August 6, 2008
Deans List!
As you may remember, this summer it was our turn to lug the books around campus, as we spent four weeks in Orlando underneath professors from respected seminaries around the country taking four Bible classes: Biblical Interpretation; Biblical Communication; Theology of God, the Bible and the Holy Spirit; and Old Testament Survey. Five years after graduation, we had forgotten the amount of work that goes into studies – especially masters-level courses that are only two weeks long. (Phew!) The good news is that we both feel like we’ve learned a lot and are even better equipped to teach faithfully from the Word, as well as feed on it ourselves more deeply. We even made the “Deans List” — all As and Bs – although Carrie, the non-Communications-Major in our marriage, is still having nightmares about the public speaking.
Overall, dorm life at Rollins College was refreshing, as we shared class and free time with staff friends and deepened some friendships. While we’ve all had to trade the beautiful Mediterranean architecture and Spanish-mossy trees for home and hectic Augusts, we’re looking forward to seeing our friends again in the winter, once the “conference season” starts.
Cheat sheet…
One of the big perks of working for a prominent international ministry is the abundance of good resources that get put in our hands. We thought we would share the wealth and pass on some of our favorites to you:
- The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones – Oh my. This book is written for kids but can I say this was one of our favorite required texts? I’ve never seen the Bible so clearly woven together in simple, childlike gospel language with great illustrations.
- God’s Big Picture by Vaughn Roberts –A short must-read (for grown-ups) that sheds light on the underlying storyline of the Bible.
- http://iTunes.rts.edu - free seminary course lectures on iTunes from one of our partnership seminaries
- ThirdMill.org – “Biblical education for the world for free.” Electronic books, video courses and goodies in multiple languages.
- DesiringGod.org – Pastor John Piper’s archived audio sermons, books, poems and countless great resources. For youth leaders, parents and teens, may we suggest the sermon entitled Let No One Despise You for Your Youth?
Coming in for a landing…
We are both glad to finally “land” back in Arlington as of yesterday. Connection in a community where you are ministering is vital to long-term success in ministry; since we’ve decided to stay in this area, it’s been refreshing to find friendships outside of just our staff team.
As we get back, there are constantly possibilities for what God could be calling us to in the future. We’re still unsure where God will have us next July, let alone 5 years from now, though we suspect that God may have us in DC for a while. Please continue to lift us up in prayer as we seek to follow God’s lead where ever that might be.
Please Pray For:
- Our team of 10 will now be a team of 9 because one of the interns support never came in. Pray that we would know how to lead well and that we would all be working out of an overflow of our relationship with Christ.
- Please continue to pray for our support needs. We have had quite a bit of new support come in over the summer, but we still are a little short. We are not in financial danger, but the needs are still there.
- Pray that this school year would start strong – there are a lot of incoming freshmen that are looking for Truth, pray that we would be able to powerfully proclaim the Gospel to them in a way that they will connect with.
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May 29, 2008
Updates! - May 28, 2008
As this year has wrapped up, we wanted to take some time and look back at past letters so we can update you on things that we’ve asked you to pray for in the past and celebrate!
Our Team
Our staff team is in place for next year – it looks like we’ll have 9! Returning will be the two of us, Jake, Jacqueline, and Rebecca; joining us will be Tom (from Penn State), Katie (one of Carrie’s girls in Ocean City, MD), Stephanie (a Western PA-er), Josh (from Radford) and Ben (another first-year intern). We also have a volunteer – Alex who recently moved here after finishing at Michigan Tech. (Serendipitously, we cross paths again after meeting by chance in New Orleans last year!) Pray that we would find close, affordable housing for all of our teammates, and that they would keep focused during fundraising.
Former Students
We often share stories of students in our letters. There are lots of updates, but here are a few highlights:
- Brett – one of my guys from summer project last year. He has now graduated and is headed to seminary very soon to pursue his dream of being a pastor.
- Randy – featured in one of our prayer letters 2 summers ago and was part of the group of Slippery Rock guys meeting at our house last school year. Randy has now finished with college and will be volunteering full time with the Western PA team this coming school year as he prepares to come on staff.
- Nikki – a student leader from Edinboro who came to Ocean City last summer; she’s headed to Australia on summer project this year to take part in the campus ministry in Melbourne.
- Heather – one of Carrie’s summer project girls from 2006; she’s finished school in WV and will be living out her faith in her field of study at an internship at the Smithsonian here in DC.
Ocean City, MD guys
If you remember my lament from last year about this time, there is often a major shortage of men coming on summer projects. This year in Ocean City, MD that is not the case! While Carrie and I won’t be there this summer, we’re very excited to announce that the guys will be crammed into the project housing this year. The 15 guys that arrived yesterday are the largest number of student men that the project has seen, some coming the whole way from the west coast! Pray for a pivotal summer, for these men as well as the rest of the students and our staff friends who are there now.
Georgetown
For those of you who get our online updates in between prayer letters, you know that we had asked for prayer in becoming an official “associated ministry” at Georgetown University. After nine months of praying for favor, building relationships, and starting one off-campus study, we finally had an interview with the Ministry Council. Your prayers have been answered! Carrie received an email today inviting her to serve as an official member of the council starting in August. This will allow us to move toward an active on-campus movement this influential DC school! Pray that we’d have wisdom to match this responsibility.
Beulah Land Baptist
One of the most exciting updates is the fact that Beulah Land Baptist church has laid the foundation to rebuild their church! If you don’t remember, Beulah Land was the church in the 9th Ward of New Orleans that our team of 50+ Western PA students and staff helped to gut over Spring Break of 2006; we were sad last year to visit and see that they still had to tear the church down, but they are rebuilding now! They are looking to be the very first church in the Lower 9th Ward to reopen. One of our Western PA teammates was able to be in NOLA for the ground breaking ceremony as our representative. Pray that Beulah Land would represent Christ well to a (still) broken community.
Your Partnership!
Carrie and I have been honored to be part of God’s hands and feet in a number of places in the past 5 years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ (and we hope to continue for years to come). But we consider every one of these “success stories” to be yours, too, as our partners in the Gospel. Through your various types of support, we have been upheld and empowered, and for that we thank you greatly!
On that note, we would love to see you in person as we make our summer rounds. For those in PA, here’s a few chances to see us and say hi. We’ll just be hanging out visiting with whoever stops in!
- Erie, PA – Friday, June 13, Panera Bread on Upper Peach St., 5-8pm
- Grove City, PA – Monday, June 16, Prime Outlets Food Court (South End), 6-9pm
- Central PA – we’ll be over your way later in the summer. We’ll keep you posted!
Grace & Peace,
Jayson & Carrie
Please Pray For:
- Our travels this summer as we head to Erie, Orlando, Central PA, and back. Pray that we will be safe and well-rested with no car troubles, and energized by the four Bible classes we’ll be taking.
- Our time securing the necessary support to be in a healthy financial spot in Washington DC’s high cost of living.
- Our health. Both of us are getting over about a week of sickness (bronchitis, allergies, cold, flu, etc.). Pray that this would be the end of our health problems for the summer.
- Students’ summer growth. Pray that as they are away from their spiritual communities that they will still find people and places at home to direct them toward a closer walk with Christ.
Carrie and I at our Annual Fellowship Dinner
The PDF of this prayer letter is available here.
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April 30, 2008
The meeting went very well. Carrie was able to talk about specific plans that we hope to work with next year and I was able to talk about the ways that Campus Crusade for Christ has grown and matured corporately since they were asked to leave over a decade ago.
We will not know if we’ve been accepted as an “associated ministry” until May 28th at the earliest, but a good sign was that as we were wrapping up the meeting 3 of the board members said, “I really liked what you had to say,” (or something similar) to us.
Please continue to pray for our chance to minister to the students of Georgetown University and pray that we will learn where best we fit in with the other ministries that are established there.
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April 29, 2008
Please pray for Carrie’s meeting today at 5:00 with the campus ministry board at Georgetown University. They will determine today whether or not we will be recognized as an “associated ministry” which will allow us freedom next year to seek to start a movement on the prestigious university’s campus.
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April 21, 2008
I just have felt the need to share what God has saw fit to provide for the ministries that our team and the team at the University of Maryland are responsible for. This past Saturday we held our first annual fund-raising dinner for the teams’ budgets.
We had significant help from business leaders in the greater DC area which brought out nearly 100 people to hear about what God has been doing through Campus Crusade for Christ in this area. We asked people to prayerfully consider contributing to what the 12 of us (between the two teams) are attempting to do next year.
When all of the checks and pledges were tallied we came up with what looks like a budget that is about 700% more than what our budget was for the school year that is drawing to a close. This, quite honestly, will allow our teams to do just about anything that we set our hearts towards to reach students for Christ!
This doesn’t play into our personal support raising that we’re in the process in due to the higher cost of living in the DC area as opposed to Western PA. Please pray for us in that realm.
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