Jayson & Carrie Whelpley

Hey friends, family & partners in the Gospel.

I wanted to clear up what’s going down next week as we head out for Spring Break.

We’re headed to North Africa to a country that we can’t share the name of for security reasons. To assure you, we are going to be safe and we’re actually not going to be doing anything illegal in that country. The country that we’ll be spending time in does have religious freedom legally, but the way that the culture operates can be very different. Of the countries in that region of the world it is definitely one of the most safe for Americans, the security issues that limit us are for the brothers and sisters who are naitives of the country who could be in danger if we weren’t closed about it.

We’ll fly out of the Washington-Dulles Airport on Friday at around 8:00 PM and will return almost exactly a week later (it’s less than a half-hour off). I am dissappointed that we’ll miss seeing what Friday is like in a Muslim country, but it will be an awesome experience for us and the 5 other people that we’ll be travelling with.

Please be praying for us that God would speak in and through this trip to us about where He is calling us to serve Him. We don’t expect that God is calling us overseas, but we’re willing to follow if He does. Also, pray that we’ll encourage our friends on the staff team that is over there long-term and that we’d represent Christ well in whatever way we’re able.

Also, you can be praying for our families as there is still some anxiety about us being there; especially for my (Jayson’s) parents as my brother, Ryan, will be in Iraq at the same time to run sound for a USO show for soldiers in the field there.

Thanks, we’ll share whatever pictures and stories that we can when we get back!

Here is the newest Prayer Letter, from this month, March… the PDF is also available here.

I usually enjoy the challenge of painting a word picture of the ins and outs of how God is moving, but this month, I will pass on a letter from a student I work with at Prince Georges Community College. Maybe this email, written to my (quite Caucasian) coworker Bob, will capture the beautiful absurdity of a work of the Holy Spirit…

Dear Bob,
You and the DC Metro team have been on my mind heavy this weekend. I really wanted to come to the bible study Friday, but you would have seen a different me, and I wasn’t ready to expose that.

My mother recently separated and the hope was at the end of the school year we would get full custody of my sisters, but financially this isn’t a possibility and the news was pretty hard to stomach. Furthermore my father announced his divorce Friday morning and now my brothers are moving to Baltimore, so Friday could have been better.

Back to you. I am so proud of you. I thanked God so much. I don’t know if you have realized that you hold bible study with gang members, brothers who have served time, and current drug dealers. Additionally, they are black men. I know it must be hard trying to find a way to relate and at the same time find comfort in these men. Being a black male, to this day, a lot of odds are stacked up against them.

For you to have a decent life and for them striving, it could be complicated. But rest assured, you are on the right track. It is okay that you haven’t experienced some of the same things as these men, you wouldn’t want to. But it gives God more power. I am sure that as excited as you may be, nervous is in there too. This causes you to run to God more. Furthermore because of your vastly different background, it forces you not to lean on your understanding because it may be so limited…

I am here for you. I will not hold your hand, only because I have so much faith in you. But if you need to debrief, or have questions I am here. Sitting next to Antoine may help you. He is a drug dealer, but he is loyal. If he patrons your studies you are good in his book. In the event something should ever arise to make you feel uncomfortable, he is your best bet. And he is a little older, turning 26 soon.

Hope this helps,
Alisha

Alisha is one of the corresponding group of women that I (Carrie) have had the privilege of spending my last five Wednesdays with, and one of the strongest women I know. As president of a student club known to gather a rough crowd, she has recently come into her own in recognizing her social position as a God-given calling rather than something to be ashamed of. While the PGCC woman may not have the same struggles as their male counterparts, more than one has dealt with rape and abuse, miscarriage, prostitution, and absentee and incarcerated fathers. Several are pastors’ kids; several are lesbians. The overlapping combinations of these factors make for very complex stories. But every week when we shut the door, I sense that the Lord is doing something profound at this community college in Largo, Maryland. What can we do but plead with the Lord and try to stay out of His way? Would you please join us?

Love, Grace & Peace, Carrie (& Jayson)

Please pray for…

Pray for the 56 students from Radford & the University of Georgia that we have coming next week to do ministry in the city. Pray that they would see God work, that they would hear God’s call and that they would gain a heart for reaching other students in the DC area.

Pray for the students, both the men and women, at PGCC that Christ would grab ahold of them and pull them out of lives of defeat and darkness.

Pray that we would learn how to bring the Gospel into every campus in DC, every campus is different and they cannot all be approached the same way with this message that does not itself change, but transforms lives!

Pray that as Seniors visit our recruiting website they would hear God call them to the Washington, DC area as well – and that they would obey. (You can check it out too at http://JoinUs.DCCru.com)

[This post was originally written on February 23rd, but we were asked to not announce the DC thing until it was official so we saved it until now.]

The past two weeks have been doosies! I’m going to go in reverse chronological order though.

This past Thursday my uncle Ken passed away from a heart-attack. He was my mom’s brother and my dad’s best friend (my parents are divorced), so it hit the whole family pretty hard. We spent the weekend at the funeral home through 3 packed viewings. I would estimate that nearly 500 people came through to pay their respects. Please be praying for my aunt and cousins as well as my grandfather who has lost his wife and then his youngest child in the course of 7 months.

Ken had seen victory in a fight against non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that struck nearly a decade ago. He’s battled through the pain of chemo therapy, bone marrow transplant, and the side effects of the anti-rejection drugs. He died of a heart attack in his bed after a night of doing what he loved to do best – snowmobiling.

Two weeks ago, I took a couple of Edinboro students down to the Life Options Conference just outside of Washington D.C. They were there to work through the “What’s next?” questions of being a Junior or Senior in college. They heard speakers from different ministries as well as from the business world encouraging them to think through their future and see it as a ministry from God no matter if they go into vocational ministry like Carrie and I or into the marketplace. Some of the 200 or so students came away confirmed in their calling to pursue a job in their line of study, while some have begun to feel called into full-time vocational ministry – even if just for a year or two.

While there I roomed with a good friend of mine, Jake Tarr (Carrie was visiting her family that weekend). He was recently asked to lead a team of staff and interns to reach the campuses in the D.C. area that have been consistently hard to reach. Take a look at this video:

While I was at the conference Dave Moles, the Regional Catalytic Director, asked if he could sit down with me to talk. I had been wanting to talk to him to clear up some things with us pursuing purchasing a house in the Edinboro/Erie area in the next few months; Dave had something else in mind.

He asked Carrie and I to consider joining the D.C. STINT (Short Term Internship) team for the next year. He told me about everything that we would be doing and how this is something that is a priority of not just our region, but also Campus Crusade on the National level – important enough that CCC National is planning on paying for the team’s housing for a year.

After praying these past two weeks about it, talking to our teammates and others – we have decided to join the D.C. STINT team next year!

Please pray for us as the details get worked out and we prepare our first major move. This will be our first time living in a major city and the students we will be working with will be a very different breed.