Jayson & Carrie Whelpley

Pray for us ASAP. We’re on our way to Erie right now to try to open a ministry on one of the closed Catholic schools there. A girl emailed us today and we’re going to go and follow up on it at 3 this afternoon.

Yesterday was our first day back to campus for the semester. We headed to Edinboro for “Cru” the weekly meeting. I was able to meet with Greg (the student leader) and see how he was doing and get the ball rolling for the semesters goals.

Carrie met and followed up with some girls who came to the focus group that she did last semester and was able to take one of the more involved students out to talk with random people in the UC.

“Cru” was a good time for students to reconnect after a month away. We’re excited that 13 of them are planning on going to the Katrina Relief Spring break in a couple months!

Today I received a call from Libbie, one of our recently-graduated Edinboro student leaders with some bad news. (For those that keep up with our newsletter, you may remember her from November’s update.) We’ve known Libbie since her freshman year, and it’s been fun to watch her grow into a strong woman of the Lord and prayer warrior as she’s dealt with numerous deaths and health issues in her family, most recently with her 26-year-old sister Jessie who’s been on dialysis and had some long, scary hospitalizations. Last night, after several weeks of marked improvement, Jessie passed away relatively unexpectedly. Please pray for Libbie as she makes the arrangements while continuing to hunt for a job, and for her family as they grieve.

As hard as it is to know what to say, I’m sure Libbie would be grateful for encouragement from whomever God would lead to send it. Her mailing address is:

Libbie Cicconi
108 Emerson Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15125

Right now (and I do mean right now, Carrie is on the phone this second) Carrie and I are in the midst of making up some gaps in our financial support for our work. Please pray that God would finish it in the next two weeks before the beginning of the semester. We will return to campus, but it’s been stressful this past semester due our financial support not being completed yet.

We do trust that God will finish it according to His faithfulness and riches, we’re just petitioning Him to do it soon. We’ll update about Christmas conference and the beginning of next semester soon.