Wow, the beginning of the semester is upon us already! It's always an extremely exciting time for us in collegiate ministry! Despite COVID, Christ is ready to do amazing things on the campus of Fort Lewis College!
Things are exciting on our end! We just celebrated our 10-year anniversary! We really didn't plan our wedding date very well. The end of August is a poor time to celebrate your anniversary when you're in college ministry. We ended up breaking our celebration up into two parts. We hiked up our favorite mountain and watched the sunset.
A week later, I rushed off campus from our slacklining event to meet Rachel at one of our favorite restaurants.
All together, we had a great time celebrating our 10-year anniversary!
We also had another visit from one of our former students! We always love it when former students come and visit us! It's a blessing and an encouragement to be able to catch up and reconnect with them. It's great to see where God has taken them and where He is leading them.
This time, our former student, Lucas, stopped by with his new wife, Marli. Lucas is now doing seminary in Texas. His wife works in the environmental science field. We've invited them to come on staff with us after he graduates. They'd be a great addition but we'll see where the Lord leads them a year or two from now.
So I'm guessing you're probably wondering what's going on with the coming semester? What's going on with COVID?
Well, at the moment, there is some good news. Campus is trying to get back to normal as much as possible. As what I suspected might happen, campus has the biggest freshmen class ever this year. We have the normal freshmen coming in plus those who took last year off due to COVID. They're literally putting students up in local hotels for the year because they don't have enough beds on campus.
Students and staff are still required to wear masks when inside. Outside, they are free to unmask if they want to. Students and staff are also required to be vaccinated unless they have a religious exemption.
The biggest development, though, is that we have been welcomed back on campus! We can do outreach and evangelism! We can go back to meeting with students on campus out in the open. We can have family dinners with the students at staff houses once again. We can do the worship night on campus. We even were able to reserve a room I've had my eye on since we started the worship night. Campus has always said no to us using the room but this year they said yes. It's a great location on the main floor of the Student Union. It's all pretty exciting!
With all that news, there will be some changes. Josh and Jen will be transitioning out. They will be moving to Oklahoma in January. Jen is taking a position with the Christian Challenge at OU. Josh will be taking a sabbatical to try to get his health in a better spot. He's had a really hard year medically, even for him, and doctors are recommending he drop elevation. He was actually just in the ER the other night due to another possible stroke.
So where does that leave our staff? Josh and Jen will be more part-time as they get things ready for their move. I say part-time but part-time easily turns into full-time in ministry even if that's not the plan. We'll have to see what Josh can actually do after this last possible stroke. Rachel will be helping out where she can when not working on our adoption. Aleksandr, now being a pastor, will be part-time this semester. He and his wife, Anna, will also be full-time parents in the next day or two depending on when you read this. So they'll have their plates full. That leaves me as the only full-time guy on staff.
We basically have as small of a staff as we've ever had. And the school apparently has more students than it has ever had. I think God's going to keep us pretty busy this year. Thankfully, we've got some students that are stepping up. These are the two guys who had been really involved in our student-leadership during their time at FLC but stepped back last semester due to hardships and tragedies in their personal lives. Well, they're back with a renewed excitement for the ministry and sharing Jesus with their fellow students!
So with a smaller staff, we're having to change some things up. We'll still be focused on discipleship. We'll be back to doing family dinners once a week on Thursday nights. The worship night will still happen but we're having to cut that back to once a month, the first Tuesday night of every month. Unfortunately, we just don't have the staff to pull that off well every week. We can always re-evaluate if God provides us with some more people to help out. That said, we'll have student-led Bible studies on Tuesday nights when not doing the worship night.
In other news, our international students are back. There are eight Japanese and one from Thailand. With us adopting from Thailand, we are pretty excited to have a student from there. We're praying we connect well with her.
It's going to be a tough year connecting with the international students. In years past, the students we had worked with would go back to Japan and tell their friends who were coming to FLC to connect with us. Due to the COVID gap, we've got no connection with the incoming Japanese students. To them, we're just some random friendly people to go along with all the other friendly people they are meeting. We're praying that God would open a door for us to connect with them.
By the time you read this, we'll probably be in our second week of classes. It's been a good semester so far. We were able to table not just one day but two days during the first couple of days freshmen were on campus. We got to meet a lot of students thru that. We met even more slacklining one of the nights after tabling.
And even more students at our annual block party in the middle of the freshmen dorms.
Many of them have showed up at other events we have done like family dinner, the worship night, and our night hike which included milkshakes at Denny's afterwards.
They also showed up for our coffee crawl where we take freshmen from coffee shop to coffee shop in town allowing them to sample the coffee at each shop and find their favorite.
We've got more events planned this September. Here are some of the big things:
Waterfall Jumping or tubing the river- Sept. 11th
Day Hike- Sept. 18th
Western Slope Retreat- Sept. 24th-26th
So that's the plan thru September but campus could always throw us a curveball if students start testing positive for COVID. It wouldn't surprise me to see campus clamp down again on student activities as we head into late fall and winter. We hope that doesn't happen but if it does, Lord willing, we'll already have a lot of contacts and students we can disciple online.
We just pray it's a fruitful year. In the past, we've had fruitful years with low numbers and fruitful years with high numbers. One of our most fruitful years was when we only had two students returning. Those two students were Aleksandr and Rachel Horton who eventually joined staff with us. So whatever happens, God is faithful! We're excited to see what He is going to do!
Over the years, God has really challenged me to be in prayer more for our ministry and to challenge our supporters to be in prayer more for the ministry. We've seen huge fruit when we've focused on that. This year, that challenge hasn't changed. And we probably need prayer more than ever with COVID and our staff changes.
If you're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media, and up for an extra challenge, post the time, date and hashtag it #Praying4FLC and #Challenge4Challenge every time you pray for the ministry. This will remind our staff and students that we've got people praying for us when we get on social media. And hey, maybe it gets others who see it to pray for FLC as well. If you're not into the social media thing, no worries but still be praying.
Thank you for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep us, the ministry, and the FLC campus in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
If the Lord is leading you to give, follow this link to our giving options:
http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
- The school has a very small amount of Christian professors on campus. I can only think of two or three left. Pray that campus would hire believing professors who would be bold about sharing their faith with their students.
- As the semester gets busier, it's easy to neglect things big and small. We get so focused on ministry that we lose track of the things that help keep us going. We lose track of taking care of ourselves. Pray we have energy and get good sleep throughout the busy semester.
- Though our adoption is moving forward, it's moving slowly, especially with COVID. We are 5th on the waitlist to be matched. That means we could be matched with our child within a month. If we don't get matched this month, it could be quite a long wait for our next chance. Even after getting matched, we will then proceed to the end of a line that puts around sixty families in front of us for the next step in the process. Pray that God would protect us from getting discouraged during this waiting process, and that He would connect us with the right kid in His timing.
- With as many things as the ministry does, it's easy to take on way too much and get burnt out. This is especially true in the first month. By the end of September, we just sort of expect it. Pray that we would be good stewards with our time so that we don't fall into burnout.
- Throughout the year, the semester can wear on you, and it can be easy to find yourself discouraged at times. It happens in just about any ministry at one point or another. Pray that God would keep us and our staff encouraged throughout the year.
- Being Christians, we are in a spiritual battle. When you do ministry, you become a bigger target in that battle. Keep praying for us and our team that God would protect us this year from any spiritual attacks. Pray that God would give us the strength and encouragement to endure. Also pray for everyone praying for our ministry because when you pray for the ministry, you become a bigger target as well.
- Atheism is a big belief system at FLC. On any given year, about half of the students we work with are atheists or non-believers. Pray that God would open doors for the Gospel to be received and understood. Pray that the Holy Spirit would be working on the hearts and minds of the students we meet.
- Over the years, our staff has had a lot of health issues that can really be a discouragement. Our most successful years have been when we have good health. Pray that God would keep our staff safe and healthy.
- Pray that our team would adjust well to our staff transitions. We are looking to possibly bring new staff on if the right people emerge. Pray that God would give us wisdom on finding replacements to fill empty roles.
- Pray that ministries on campus would be team players and work with each other to reach the campus for Christ. When ministries bulldoze other ministries on a small campus, it causes rifting and division which can hinder a campus from being reached effectively. Pray that the different ministries on campus would guard against that.
- We have an update on our former student, Rikako, who is hoping to join our staff. We have looked at all options and the most hopeful would seem to be the green card route. She will be applying this fall and hopes to hear back not too long after. It's a lottery system so it's no guarantee but certainly something God can make happen in His timing. Pray that God would give her favor in getting her green card so that she can get back to Durango to join our team.
- Rachel will be leading a retreat for college ladies in Texas in November. Running the whole thing is a little out of her comfort zone. Pray that the Lord would help her plan and speak thru her while she is leading the retreat in Texas.
- With our mission trip to Peru being postponed again and again due to COVID, it may now actually happen. The plan is to head down there just after Thanksgiving. We've got it scheduled but we'll find out at the end of September if it's actually going to happen. That's when Climbing for Christ will make the final call. Pray that Peru would open up more and more so that we can get down there and do ministry. If Peru falls thru, we are looking into possibly putting together a mission trip to Eastern Europe, where Rachel grew up, over the Christmas break. Parts of Eastern Europe have been a lot more open throughout everything so there may be less possibility of future closures. If Peru shuts back down, pray that we would have wisdom in planning an Eastern European mission trip.
- COVID unknowns have made support raising a little tricky. Lord willing, we are hoping to share at some churches in the near future. If you know of a church or small group that might be interested in having us share, please let us know. We trust God to provide but would appreciate you praying as well that funding needs would be met. If you would like to give to support the ministry happening at Fort Lewis or our adoption, please click the following: Give Now.
