed one day and we threw a little fundraiser for them.

The student government gave us sidewalk chalk and a cooler full of popsicles, so we set up shop outside the cafeteria and started drawing. The idea was to make beautiful art, invite others to make beautiful art, and when people ask what is going on, invite them to participate financially.

We ended up with some beautiful art, some great recognition on campus, and very little actually donated money. However, despite the low amount of donations, I think the event was a great success. Like I said earlier, this was our first on-campus, student government-supported event. There is tons of paperwork and forms and phones calls that go into putting these things together and we somehow managed to blunder our way through and get it going. Now we know how to work with the system in the future.

Besides all that, we had a lot of fun, made some great art, and brought a smile to a lot of people, so that's a pretty good deal too, I think. Here are some pictures of the event. The top one is our school mascot, the Yellow Jacket.  Then there is a picture of a glass of milk and some cookies.  Then we have Kris and a Pokemon he drew.  You can't tell in the picture, but that school mascot was huge. It was more than 6 feet long and the guy who drew it was just a random passerby. He grabbed a piece of chalk in each hand and went crazy. Ended up giving us money too. If nothing else, we definitely spread some joy that day.

We also ended the semester with a bit of fun. One of our students, Gabe, lives in town, and his folks own a little cabin up at Iron Creek Lake. That's about half an hour up into the hills and a lovely area. Last year we talked about having an “End Of The Year Party” out there and it never materialized, but this year we made it happen. Half a dozen students showed up and enjoyed the lake (which was still freezing), the waterfall (which was still freezing), and a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers (which they cooked, so no worries there). It was a great way to end out the semester and I think we will keep that one around for next year.

Anyway, that's all for now. You have a great day!

-Silas